Greece has managed to secure the largest debt write down in history – swapping a staggering €177.2 billion worth of bonds. The agreement was made after intense negotiations involving the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the European Central Bank, and of course Greece.

The debt write off by private creditors - initially termed a haircut - was the next step to follow a series of ‘loans’ to Greece by the EU. To secure those loans, or bailouts as we now call them, Greece has been forced by the Troika to implement austerity measures. The truth of the matter is that these measures were painful, especially for the Greek people. Thousands have lost their jobs and others have seen their salaries and pensions slashed, especially those who work are in the civil service.

Moreover, the Greek government has been forced into making massive spending cuts in its budget - something which we now know can be even more detrimental to the economy if there is no growth. The whole deal is excessively complicated and Greece is now also expected to set up a separate fund which it will pay into to show that it is actually paying its debts and reducing its deficit.

When the IMF, EU and ECB saw that there was excessive dragging of feet in the Greek parliament, all demanded that the current coalition government leaders had to sign a declaration pledging to implement agreed austerity measures irrespective of who is elected to power following the next election.

The leaders agreed to this condition at the eleventh hour. People all over Europe complain about the current economic hardships they are suffering. But if we were to look at the plight of the Greek people, we would realise that what we are doing is working hard to retain our standard of living, whereas they have had everything stripped from them due to decades of incompetence, fraud, corruption and downright lies propagated by successive Greek governments. Greece now has a massive debt payoff coming up, and it is entirely dependent on the bailouts, in terms of paying them off. Even after Greece got the first bailout, its politicians dillied and dallied and did not act decisively. The result was economic chaos and protests in the streets. This time round, however, they seem to have acknowledged the severity of the situation and its leaders know that there is no messing about this time. Europe knows that it cannot afford a eurozon e meltdown, but it also knows that it cannot afford to let Greece continue to delay implementation of agreed measures. Besides, Greece is now at the mercy of something a lot more ruthless than the EU, ECB and IMF - and that is private creditors.

Portugal and Ireland have made good progress in slashing their deficits and their public debt. Spain, which has so far not required a bailout, has missed its deficit reduction targets but has made massive strides forwards and has succeeded in creating some employment and cutting down its deficit. And that is the key. Malta’s strategy has so far been based on job creation and it seems to be working well. Creation of jobs leads to economic growth and that, coupled with balanced government spending, leads to deficit reduction. This is the course to stay on.