The Greek Crisis is about so much more than money

Whatever the result of next week's referendum, doubts will linger as to how seriously the nation is willing to take its need of fiscal reform.

Furthermore, the question will remain that if Greece could so easily remove one seemingly fiscally responsible administration - pre-Syriza - and replace it with a band of populist ideologues, might it not do so again when tough calls need to be made?

The core currency in international finance is not the American dollar, or the gold standard - it is trust. Without investor confidence, no economy can thrive.

What's more, unless a population has confidence in its own government's fiscal ability, its level of innovation will inevitably slide. Economies grow only when workers feel that they have a certain level of security when they take the risks necessary to create new products and services.

Just as real as the trust challenge will be Greece's problems with its own culture, especially as it relates to such things as taxation, entitlements and work.

The Euro crisis is partly the result of a clash between Greek aspirations, values and culture and the expectations of its European partners.

This is best demonstrated in the very different approaches to fiscal responsibility favoured by a majority of Germans - as reflected in a number of polls - compared to those of many Greeks.

The original architects of the Euro project should have foreseen the potential for difficulty given the enormous gulf that exists between the social and economic values of some northern and southern European states.

Yes, it is always easier to say such things with the benefit of hindsight, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to identify relatively long-standing differences in culture.

The fact is that, at the time the EU was formulated, European leaders desperately wanted to unleash a constructive alternative to the divisiveness of the Cold War. They wanted to present a positive face to a world that had come to associate Europe with warfare and devastation.

A common European market then quite naturally gave rise to the notion of a common currency.

The only problem was - and is - that Europe doesn't share cohesive economic values across its member states.