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The global defence market could become tougher for Europe in the future, said Clara O'Donnell, an analyst at the Centre for European Reform, a London think tank. O'Donnell said she believes it will become more difficult for EU countries to compete for sales of high-end technology products, given the 7-to-1 ratio in research and development spending between the United States and the European Union. She said Europe and European companies should focus on innovative solutions that are not so high-tech.

Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, said that France and Germany recognised that some form of bailout was inevitable. But, he said, for a bailout to be sold to a skeptical German public, the Greeks first "have to be seen to be suffering."

"The EU offers an attractive social, economic and political model," Charles Grant, director of the London-based think-tank the Centre for European Reform, argued last year. "It is more stable, safe, green and culturally diverse than most parts of the world, which is why neighbors want to join and many migrants aim for Europe."

The "underlying assumption", writes Katinka Barysch in a new paper for the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank, is that EU capital, technology and training might make Russia "more Western-oriented, open and easier to deal with."

"Denied the protection of NATO's nuclear weapons in Europe, Turkey would have additional reasons to worry about Iran's nuclear programme – and perhaps to develop nuclear weapons of its own. Newer NATO members in central Europe, who see in the nuclear weapons a symbol of US commitment to defend them, would be left feeling vulnerable," George Robertson, a former defence secretary and NATO secretary general, argued in an article he co-authored this month for the Centre for European Reform.

Supporters of the treaty argue that it was never going to deliver instant results. "It is difficult," said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, "to write off what has not been built," referring the new European diplomatic corps. "Turf wars are a characteristic of bureaucracies since 10,000 years BC," he said. "Bureaucracies fight other bureaucracies. Everyone knew this would happen."

Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London, said that for the eurozone countries the Eurostat proposals constituted "a significant erosion of sovereignty. "But when they signed up to the eurozone, they effectively agreed to cede sovereignty over time", Mr Tilford said. "There was always going to have to be a greater measure of integration." Although the Greek situation was "the most egregious example," he added, "it is not as if there have been no other examples of governments massaging public finances."

Mr Kontopirakis "alone is not guilty, but he should have spotted the discrepancy and spoken up at the time," said Simon Tilford, chief economist at the London-based Centre for European Reform. He continued: "No doubt, there was political interference at the statistics office, but his argument is indefensible. This is the most egregious example of budgetary data that we have ever seen in the EU, and his position is extremely weak."

"Now is the time when Europe needs to speak as one voice," said Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London. "The crisis should lead to political unity, but it could just as easily lead to a divided Europe."