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Dimitris Kourkoulas is a former deputy foreign minister, responsible for European affairs, and former representative of the European Commission in Bulgaria. The analysis that we offer is published in the Athens Voice weekly

Over the past five months, while the government was assuring us that the agreement is being cobbled together, I was trying to interpret the government's strategy. Were they trapped in their obsessions and election promises?

Or was the anti-European DNA, which constitutes the common ideological basis of SYRIZA and the Independent Greeks, coming to the surface? Or was it a case of criminal neglect for the looming danger?

Today I can confidently say that none of the three interpretations is true. The naughty negotiations are the product of a premeditated plan to fool the country out of the euro and the EU. I do not claim that all supporters and members of SYRIZA and the Independent Greeks, or those who will vote NO, have adopted this strategy. Yet the government and the prime minister of bankruptcy have been leading us in this direction with mathematical precision.

Exiting the euro will appear as a bare necessity after a very short period for the lack of liquidity. Once we find ourselves in a situation of humanitarian crisis, we will be facing the tragic choice between the drachma and the actual humanitarian catastrophe. Grexit will be our only way out.

The legal rules governing the EU today do not allow exit from the eurozone without leaving the EU. The possible revision of these rules requires the unanimous agreement of the 28 member states and a lengthy process.

Preparing people for this road to an isolated country is carried out daily by the systematic demonization of the partners, the European institutions and values. The image of the partners as sadists and bullies has been spreading like cancer in Greek society.

SYRIZA's shameful slogan says, "They want no solution, all they want is the destruction of democracy". "They" means the EU. And not only for the Exarcheia anarchists.

This is a well thought-out plan dragging us into the next step when the government policy will already have laid the ground for a true humanitarian crisis. Then they will say, "Out of the inhumane and undemocratic EU."

I have worked for the European institutions over several decades and I have often been in the position of a negotiator within the EU. My experience tells me that the EU neither is nor behaves like a colonial power. It always pays heed to the legitimate interests of the other party.

Which is why it is so attractive to many nations of Europe, which are not yet part of the European family, but also for those outside Europe. For them, the EU is an organisation, which enjoys respect and recognition.

In my long-standing work, I have collaborated with colleagues from different nationalities, who strongly respected and often felt love for our country. This does not mean that the EU has never made mistakes. And our partners have largely recognized and proceeded to repair those mistakes.

Yet the inconsistent policy of our government did not only exacerbate the already difficult relations, but also destroyed the trust built up over the past three years.

Now I would like at the end to give a short account of something I myself have witnessed. I had the honour to accompany President Karolos Papoulias during his visit to Poland last autumn. I will never forget the scene when Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is now president of the European Council, broke into tears as he remembered the first time he saw the Acropolis.

Then he said to the President of Greece that those, who at the height of the 2011-2012 crisis wanted Greece's exclusion from the European family, were mad. Lo and behold, now the Greek madmen have sprung up wanting to materialise what Tusk found incomprehensible a few months ago.