Worst-case outcomes still possible after marathon Greek talks

THE fissures exposed between, and within, the warring groups of euro area debtors and creditors are the widest and deepest in the last 5½ years of turbulence for the single currency. The gloomy predictions of the late German-British sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf - who said before it started in 1999 that economic and monetary union (EMU) would split rather than unite Europe - have become reality.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has found herself under simultaneous attack on Greece from Germany's traditional allies the US and France - pleading for a more lenient line on Athens - as well as from hostile elements in her own conservative parties calling for the opposite.

The intractability of the marathon talks painfully exposes the impossibility of a deal that would satisfy both creditors and debtors. The euro members have had to choose between several sets of massively unpleasant results.