The Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel rolled out the red carpet for Mr. Tsipras in Berlin, received him with all the honors that are appropriate for the leader of allied country and spent many hours with him in order to present his ideas and beliefs on how to tackle the long-term Greek crisis.

Reportedly, she listened to him and his partners, possibly expressed some doubts and reservations, definitely reminded him of the country’s pressing obligations from its previous agreements and probably gave her own versions, her own solution to exiting the crisis.

In any case, she made it clear and referred to the Eurogroup for decisions, where policies and measures are evaluated and aid programs and funding approved.

Mr. Tsipras, on his behalf, after assigning the responsibility of the crisis to us, undertook the obligation to push forward all the reforms that are necessary in order to stabilize and allow the Greek economy to grow.

Since then there have been no considerable developments in this direction. The days go by, but the list of reforms has not yet been composed.

On the contrary, there is more than enough agony, as the State reserves are running out.

At present the government is scraping the bottom of the barrel. It is seizing the remaining resources of public organizations, insurance funds, even local government, in order to delay a visible default.

It is unfortunate that despite the country experience such a difficult situation, there is no progress in the negotiations, as the European authorities report.

Furthermore, the real economy appears to have stalled, having run out of strength and appears to be entering a new recession.

In the first trimester of 2015 there appears to be a reversal of trends.

Whereas in the second half of 2014 some light at the end of the tunnel, from the end of November and onwards, financial activities have taken a downturn.

Businesses have seen demand retreat, their income shrink and their deposits leaking abroad, while the people are reserved and defensive.

In general the uncertainty has bounced back for good and the feelings of fear tend to dominate Greek society once more.

If the atmosphere of insecurity persists, the businesses will react, they will want to protect themselves against the dangers, the cutbacks will prevail and redundancies will be almost inevitable.

If the government does not react in tome, namely if it does not come to an agreement with the partners over the next few days to lift the existing funding deadlock, then things will spiral out of control.

A catastrophic chain reaction will quickly develop, the state will directly face the danger of an internal suspension of payments, the people’s trust will be lost and then anything could happen.

The Prime Minister ought to know that unless there is a solution to restore funding, then the country will face a much worse crisis than the previous one. The humanitarian crisis that he wants to address will pale in comparison to the one that will be triggered, should the government be unable to overcome the current deadlock.

Mr. Tsipras does not have the luxury of time any more. Unfortunately he wasted it in pointless battles and is now on the razor’s edge.

Antonis Karakousis