Straight arrow

Greece: In recent history no other European Union government has done what they're doing: slashing spending, launching serious structural reforms, fighting tax fraud, overhauling the public sector, and shrinking the budget deficit by an eye-watering 5 percent of gross domestic product in one year. These are the Greeks, who triggered Europe's sovereign debt crisis.

An interim report by the EU Commission confirms that Greece has a strong and determined government which is serious about tackling the country's woes and has started delivering on its promises. All is not rosy, but at least the country is ruled by a team that means business, says what it means and does what it says.

Things haven't been easy for the government of George Papandreou, who must take credit for telling the truth about his country's nightmarish problems and then seeing that the only way it could solve them was the hard way. Greek workers this week went on their sixth general strike this year, before an important Parliament vote on a bill that will raise the retirement age, cut pensions, lower basic salaries and make it easier to fire workers.

As the EU report makes clear, there are some areas where Greece is still lagging - notably inflation, tax collection and reform of the long-fraudulent statistics apparatus. But considering the task at hand, this isn't surprising. Other EU governments, forced by market discipline to face their own budgetary problems, aren't showing the same determination.

Even if Greece implements its programme to the last detail, it might be difficult for the country to avoid restructuring of a debt load that will near 150 percent by 2016. With 10-year government bond spreads still at almost 8 percentage points above German bunds, the market is certainly deeply sceptical.

Euro zone leaders understandably don't want to talk about it now when there is so much uncertainty in the rest of the region. But if restructuring indeed is on the cards, Papandreou is definitely the type of leader debtors will want to deal with.