To me, it seems that the key problem in this plan is that Greece is not East Germany. The latter, despite Soviet occupation, still shared heritage, history, and traditions with West Germany. Greece, on the other hand, shares jolly little in common with Germany aside from the fact that the two nations are located on the European Continent.
The Germans have, overall, demonstrated a willingness to make sacrifices to place the nation on a firmer economic foundation. Greece, on the other hand, seems more willing to throw tantrums as the merest hint of fiscal restraint or when anyone suggests some tinkering with retirement age.
It’s even more than that. The former DDR had such helpful things as industry, and a fairly decent infrastructure with manufacturing of heavy industrial goods as well as consumer products. Now granted, it was not very efficient by Western standards, but at least it was present. That made things a bit easier for the West Germans, though reunification was still far from totally smooth.
The last time I looked around, I didn’t see any Greek-made automobiles, or airplanes, or train carriages, or wristwatches, or alarm clock, etc., etc. The Greeks have shipping, which is in the toilet owing to the current worldwide trade slump, and tourism, which I personally think won’t be too popular when Greece goes up in flames; it would be like vacationing in Syria. OK, sure, maybe for the real hardcore adrenaline junkies it might be a rush, but for your average middle-aged German or British tourists, probably not so much.
You’re totally dead-on about the cultural differences. For the Greeks, well, not ALL Greeks, but a fairly sizable chunk of them, irresponsibility is apparently a way of life. They want their seat at the all-you-can-eat buffet, and by God, they’ll throw a temper tantrum of Homeric proportions when they realize they can’t get their way. As for that fool Tsipras, he’s leading the Greeks into a disaster by promising them the comforting delusion that they have their baklava and eat it too.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; when the Greeks realize that the EU wasn’t bluffing when they said they would be kicked (or forced) out of the EU, and that Tsipras was full of crap and sold them a bill of goods on the magnitude of the Trojan Horse, Greece is going to explode in a manner the like of which hasn’t been seen since the Peloppenseian War.
Yeah. Good luck with that tourism-led recovery.