A country brought to its knees.
The banks will not open tomorrow, nor will the Athens Stock Exchange.
And now many are cancelling their holidays in Greece.
And just as the two busiest months of the tourism season starts this is the absolute worst possible time for Greece, but the most opportune time for the eurogroup to teach those leftists a lesson.
Not to buckle under to their demands! The Greeks must suffer for democratically electing a government who just will not do as they are told by their bettors!
Greece crisis: a disaster for Athens and a colossal failure for the EU
After three crises in as many days, the collective performance of the eurozones governments inspires little hope or confidence in their crisis management. Five years from its inception, the world’s biggest bailout of a sovereign state will grind to an excruciating halt on Tuesday, theoretically leaving Greece high and dry and on its own under a leftwing government bitterly accusing the EU elite of deliberately using the country as a neo-liberal laboratory.
If the experiment has been a disaster for Greece, it is also a colossal failure for Europe, with the result that at the very apex of leadership the EU nowadays resembles an unhappy assembly of squabbling politicians locked in what could not be called an “ever closer union”.
Broken Europe
But the social and political costs of these policies have put the legitimacy of the entire European integration project in question. By being locked into austerity policies, Europe is tearing itself apart.
This brings to the fore the faulty institutional framework that has exacerbated these issues. European integration was conceived by a set of elites, while many EU citizens have never fully embraced the idea: the EU tends to be regarded as an economic entity rather than a cultural or social one. The “ever closer union” remains an aspiration, while EU institutions patch up compromises between its most powerful members.
The ill-thought and haphazard implementation of the common currency is perhaps the most costly compromise of all. The Greek government is therefore right to ask for generous debt relief to allow the economy to have a fresh start in exchange for reforms that will address the perennial problems of corruption and inequality that bedevil Greek society.
As it unfolds.....the weekend of turmoil
Friday evening:
Greek prime minister calls referendum on terms of new bailout deal, asks for extension of existing bailout
Saturday afternoon:
Eurozone finance ministers refuse to extend existing bailout beyond Tuesday
Saturday evening:
Greek parliament backs referendum for 5 July
Sunday afternoon:
ECB says it is not increasing emergency assistance to Greece
And here and now we are sinking down into those uncharted seas.
And perhaps a bit more pressure on the eurogroup before it all got so bad would have helped, but now......
US urges Europe, IMF to reach deal to keep Greece in eurozone
Top US officials waded in at the weekend to try to help resolve Greece's financial woes, urging Europe and the International Monetary Fund to come up with a recovery plan that keeps the country in the euro zone.
In a series of separate phone calls on Saturday to IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and the finance ministers of Germany and France, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew urged them to "find a sustainable solution that puts Greece on a path toward reform and recovery within the Eurozone," according to a Treasury Department statement on Sunday about the calls.
Police put on alert amid concerns of social unrest, all called back into duty
All officers have been ordered back from holidays and put on emergency duty.