It is very grandiloquent to ask about the philosophical motivations that lie behind the wonderful humanism of France and the evil economic legalism Germany, but if you are asking the question the way the article does you have already decided your answer. In the end you can throw away the philosophizing and ask the simple question "Who is being honest?" That has a simple answer: Germany. People are making all kinds of claims about dignity and humiliation and democracy and sovereignty, which is interesting, but generally they aren't honest. The claim that a vote in Greece should bind the other 300M members of the EU to pay for Greek debt is not democracy at all. Greece will not increase their own sovereignty by forcing other countries to contribute to the political corruption at the heart of the Greek crisis - it will merely keep Greece from attaining the real sovereignty that comes with a well-governed country, decrease the sovereignty of those forced to contribute and undermine the rule of law in all of Europe. Yes there are visions of a more united and peaceful Europe - and that's all well and good. But if you can't manage a simple foundation of a minimum level of honesty the only way union can be accomplished is through tyranny. I am quite surprised that Schauble is being so utterly villainized for stating something so basic: the foundation of the Eurozone treaty was an agreement that it would not be a transfer union. A transfer union implies a great loss of sovereignty to all the members involved, which none of the Eurozone members have agreed to. If a transfer union is desired it will need to be negotiated, not just assumed into existence, or there will no longer be any foundation to work with. The current bailout deal cannot work because the Greek debt is too high and the Greek system is too broken to fix with such a solution. The only way to support the current deal is to assume that in a few years time when Greece is still broken and the new debts are due, and the state assets have already been stolen via privatization in the corrupt system, maybe Germany will want to pretend that the Eurozone is a transfer union. And again assuming a transfer union into existence will still be a bad idea. Does anyone believe that after this bailout is accepted the Eurozone countries will start the negotiations to create a transfer union? I didn't think so.