As financial experts predicted that Greece’s danger of default now lies at a ratio of 50:50, credit rating agencies have again slashed the nation’s credibility, leaving it only five notches above default.

As this happened, Europe has again agreed in principle to refinance the €110bn deal to allow Greece to borrow money again this year and next. Greece has already shown that the general public is not ready to accept austerity measures being implemented, despite the best efforts of the Socialist government headed by George Papandreou. The terms of the deal have not been made public, but it is likely that it runs into another hundred billion or so. Greece, in the meantime, has agreed to implement austerity measures worth some €6.4bn and is set to forge ahead with a €50bn privatisation scheme.

Moreover, the new deal means that Greece will be paying less interest on the money it borrowed, money forked out by all eurozone members, the same money that every citizen has paid out in taxes.

First Europe told us that it could afford to bail out Greece (with loans at commercial rates which have since gone out of the window), then it told us that it could also afford to help Ireland. Europe said it could save Portugal at a stretch, but could never afford it if Spain went under.

So we ask, how come Europe can afford to bail out Greece again, when it is very clear that little is being done in terms of implementation of austerity measures and that the more time goes by, the more Greece slips into debt?

It is clear that this country is never going to be able to lift itself out of the quagmire – at least not within the next 30 years or so. Greece needs to be saved from itself and the eurozone needs to be saved from Greece.

Millions and billions of euros have been made available to our Mediterranean cousins, yet it is all money going up in smoke. Greece is not registering success in its austerity measures and is most certainly not returning towards growth – quite the opposite in fact, inflation is rising and the economy is contracting.

Many believe that Greeks should be put out of their misery and that the eurozone should take the bold step of ‘kicking them out’. That would allow Greece to reintroduce the Drachma and devalue it, so as to allow some form of manageability of public funds. In taking this step, much needed money could be diverted elsewhere, perhaps to countries such as Malta, which are doing their utmost to weather the storm without contraction. In other words, use it as a reward, rather than waste it.

Outgoing Central Bank President Jean Claude Trichet has now mooted the idea of an EU Finance Ministry. In principle, this is a good idea, but as always, its implementation will be ineffective because fiscal union can never be achieved and maintained without political union.

It is time to take drastic action. Just how many more loans and bailouts is the European taxpayer going to fund? The IMF and the ECB have already threatened to veto Greece’s last ‘slive’ of its old loan and is expected to resist the idea of refinancing the deal. Good job, we’re all sick of paying for the deceit of the previous government and its civil servants.