The Prime Minister is reported (June 27) as having stated that “it was in Malta’s interest to lend money to Greece because if the Greek economy collapsed it could have a domino effect similar to that of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008”. According to a separate report in the same issue, the Opposition Leader said on One Radio that “the opposition supported the government’s decision at the EU Council last week to help Greece, another eurozone country. Malta had to assist Greece because the island would be affected badly if the Greek economy defaulted”.

So we have a rare sense of unity on policy between Malta’s major political leaders! Only time will tell if this political consensus proves to be in Malta’s interests. The fact that, for the second time in just a few years, Malta was constrained to join other EU countries in making substantial loans to Greece to avoid that country defaulting on its debts does lead one to wonder if, eventually, the Maltese taxpayers will be made to foot the bill because Greece may well, in any case, default on all its borrowings. This possibility cannot be excluded, especially if the Greeks continue down the same road as they have been living for endless years, more so if they persist in opposing, through strikes and other forms of civil disobedience, the austerity measures imposed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the EU.

Various international financial commentators have expressed the view that Greece should never have been allowed to join the EU – even less the euro – because they cooked the books when claiming to have reached convergence of their economy with the criteria set by the EU at the time.

But even leaving this argument aside – after all, the EU bureaucrats have themselves to blame for allowing Brussels to be so badly misled by the Greeks – the question is can one have any hope of the Greeks changing their ways? Any honest Greek will tell you that there is rampant tax evasion in the country, corruption and other ills that are near impossible to be eradicated even in the long term.

By way of example, I have gleaned from the UK English press some facts revealed by various financial correspondents. Here, for reasons of space, are just a few:

• One Greek reformer tells the story of a head of a government department in Athens who discovered that all but one of his staff was taking bribes. So low were his expectations that he did not ask himself how to clean up the corruption. All he wanted to know was why his staff had let one lone wolf get away with being honest!

• The children of thousands of dead Greeks have been found to have continued to draw the pensions of their deceased parents for decades after their death. Only now is the Greek government considering introducing a system whereby a pensioner has personally to call at a bank annually to prove s/he is still alive.

• Chemists earn €35 from the government on every €100 worth of drugs they provide to customers. The equivalent figure in Germany is €3.80.

• A total of 800 former politicians received €80 million in “transition grants”.

• MPs are paid 16 monthly salaries a year.

• Bonuses are paid to civil servants for washing their hands.

• University professors abuse EU research funds to buy cars and houses.

• State employees are given luxury holidays.

• A staggering €8 billion (not million!) were paid over a period of 12 years into a pension fund for 25,000 power workers!

• There are ministries where only half the employees turn up for work.

• More than one general strike is held at the same time that Greeks are enjoying the good life, filling quayside restaurants with a hubbub of chatter and laughter.

• All of this is happening while many Greeks lap it up in their luxury yachts bristling with antennae. It is reported that their tax dodging includes avoiding paying 23 per cent VAT by getting their Filipino servants to masquerade as wealthy tourists hiring the boats.

• Over the past year, only €2.5 million of the €500 million owed by fiscally miscreant yacht owners has been collected.

The list of such widespread abuses is endless. If one takes the view – and I am inclined that way – that no austerity measures will ever get the Greeks to change their ways, then one questions if the lesser of the two evils is not to bail out Greece with loans (repayment of which cannot but be very doubtful) but to let the Greeks sink in their own economic mire and exit the euro by going back to the drachma and even being kicked out of the EU.

The fear of a domino effect and a global financial meltdown à la Lehman Brothers is there but what could have worse repercussions is the fact that two multi-billion euro bailouts in quick succession for Greece will not be enough and will have set an undesirable precedent. The EU could find itself in a graver situation by having to face up to requests for bailouts by other eurozone countries like Portugal (for a second time) and Spain whose share of the EU’s economic activity is far greater than Greece’s mere 2.5 per cent. The Irish have learnt their lesson and are redeeming themselves but can the Greeks be trusted to follow suit?

I very much doubt this and put forward two debatable questions. Are there reasonable prospects of the medicine prescribed by the EU, the World Bank and the IMF solving Greece’s problems in the foreseeable future? Which is the lesser of two evils: to let Greece default and exit the EU and eurozone, and for the rest of the world to face the consequences, or to continue bailing out any eurozone country that runs into trouble?

Being in my late 70s I may not be around to know the historical answers to these questions. What is certain is that it will irk me greatly if Greece defaults on the loans made to it by Malta and, as taxpayer, I will be footing the bill for the greed of those who conned the EU while enjoying the good life in the so-called cradle of democracy.