Whether the EU saves itself from present crisis or not, there are many things to be absorbed by the new unions in the making much before taking the plunge. Primarily the alert system, deliberated by the EU to give powers to the parent body to ‘semi-audit’ tasks to monitor budget discipline not only of national governments but also of regional and local bodies, would ensure better transparency. This could prevent governments from hiding grey areas of decentralised budget appropriations, which was partly the case with Greece that stands accused of having lied about its accounts for years.

Besides, periodical evaluation of state affairs including politics based on ground realities and pre-set stitch in time solutions should be in place to ward off the dangers of any of the member-state getting weakened beyond manageable proportions. Projections and goals have to be marked by success failing which should attract stringent punitive measures; something that Brussels is planning to impose on members whose public debt is running out of control.

Furthermore, the member-states should make constant efforts to bring down their debts, which have been proven possible by countries like Belgium and the UK in the past. Before the global meltdown, Belgium managed to reduce its debt to 84.2 percent of GDP in 2007, down from a peak of more than 130 percent in the early 1990s. Likewise, the UK had a debt peak of 300 percent of its GDP after the Second World War, which had been gradually reduced to 33 percent by 1990.

There is also much to be imbibed from the off-target response such as ‘Europe 2020′, which is looked at sceptically by the Eastern EU members and criticized by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for contrasting reasons. The objectives of ‘Europe 2020′ include fight against poverty, increase in education and employment rate.

The proposal unveiled by the European Commission in March highlighted on poverty alleviation calling for reduction in the number of Europeans living below the poverty line by 25 percent, lifting 20mn out of poverty from the current 80mn. However, such policies with progressive milestones should be included right from the beginning and should be modified time to time with ‘proper’ budgetary allocation.

The EU’s new strategy for sustainable growth and jobs, ‘Europe 2020′, comes in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades. The new strategy replaces the Lisbon Agenda, adopted in 2000, which largely failed to turn the EU into “the world’s most dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010.” Nonetheless, the new proposal puts innovation and green growth at the heart of its blueprint for competitiveness and proposes tighter monitoring of national reform programmes, one of the greatest weaknesses of the Lisbon Strategy.

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Germany’s non-committal on bailing out Greece after initially declaring support also signals that the EU would not hesitate to jettison its family member as there are already differences in using tax-payers money. On account of several polls and going by the words of Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the Eurogroup of ministers that oversee the Eurozone, Germany, Belgium or Luxembourg are not prepared to correct Greek fiscal policy mistakes.

The economic woes of Greece began after it hit upon a budget deficit of 12.7 percent of its GDP in 2009, four times more than the allowed EU limit. Though the government claims that it would slash 4 percent by the end of this year to eventually reach the EU limit of 3 percent by 2012, with current measures it seems insurmountable.

This year Greece needs about €54bn, and until now, it has raised around €13bn. The country has about €23bn in debt payments to be made in April and May. As counter measures, Greece has announced austerity initiatives and sale of another €3bn to €5bn debt.

However, in January, Greece sold five-year bonds amounting to €8bn, and within days the value of the bonds fell dimming hopes of future such offerings. Unless the government rolls out some tangible financial support mechanism, even this door will be perpetually shut.

Greece to avoid being outlawed and to tide over the crisis, it is learned that it has to shrug off its false pride and formally seek assistance from the EU or even the IMF without engaging in blame game. The Papandreou administration has accused the past regime’s mismanagement of finances and failed policies as major factors for the snowballing of the current crisis.

Starting from the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens to the previous government’s decision to dismantle its anti-fraud department were pointed out to be some of the areas send the country crashing with debt. Furthermore, the country’s defence outlay beyond threat perception and unnecessary expenditure on expensive eaves-dropping street cameras were also blamed.

Incidentally, though the Greek economy is not large enough to cause any damage to the EU economy, but it is feared any SOS response from the Union may set precedence to other countries including Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy which are in similar situations. It has been understood through recent turn of events, unless an effective, efficient and transparent roadmap to rescue Greece is not made available soon under the tutelage of the EU, not just the collapse of a nation but also the unity of the region and its currency would be at stake.

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