As if financiers weren't already the most unpopular people in Europe, they are, as I write this, holding the entire euro project to ransom.By now, European leaders were supposed to have nailed down their three-part bailout deal and should have been back at their respective capitals toasting the salvation of the single currency.
They confirmed the deal to recapitalise struggling banks with just over 100bn euro of cash, sourced from the private sector or, if in need, the public sector.
They agreed, at least in theory, to increase the size of the currency's live-in bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), from an effective 440bn euro to around 1trn euro.
There are question marks - big ones - over how this will work in practice, but the leaders have nonetheless made enough progress to draw up a draft announcement of the fund.
All of this, however, was before they reckoned with the difficulty they would have in the third and final part of the bailout - persuading private sector investors to accept a haircut - an effective semi-default - on the Greek debt.
Now, this element may seem incidental to the rest of the deal, and is often dismissed as less important than the "big bazooka" element of leveraging up the EFSF.
But unless the Europeans can find a deal to reduce what Greece owes, the country is likely to fall into an inescapable economic hole that could only end in a full-scale messy default.
Sky News
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