The transfers to greece of the last few years were to a large extent a way of transferring private debt of german and french banks to the general EU populace.

This is just not the case. Only about 1/3 of the bailout money went this way (and certainly not to the "general EU populace", only to some european tax payers). The remaining 2/3 went to Greek consumption in some form or other. It is estimated that 1/3 of the bailout money went to off-shore accounts.

Moreover, taking on Greek debt is a massive gift to Greece, for this money no longer needs to be paid back, hence is a gift.