The European problem.

For those who want to see the end of the Euro crisis, the solution is obvious: Germany must buy Greece. Our objection to the European project is simply that we want to remain a sovereign state, but frankly we don't care what happens in the rest of Europe and how they arrange their affairs. Things are always changing there. Germany used to be about 250 separate statelets a couple of hundred years ago and Italy is a very recent creation.

The Balkanization of Yugoslavia is a demonstration of how these cobbled together rearrangements so easily come apart and why should we worry if people make new alliances.

Greece and Germany fit together very well. Both begin with G. Both are the home of giant philosophers. Both have been the site of major religious movements. But what Greece lacks the Germans can provide - discipline, rigor, hard work, organization, technical expertise and engineering. What the Germans lack the Greeks can provide - sunny beaches, smashed plates and Ouzo.

Germans owning Greek Islands shouldn't provoke a Captain Correlli's Mandolin type objection. They are no longer a warlike people - indeed a German Mediterranean fleet operating out of Piraeus would be a very good thing. The Germans have imported 3 million Turkish workers - send them all home and replace them with Greeks - racially they are all the same and it gets rid of the Muslim menace. The Germans are very good at assimilating weaker economies viz. East Germany; but they like to get something when they pay for it. Imagine a VW factory in Salonika; benefits for all!

I think the Greeks will bow to the discipline; remember the Colonels. If the Germans were running the show, we could even trust them with the Elgin Marbles.

Pairing off countries like this might be a general solution. Perhaps the Dutch should take Spain. That would be a turnaround. And while we are about it perhaps England should have Italy. After all we practically created Italy with all those Grand Tours in the 18th and 19th Century. The English don't do foreign languages, but Italian must about the easiest to learn, so like Latin and you just pronounce it as you spell it. We already have an Italian manager for our footie team.

I'm not sure the French should be allowed anybody - the French are always better isolated, though you could say, take Scotland. As Punishment. For both of them.