The holiday season has brought cheers back to Greece and the rest of Europe. A country that had been hitting the headlines for six years because of its sky-high public debt and shocking fiscal deficit, which nearly forced the government to go bankrupt, has seen the proverbial light at the end of the dark tunnel. It seems the days of tight fiscal policies, which forced many businesses to close down and rendered many people jobless, and dropping credit ratings are finally over for Greece.

After six agonizing and painful years of recession, the Greek economy is about to bid adieu to negative growth, as the European Commission has forecast that it might grow by 2.9 percent in 2014. Better still, maintaining the pace in 2015, the Greek economy could grow by 3.6 percent in 2016.

Greece's economy had been sliding since 2009 compelling it to revise its ratio of public debt to a shocking level. The country's five depressing annual GDP readings are - 3.1 percent in 2009, - 5.4 percent in 2010, - 8.9 percent in 2011, - 6.6 percent in 2012 and - 3.3 percent in 2013. Some economists say this is unprecedented since the end of World War II.

Since being posted in Brussels more than four years ago, I have visited Greece five times. I remember how hopeless the Greeks felt during my first visit in the fall of 2010. Shopping had become an alien term and eating out a big no-no for most Greeks. Athens, the capital, was considered unsafe because of the high jobless rate and the resultant increase in crimes. Some financial department officials I talked with during those days even told me that Greece didn't have a complete name list of taxpayers, nor did it have enough employees to collect taxes.

During the height of the crisis, Greeks had no choice but to try and earn as much as possible and spend the barest minimum. The same applied to the country's government. What Greece needed the most to tide over the crisis was an intelligent and stable political leadership. It got one but after much political uncertainty. The economic and political uncertainties forced Greeks to make huge sacrifices in terms of their living standards and expenditures, which, in turn, brought the shutters down on about 100,000 businesses.

Nothing could have been more painful for a people who had been used to an average 5 percent annual growth before the fiscal crisis.

Gradually, the government's austerity measures, the bailout packages from the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission, and increasing foreign investment infused new life into the Greek economy. So when Prime Minister Antonis Samaras recently announced that Greece had the highest growth in the eurozone in the third quarter of 2014 (1.7 percent year-on-year) it came as a surprise to very few.

Greece's achievement is all the more remarkable because neighboring Italy has slipped into recession again. Of course, not all the readings for Greece are positive. The jobless rate is still high. Nearly one out of every four Greeks is jobless. The unemployment rate among youths is worse, with one out of every two without a job. Besides, the business confidence has not yet fully recovered.

Despite that, the cradle of Western civilization still has all its geopolitical advantages - as a link between Europe and Asia and Africa, a gateway to Southern Europe, a strong shipping power and a major destination for global tourists - to fully emerge out of the fiscal crisis. But for that, the country needs political stability and visionary leadership.