REUTERS/Jacques Demarthon/Pool
Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis arrives to attend a meeting at the Bercy Finance Ministry in Paris with his French counterpart February 1, 2015. Greece has no future outside the euro but it is legitimate for the country to want to discuss ways to reduce the weight of its debt, French Finance Minister Sapin said ahead of a meeting with his Greek counterpart Yanis Varoufakis on Sunday.
There may be some truth to both of these narratives, but to get a fuller understanding of the causes of Greece's current problems you have to look further back at the country's own history. What you find is a sorry tale of nihilistic political populism, a wilful suspension of disbelief by international partners and a series of unfortunate accidents that helped turn a promising post-war recovery into a nightmare for its citizens.
And it all started with the price of oil.
Click here to see how the Greek economy suffered its dramatic fall from grace >>>