Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, European Central Bank executive board member, has attacked financial market analysts for not doing their homework properly on Greece. Many have jumped to the conclusion that the country will default or have to restructure its debt at some point, he said in a speech in Morocco today. But the International Monetary Fund, eurozone governments and the ECB have taken a different view. “They all consider that a default is not a viable solution.”

His explanation is that private sector economists have simply looked at horrific projections for Greek debt-to-GDP ratios and not studied carefully enough the details of the country’s rescue package. “I have not seen a serious analysis of the 120-page report produced by the IMF which looks at the various aspects of the programme, including the impact of structural measures on growth, the sustainability analysis or other features of the programme”.

He continues: “I wonder which analysis is more serious and credible: the many one-pagers, very well publicised – I must admit – which probably aim to influence the rest of the market, or the IMF’s 120 pages of rather tedious analysis describing the contents of the programme, together with its risks.”

Mr Bini Smaghi goes on to point out the political pressure on Athens to make the programme a success, which he argues markets have also failed to appreciate.

Is it politically more palatable for a government to default? How would the millions of Greek savers react if suddenly they found out that part of their savings is worth substantially less? Would any government get away with it?

And what would be the political future of Greece in the European Union if it did not repay its debt to the German, French, Irish and all the other countries’ taxpayers? What would happen to the millions of euros in structural and cohesion funds that Greece receives every year from the EU?

Maybe the ECB is putting too much faith in Athens. Mr Bini Smaghi’s speech reminds me of former UK finance minister Nigel Lawson’s criticism of “teenage scribblers” in financial markets in the late 1980s.

However, he might win more fans in London and New York with his thinly-veiled criticism, in the same speech, of the German government’s handling of the crisis:

In one large euro area country it was thought that public support for swift action could be achieved only by dramatising the situation, for instance, by telling the public that ‘the euro is in danger’ or by considering the possibility of expelling a country from the euro area. But it was not realised that, in the midst of a financial upheaval, such words are like fanning the flames and that the cost of the support package could only increase following such dramatic declarations.