Greece bailout: no one got what they wanted, but the show must go on

Despite growing criticism over the EU's bitter medicine of austerity, the trade bloc has passed its first big existential test

The EU dream is a tattered one these days. "Europe has failed!" announce pundits from left and right alike. The image of a frail, white-haired Greek pensioner lying in front of a cash machine, which apparently had failed to disgorge his miserable ECB-specified stipend of a60, has gone around the world symbolising for many the moral emptiness at the European project's core. The economics which were meant to heal a war-stricken continent have instead set countries at each other's throats.

Economics is where politics and reality collide. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the case of the Greek crisis. Politically, the Greek government had a mandate reinforced by its referendum to put an end to austerity. Likewise, from the other side, the EU governments did agree on one thing the eurozone would not allow any bailouts. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. And yet here we are with the Greeks tucking into their third load of bailout money and signing up at the same time to another dose of increasingly powerful "austerity medicine".

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