Mr. Papandreou says that when he asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for gentler conditions in 2010, she replied that the aid program had to hurt. "We want to make sure nobody else will want this," Ms. Merkel told him.
....
The head of the IMF at the time, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was open to it (bond restructuring - CH). But Europe wasn't. France and the European Central Bank feared that a Greek default, even via a negotiated restructuring of bonds, would undermine trust in other euro members' debt. Germany thought debt forgiveness would relax the pressure on Athens to make other changes.

"I'd like to cut my debt in half too," Ms. Merkel told Mr. Papandreou during a meeting at the Berlin chancellery, according to the Greek premier.

Swabian Hausfrau Indeed.

and more about the others in the article.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin