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Greece's troubles are forcing Germany and others to think the unthinkable.

A year ago, the suggestion that Greece was effectively the Fannie Mae of Europe - a mess that other countries were implicitly obliged to rescue - would have prompted skepticism. That's not the way the euro works, most analysts would have said.

Now, with a debt crisis looming for Greece and other European countries racing to tackle it before it spirals out of hand, it's clear that the euro won't function in quite the same way ever again.

Not responding, many analysts say, isn't an option. The financial contagion risks spreading to other vulnerable economies, such as Portugal, Spain and Italy, while European banks, which are just emerging from the financial crisis, can hardly weather another shock. "This is the Lehman Brothers for the euro zone," says David Gilmore of Foreign Exchange Analytics, a currency research firm. If Greece were left to founder, it "could kick off contagion that goes beyond anything they've dreamed of. They can't ignore it."

Any lifeline to Greece will raise questions of its own, particularly for other euro zone members such as Ireland, which are swallowing bitter medicine in an attempt to get their fiscal houses in order.

The euro zone faces "a really cruel dilemma," says Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York. "If they do bail Greece out, what do you say to Ireland? You're punishing the prudent one and rewarding the fiscally less responsible one."

After 10 years in existence, the obligations and costs of the currency union are finally becoming clear. For those skeptical of the project, this could be a moment where tensions inherent in a shared currency start to seem untenable. But another, perhaps more likely path, is that the crisis pushes the countries in the euro zone even closer together.

One of the major questions at the heart of the currency union has been whether independent political entities could work as a single monetary unit. The European Central Bank, by many accounts, has done a creditable job of steering monetary policy. But without the power to compel its members to stick to spending limits, the ECB has had to stand by as governments have ceded to the temptation to run large deficits.

Already Greece's troubles have prompted it to cede a certain measure of sovereignty. EU officials will have access to its statistical office, to ease concerns that official numbers are less than accurate.

Whatever help Greece is about to get, it wasn't envisioned at the euro's outset just over a decade ago. But the situation has moved well beyond lofty concepts. Now the only question is "how they're going to finesse it," says Sebastien Galy, a currency strategist at BNP Paribas in New York.

Several bailout options are reportedly under discussion. One would involve an intervention by the International Monetary Fund, the first lending by the fund to a developed country in decades. Another would involve some kind of rescue package or loan guarantee facilitated by Germany.