Miracle or insanity?

There's no time to waste. By the end of August, Greece will have to pay back some 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) to the European Central Bank (ECB) and another 1.5 billion euros to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that fall due in September. Negotiations will thus have to be concluded earlier.

But we've heard that sort of thing before. At the turbulent EU summit towards the end of June, debates also centered on fresh loans for Greece so as to put the country in a position to pay back other loans. In other words, the nation is to put up with an even bigger debt load to meet its debt servicing targets.

Such a system is bound to collapse sooner or later. Which means that creditors will eventually be seen writing off part of their claims.

Back-breaking burden

Following two previous aid packages, Greece has run up liabilities worth over 300 billion euros. According to the latest data from the Eurostat statistics agency, that amounts to 170 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. No other EU country is faring so badly on that count.

Growing debt on the one hand - a shrinking economy on the other. Experts say the Greek economy will start expanding again only in 2017. The IMF believes the nation will choke on its debt load without another debt relief or haircut, even under the most favorable circumstances. Athens' left-right government couldn't agree more.

The EU points out that Greece in large part will have to start paying back interest and debt accumulated through loans only from 2023. Anyway, it's a huge burden, also with regard to the country's ageing population and a brain drain going on unabated.

Wonders will never cease

It's almost a political miracle that the current talks on another aid package are taking place at all. That's true from Greece's point of view as the Tsipras government has until recently flatly rejected creditors' claims and organized a referendum on the matter, with 60 percent of people speaking out against the creditors' demands in line with what the government had expected that referendum to result in.

The second part of the miracle can be witnessed in Greece's fellow eurozone countries. Tsipras and his allies called politicians in these nations, Germany included, extortionists. And former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis even called his counterparts terrorists.

It's those very countries that are again called upon to pay up, and the miracle being that they're evidently willing to do so. Whether all national parliaments play along in the end is a different matter. But the fact that Finland's notoriously skeptical parliament has agreed to let the talks get underway is part of the strained eurozone countries' amazing generosity.

Lost faith

But they're still waiting to get something in return. Given all feet-dragging, hollow promises and trickery the Tsipras government has resorted to, it would be a surprise to see Athens getting serious about required structural reforms this time around. But even then Greece's debt repayment problem would not really be resolved.

The current talks are based on Greece not having a sound alternative. And its European partners have reached a political decision. They reckon that a crumbling eurozone would have unforeseeable economic and political repercussions, concluding it might be a better option to sit down with Greece once more. But a lot of mutual trust has gone down the drain already. European politicians may have spoken of the proverbial last chance far too often. But there comes a time when this last chance is irrevocably gone.