Today’s decision in Greece will affect the kind of help Greece can be given, how quickly and Europe’s decision, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this morning.

Speaking in a telephone interview on One Radio, he referred to the bailout referendum taking place in Greece today on whether to accept creditors' proposals for more austerity in exchange for rescue loans or defiantly reject the deal.

Noting that the deal was technically no longer there as it had expired, Dr Muscat said Eurozone leaders would probably meet next week to discuss the way forward and find new ways of how Greece could be helped.

Eurozone countries would have to decide whether they wanted to help Greece remain in the euro zone and what type of price were they ready to pay. Today’s referendum result would guide them to their decision.

Dr Muscat said that one thing was clear. Greece had no money. It did not pay the International Monetary Fund the payment due last Tuesday. He said that while it was true that the IMF’s proposal to Greece to cut pensions lacked social conscience, this was given as an alternative to increasing value added tax and other taxes.

He noted that banks in Malta were not exposed to the Greece situation.

In a telephone interview on Radio 101, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil hoped the Greeks would vote yes in today's referendum and added that the Nationalist Party, he said, supported EU institutions and the way they acted in the case of Greece.

Institutionalised corruption, he said, had brought Greece to its knees and he did not want the same to happen to Malta.