The marathon summit that took place between Sunday and yesterday was the longest in the EU’s recorded history.

The previous record goes to the migration summit, which wrapped up at about 3.30am. But this one started at 4pm on Sunday and did not finish till about 9.30am yesterday.

As journalists were dropping like flies and sleeping in makeshift dorms in the conference centre and under desks, the first question we have to ask is how the EU leaders managed to take sensible and responsible decisions after hours and hours of tough talks.  As ever, we will never know. What is said and what happens during round table meetings in Brussels normally stays behind closed doors.

Greek Premier Alexis Tsipras essentially capitulated over the weekend and has emerged with a deal which was worse than the one that was put forward just over a week ago, which the Greek Premier had put to a referendum, which was given a resounding thumbs down by the Greek people. They must now be kicking themselves.

It is understood that one of the reasons why the summit took so long was that Tsipras was in constant communication with the leaders of other Greek parties to see what they made of the proposals.

Many EU leaders did not shy away from saying that they no longer trusted Greece or Tsipras himself, which is why they insisted that the proposals be pushed through parliament by the passing of four laws in return f or the multi billion bailout deal. In short, there is no trust and Tsipras’word was not good enough.

Quite how Syzira thinks it will obtain the backing of other parties and retain the support of people who voted for it, is anyone’s guess.

So, after hours of negotiations, Grexit has been avoided. But we still need to wait until later in the week to see if the laws go through and that we have well and truly avoided Greece falling out of the eurozone.

Greece now owes Europe not only money, but the duty to reform one of the most corrupt economies in the EU. Backhanders, tax avoidance, benefit scamming, cheap and unsustainable loans must all become a thing of the past. Greece must also hand over all its statistics to be independently verified and checked after having cooked the books for years.

The EU has been accused of being too hard on Greece. Maybe some quarters have. But look at the Latvians and Lithuanians, who receive less than Greek pensioners do, even if their system is not in crisis.

Look at the wages in Malta, which are low compared to the Greek ones, even after all this mess. The truth is that countries have to live within their means and the Greeks have not. It is time for them to come back down to earth and realise that the life they have been living is simply unsustainable given the constantly underperforming economy. Will Syriza get the votes pushed through parliament? Time will tell. Until then, we will have to wait and see and have a break from the constant bickering that has been going on for the past months.