Sovereign and bank risk are impairing the ability of banks in periphery countries to lend.

The latest evidence from euroland suggests that now they are trapped inside the single currency straitjacket, euro periphery countries are finally being forced to address their woeful lack of competitiveness.

But no one can claim that the periphery countries are not making enough effort to balance their budgets.

The eurozone's bailed-out periphery countries can't persuade their saviours of the validity of the first rule of holes — when in one, stop digging.

The troubled eurozone economy showed tentative signs of life last month as the painful rates of contraction in the periphery countries' manufacturing sectors started to ease.