”People in Greece are suffering; they cannot cope with their day-to-day life; they cannot buy food; they are evicted from their homes,” says Jannis Barbantonis, president of the Greek Association in Norway to NRK, the Norwegian Broadcast Corporation.

This desperate situation is, according to Jannis Barbantonis, the background for Prime Minister Papandreou’s decision to call a referendum on the EU crisis bail-out packet.

The packet is not a light at the end of the tunnel for the Greeks who want to re-negotiate the conditions of the loans, with a lower rate of interest and a 40 year maturity, he says, and continues to point out that the bail-out does not reduce the debt by half. The fact is, says he, that out of the €380 billion Greek debt €260 is in government bonds which are not included in the bail-out.