A political alliance that broke up for all the wrong reasons

The fuss about the Prespes name deal deflected attention away from comments made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who during her visit to Athens stressed that Greece must stay the course on reforms.

She knows something. The same applies to Greece's former Socialist prime minister Costas Simitis, who recently warned that the country will soon resort to borrowing from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). A similar forecast came in September from the Athens-based think tank Diktio, chaired by ex-minister Anna Diamantopoulou.

These warnings do not bode well. They also echo the findings of annual reports and statistics that have more credibility than comments made by politicians that are often bound by electoral expediency.

The annual Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report on 21 Western European countries placed Greece in a group of countries with "flawed...