Greece at least additionally needs/needed stricter tax enforcement and measures against corruption
Mostly it just needs lower taxes and lower spending ideally. That largely comes from default on its debt I think. The reason is lower taxes are more often paid then higher taxes, just because its easier to do so will actually mean more people pay the tax.
It fits into the scales of economy type model. A 99% tax will be paid at far less then a fifth the rate at which people would pay for 20% taxes.
It is not linear more likely exponential and that is true even if you have the army patrolling the streets taking taxes, the feasibility of higher taxes is just not there no matter how much force government applies it cannot will into being what is incorrect.
This happens way too often in peoples line of thinking, 'government can do anything' Nope, no they can and do often fail and just muddy and mire the streets with regulational crap of no use to anyone.
Its possible to criminalise a population and part of what does is tax, classic communism would be to suppress individual will and capitalism should free them; not for idealist reasons but just because it actually works better.
Corruption is a mislabel, a river is not corrupt if misdirected uphill and it does not proceed as told
I believe what you wrote is true as well. Greeks seem to be taxed into oblivion right now.
But the thing is, in the Southern countries, everybody is pretty much doing what they want. People go about their lives less stressed, and that's a good thing, if they want to do it that way. Just don't let the other countries pay for it.
