"Euro area member states will take determined and coordinated action, if needed, to safeguard financial stability in the euro area as a whole".

The clear message from the European Union (EU) statement left no doubt. When it comes to Greece, and other euro zone members, we will deal with the problem, thank you.

Then tucked away, in the middle of the statement, the acknowledgement that the European Commission would draw on the experience of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in monitoring the position. Which left me wondering…why didn't the IMF just deal with the whole sorry mess in the first place?

The IMF's very raison d'etre is to help countries re-build economies after years of mis-management. It has decades of experience of sorting out these problems.

Position

The Fund's own website admits it lends to "countries in severe financial trouble...helping a member country avoid sovereign default". Have you ever read a better definition of the situation facing Greece and the euro zone?

Indeed, the IMF has been monitoring Greece for years through the regular Article IV process, with a prescient warning of events that have now happened. In 2006 "the current account deficit has widened to an unsustainable level." This was an accident everyone knew was going to happen.

So why not let the fund dig deep and do the dirty work. Politics pure and simple. It would be embarrassing for the EU and euro zone to admit that it could not run economies in its own backyard. Greece has been allowed to run Olympic-sized rings round the strict rules of euro membership thus vitiating the euro zone and creating the current crisis.

For the IMF to ride to the rescue would be a stunning admission of failure, even though EU countries are members of the Fund and are entitled to its assistance.

There is also the heavy involvement of French presidential politics. The IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Khan might well stand as the socialist presidential candidate against Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012. The last thing President Sarkozy wants is for Strauss-Khan to be seen as the saviour of the euro zone.

With its vast experience of implementing macro-economic reform the IMF is uniquely suited to whipping Greece and any other euro-miscreants into shape, without worrying too much about intra-continental rivalries. But it won't be allowed to. The EU, with a Panglossian view of its own abilities and an inability to recognise its practical limitations, remains stubbornly firm in saying ‘non'. It should let the IMF get on with the job before any more damage is done.

Tune in to CNN International each weekday at 22h00 UAE time to catch Richard’s show, Quest Means Business.