Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has survived a vote of no confidence in a new parliamentary vote which is crucial if the country is to receive another bailout.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi will be heading up to Brussels for an EU Council meeting, which will convene tomorrow. While there are many pressing issues which should be on the agenda, all will likely be elbowed out of the way as the Greece issue comes to the fore.

The situation in Greece is, to put it very mildly, precarious. The country is wracked by crippling daily protests against current austerity measures, which to put it quite frankly, have not yielded the desired results.

While the measures have not been effective, the stoppages caused by the Greek workforce’s almost daily strike action have caused the Greek economy to regress, rather than move forward and return to sustainability.

Meanwhile, Malta has heard some positive news, it is least exposed, out of all EU members, to Greek debt. But there are now huge risks. Greece’s credit rating is hovering just above junk level, just one tiny notch before all the bonds it has sold become as worthless as monopoly money. The European Central Bank has bought up most of those bonds, while peculiarly, China out of all places, has continued to buy up tranche after tranche of European debt.

Greece was supposed to begin borrowing off the commercial markets by 2012. This has not happened, and it now needs recourse to a second bailout before we have even entered that same year. When the bailout was first put on the table, it was sold to European leaders as a “commercial loan”, by the brokers, which were France and Germany.

Now analysts have said that Greece will not be able to cut its deficit and public debt levels before 20 to 30 years from now. Quite how this second bailout can be ‘sold’ to other European leaders as a “commercial loan” is beyond belief.

Of course, while it is still part of the eurozone, Europe cannot afford to let Greece go into default. In doing so, it would effectively mean that the euro as a currency, is dead in the water. There are two options which are being mooted; boot Greece out of the eurozone, or tighten control by setting up an EU centralized Finance Ministry to impose taxes and to monitor the movements of payments and austerity measures.

This, however, is a double-edged sword. Such a move would cause ire among nations such as Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Italy, who may perceive the move to be some form of modern colonialism and tribute.

But perhaps more importantly, countries with a good fiscal base, such as Germany, the Netherlands, Malta and the Nordics within the Eurozone would baulk at such a proposal, because put simply, why should they have to submit to Brussels’ ‘rule’, when they have kept their house in order.

At the end of the day, the European Union was supposed to be founded on principles of trade, solidarity and free movement. But we ask another question. What about the rights of the citizen and the principles of honesty and hard work?

No matter how you look at it, it is Joe Bloggs, who is going to suffer the most. The money which is needed now (and the monies which are needed in the future), are all going to come out of the taxpayer’s pocket. That means each and every one of us.