IF APRIL is the cruellest month for poets, May is the harshest one for European leaders. A year ago they tore up the rule book to bail out Greece and to ward off market attacks on other fiscal reprobates in the euro area. The first anniversary of the rescue mission has been nothing to celebrate. Despite a year of grinding hardship Greece looks ever more likely to have to restructure its debts. The official rescue funds hastily mustered in May 2010 have had to be deployed twice more since then, first to support Ireland late last year, and now to keep Portugal afloat.

The most pressing concern is Greece. The big hitters in the euro area—in particular Germany and the European Central Bank—are squabbling furiously about how to deal with the country's debt burden. News of a “secret” meeting on May 6th between finance ministers from Greece and its main euro-area creditor states leaked out along with a report that Greece might leave the euro. That claim was strenuously denied. But policymakers seem unable to agree on much else.

The original plan in May 2010 was conceived on the notion that Greece faced an acute but temporary funding problem. A liquidity issue could be addressed by using official lending from the euro area and the IMF of €110 billion ($157 billion) to replace funding from the markets, which were by then demanding punitive rates. The country would meanwhile take drastic steps to reduce its deficit. That would rebuild investor confidence and allow Greece to return to the bond markets, partially in 2012 and completely by mid-2013.

That schedule now looks hideously overoptimistic. Investors have become even more loth to provide long-term funding: ten-year bond yields now exceed 15%, compared with a peak of 12.3% a year ago. This reflects, in part, an appreciation that Greece's fiscal woes are even graver than they first appeared. The starting-point in 2009 for both debt and the deficit turned out to be worse than realised; tax revenues have proved disappointing as austerity measures have undermined growth. As a result Greek government debt at the end of last year was close to 145% of GDP and the deficit for 2010 was a colossal 10.5% of GDP, well above the original target of 8.1%.

Even the most cohesive and determined government would be hard-pressed to get out of this kind of fiscal mess. Instead, the Socialist government of George Papandreou is split over the prospect of yet more painful reforms. There is talk of installing EU officials at Greek ministries where the most foot-dragging has occurred. The hardest task will be pushing through a €50 billion privatisation programme which is openly opposed by Mr Papandreou's closest cabinet allies, Tina Birbili, the environment and energy minister, and Louka Katseli, the labour minister.

If the sovereign-debt crisis had been confined to Greece, it could be treated as a special case that did not threaten the euro area as a whole. But that has been given the lie by the fall of Ireland and Portugal. Each of these economies had particular features that made them vulnerable. In Ireland, unlike Greece and Portugal, a toxic banking system contaminated the state's finances. In Portugal a decade of wretchedly low growth testified to problems afflicting the whole economy.

But when three different countries stumble, the claim of sui generis does too. Once safely tucked inside the euro area and benefiting from low interest rates, all three mismanaged their economies and public finances. Greece and Portugal ran huge current-account deficits while Ireland presided over a prodigious property boom that disguised underlying fiscal weaknesses through flaky housing-related revenues. In varying degrees all three lost competitiveness, as measured by unit labour costs compared with Germany's. (Much the same story can be told of Spain's far bigger economy, even though for the moment investors seem to be giving it the benefit of the doubt.)

The original diagnosis of Greece was wrong. Its fiscal malaise was too profound to be sorted out by a bridging loan. The same mistake may well be being made with the bail-outs of Ireland and Portugal: the salve of temporary liquidity support does not necessarily help countries with deeper fiscal weaknesses.

Not before time some European countries are having second thoughts. Behind the scenes Germany has been pushing for Greece to “reprofile” its debt—a soft form of restructuring that would leave principal and coupon payments intact but extend bond maturities. That would not go far enough in tackling Greece's indebtedness but it would relieve other euro-area states of the need to send extra funds to Greece in 2012, and it would also protect banks that hold Greek debt in their books at par from having to take write-downs. But the European Central Bank is adamantly opposed to any form of restructuring; others are nervous, too.

Even though it would be hard to sell to restive northern European electorates, the temptation may be to postpone the inevitable yet again with the drug of more official funds. That might calm markets in the short term. But it would leave European leaders where they have been for most of the past year—struggling to control the situation because the solution of a big haircut on Greece's debt is too unpalatable. Restructuring will be needed, and probably not just in Greece.