At most, it will be able to borrow back part of the interest on its existing debt. On the other hand, Greece can’t and won’t pay all of the interest coming due, let alone pay back its debt, because that would require a crippling new round of austerity that would inflict severe economic damage and would be politically impossible in any case.

So we know what the outcome of a successful negotiation would be: Greece would be obliged to run a positive but small “primary surplus,” that is, an excess of revenue over spending not including interest. Everything else should be about framing and packaging. What will be the mix between interest rate cuts, reductions in the face value of debt, and rescheduling of payments? To what extent will Greece lay out its spending plans now, as opposed to agreeing on overall targets and filling in the details later?

These aren’t trivial questions, but they’re second-order, and shouldn’t get in the way of the big stuff.

Meanwhile, the alternative — basically Greece running out of euros, and being forced to reintroduce its own currency amid a banking crisis — is something everyone should want to avoid. Yet negotiations are by all accounts going badly, and there’s a very real possibility that the worst will, in fact, happen.

Why can’t the players here reach a mutually beneficial deal? Part of the answer is mutual distrust. Greeks feel, with justification, that for years their nation has been treated like a conquered province, ruled by callous and incompetent proconsuls; if you want to see why, look both at the incredible severity of the austerity program the country has been forced to impose and the utter failure of that program to deliver the promised results. Meanwhile, the institutions on the other side consider the Greeks unreliable and irresponsible; some of this, I think, reflects the inexperience of the coalition of outsiders that took power thanks to austerity’s failure, but it’s also easy to see why, given Greece’s track record, it’s hard to trust promises of reform.