Over several decades Greek governments accumulated a fiscally unmanageable debt and have been unwilling to introduce any meaningful, long-term economic and budgetary reforms to get the country's political-economic house in order.

Greece's Euro and EU partners have warned that Greece may be formally or informally expelled from the common currency and, perhaps, from the economic union if the terms for a new series of loans based on domestic Greek reforms and some debt restructuring cannot be agreed upon.

However, in the whirlwind of often sensational and uncertain daily new events, it is sometimes useful and even necessary to step back and try to take a look at the wider context of things in which those current events are occurring.