The real problem at the heart of the Greek crisis is so grave because it involves the fundamental weakness of the euro: its lack of support by a government policy. The caps on member states’ budget deficits and public debt imposed by the Maastricht criteria have proven relatively early on to be of limited use in the real world, and the same is true for the monitoring tools linked to these limits.
希腊危机所蕴含着的深层次问题十分严峻，因为它直指欧元的内在弱点：缺乏统一的政府政策的支持。尽管《马斯特里赫特条约》给各成员国的预算赤字和公共债务规定了上限，但危机爆发后，这一套规定和相关的监管机制在严酷的现实面前显得作用有限。 2008 年 9 月雷曼兄弟崩溃所引发的是一场“完美风暴”，马斯特里赫特规则压根儿不是为应付这样的风暴而设计的。