Greek tragedy: How long is it going to last?

For the past week, the possibility of Greece defaulting on its sovereign debt has held all asset markets worried and guessing. Two stalwarts, Sarah Hewin the Economist from Standard Chartered Bank and Martin Wolf, the finest Economics Commentator of The Financial Times, talk about all the factual dimensions of Greece's debt, its creditors and its chances of paying back.

Here is the transcript of the interview. Also watch the accompanying videos. Q: How much money does Greece want immediately and from whom? Hewin: Greece has immediate debt redemption of around 2.4 billion euros in July and around 6.6 billion euros in August (Click here to read more). In addition, they need to find finance to cover the payment of wages and current government expenditure. They have in line EU and IMF finance of 12 billion euros which is due to be paid early in July. Q: That's the immediate requirement. What will Greece want over the next two years because during that period it looks unlikely that Greece will be able to borrow from the market? Hewin: Yes, that's right. The idea should have been that Greece would have been able to go to the international capital markets to raise finance from 2012. But it has become clear that there is no appetite in the capital markets to extend finance to Greece. So that financing gap needs to be covered by EU and by the rollover of the private sector debt. So the order of magnitude is around 90 billion euros, of which 55-60 billion euros is likely to be extended by governments and the rest is supposed to come through voluntarily debt rollovers, on the part of the private sector. Q: Let me take the creditors one by one. You think that EU countries will cough up. That is pretty clear by now? Hewin: Well, there is broad agreement amongst areas governments to extend new finance, because it is recognition that Greece will be able to tap the international markets for that money. The dispute is over what sort of involvement there should be from the private sector. Some government still require that there should be a more formal involvement of the private sector through debt swaps for example or maturity extensions. While the European Central Bank (ECB), and the ratings agencies insists if there are any debt rollovers then that should be entirely voluntary. The difficulty with that is it