BOZENA VARGOVA, a retired physiotherapist from Slovakia, cannot understand why her country should bail out Greeks, who often earn twice as much as Slovaks and run up debts.

    “I don’t feel like we should give anything to Greece,” said Vargova, who lives on a pension of 370 euros (US$481) a month while the average Greek pension is 833 euros.

    In the bitter wrangling over whether the eurozone should bail out Greece, some people sympathetic to Athens framed the debate as a stand-off between Europe’s rich and poor: wealthy Germany humiliating poverty-stricken Greece.

    But in the case of Slovakia — and other countries now in the eurozone — the dividing line is not about wealth levels but about attitudes to indebtedness and sacrifice.

    That perceived gulf in values could be the biggest threat to the already shaky unity of the eurozone, and it is starkly exposed in Nitra, a city off 85,000 people in south-western Slovakia.

    Sixty-year-old Vargova, and her husband, who works as a masseur, have sold their four-room apartment in Nitra and moved to a cheaper house in a nearby village to eke out their limited funds.

    Vargova, who retired after working for 40 years, believes it is time Greeks felt some of the hardship Slovaks went through when their country transformed itself.

    “They lived beyond their means, now they have to tighten their belts,” she said of the Greek people.

    Slovak leaders have frequently shared their impatience with Athens during Greece’s debt crisis, which culminated last week with a decision to give the country a new bailout package worth up to 86 billion euros.

    Prime Minister Robert Fico said it would be “immoral” to write off any Greek debt and he would call for Greece’s exit from the eurozone if Athens fails to meet agreed conditions. “Greeks must pay a tax for how they behaved in the past,” Fico said Tuesday.

    “We have gone through our own tough path in Slovakia. If we could do it, as a country with substantially weaker economy (at the time), another country must do it as well.”

    One Twitter post by Slovak Finance Minister Peter Kazimir, suggesting Greece brought the harsh bailout terms on itself, led to a complaint by the Greek ambassador, according to a Slovak government source. The Greek embassy in Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava, had no immediate comment.

    After a sharp slump in the Greek economy in recent years, Slovakia has now edged ahead of Greece in economic output per capita. (SD-Agencies)