I think right there, you and I are in total disagreement, at a philosophy level, on what should be done.

It's not the Maastricht criteria that should be relaxed, it's the accounting principles that should be tightened. And the member states that must balance their budget immediately, even if it's painful. Otherwise, the pain will be truly lethal, just later...

My brother in law works in London. He designs and sells "innovative fixed income products" for a big US investment banks. He's market segments is eurozone governments. He's "succesful". End of smooth talk: he's tailoring some time-bomb credit derivatives to enable states to borrow more and more while not technically emitting "debt" in the sense of the maastricht criteria. And he has ... "competitors" !!

Bigger picture: PPP and real estate+public companies fire sale are just the emerged part of the iceberg, the recent years have seen "innovation" at a much faster pace than what ECB accounting can follow. All driven by a mad desire in all governments, to promise ever more spending, fewer tax, and never tell the public the hard truth, in the hope that the whole shit will hold long enough until the next election/they leave office/they retire in a bunker.

I fear that when debt notation agencies, the ECB and the business press get to understand the real level of deficits and cumulated debt of the whole eurozone, we may have a rough ride.

Pierre