Greek rescue deal - Bailout will at least buy time for EU

Though it is impossible to overlook the terrible,impoverishing challenges facing the hard-pressed population of Greece, it would be dishonest to pretend that the €130 billion bailout package agreed by European finance ministers is not an occasion for some very moderate relief across the European Union.

It is as if a comrade in arms listed as missing in action and feared dead had been discovered alive but badly injured in a prisoner of war camp — things are bad but they could have been much worse. Hope, however faint, has a chance to eventually replace despair.

This remains the case even if you believe that the deal — and its myriad variables — is not the final solution to Greece’s, and ultimately Europe’s, crisis. It may just buy enough time to allow the rebuilding of the kind of stability other European countries need to continue to support the EU’s dysfunctional economies.