Angela Merkel has said that the future of the eurozone was at stake if a €110 billion (£95 billion) European Union and International Monetary Fund bailout package for Greece failed to materialise. And Dominique Strauss-Kahn, International Monetary Fund managing director, was quoted as saying that “there is always the risk of contagion”.

Greece’s public deficit as a proportion of GDP is only the second highest at 13.6 per cent. Ireland recorded the highest budget deficit in the European Union at 14.3 per cent of GDP. While Spain’s budget deficit stood at 11.2 per cent of GDP. (And the UK at 11.5 per cent)

But it’s Germany’s exposure to these debt-addled Europeans that makes contagion such a horrifying prospect – from Der Spiegel: