As soon as the Greek national parliament voted in favour, albeit by a slim majority, a chorus of boos went up in the public square opposite that very same building.

The EU (and perhaps more importantly, the eurozone) breathed a sigh of relief and issued a statement in which it said: “Greece has taken a vital step back - from the very grave scenario of default. This was a vote of national responsibility”.

The BBC covered the matter extensively, through its ever more popular live web stream, and almost as soon as the dust had settled, tweets and comments were coming in, where Greek citizens said they were disappointed that the vote had been cast, but were not overly worried.

One might think that the Greeks were talking about manning up, about national pride. Sadly not. The Greeks were inferring that although the vote for more austerity measures was passed, they were not too bothered, because they are convinced that the plan will simply remain on paper.

This was also the fear of many analysts in the run-up to the vote, who said that getting the vote through parliament was one thing, but actually getting round to enforcing legislation was another matter entirely. The vote is tied in with a second bailout for Greece, after European Union leaders agreed at a council meeting last week that they were willing to ask taxpayers to fund a second Greek bailout.

By now, Greece was supposed to be borrowing off the commercial markets. Not only can it not do that, but it needs more money to pay for the next maturing loan. Malta, like other EU members committed to lend Greece more money, but only on the condition that the Greek parliament passed a new raft of austerity measures, designed to reign in the deficit and public debt.

The fundamental problem with the whole thing is that Greece’s way of doing things is endemically flawed in terms of successive governments having the propensity to spend more than they can ever hope to earn. Throw in an angry populace and crippling strike action, and you can see why Greece has a major problem

The country has been brought to its knees, simply through the original round of protests and strokes. Just imagine what it is going to be like, if the government actually attempts to enforce more tightening of the belt. It’s just not going to happen. It’s civil disobedience waiting to break out.

Unfortunately, we are brought back to the age old problem. Is Europe a political union or is it an economic union? The truth is that perhaps, Europe does not really know. For all the ‘solidarity’ in terms of bailouts, the financial crisis has exposed all the cracks and shown that despite all our claims to the contrary, we are simply a group of nations, as different as chalk and cheese, that chose to make free trade and share one currency.

All attempts at monitoring and standards have failed. To this day, two years into the crisis, we have nations all pulling on separate ropes. Sure, when it comes round to bailout time, we band together – and that is the curse of the euro. For all its benefits, one must admit that it is only as strong as its weakest link. Failure to show support to Greece has knocked the currency repeatedly. This is why it simply must be propped up. But for how long is that sustainable?