Photo: tovima.gr
Greece’s latest unsuccessful attempt to conclude an agreement with its creditors two weeks before the end of June, when the bailout expires, marks the beginning of the last act of the Greek drama, which may prove crucial for the future of the country.
GRReporter presents the comments of Director of the newspaper To Vima Antonis Karakousis that describes the critical moment for Athens with accuracy.
After yesterday's failure of the talks in Brussels, everything is becoming more difficult for Greece.
Pressure from creditors will become stronger after Monday. Probably on Wednesday, the European Central Bank will "cut" the guarantees that Greek banks provide to secure funding from Frankfurt. The embarrassment of Greek citizens will reach the limit that will determine their behaviour.
As explained by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the next landmark is 30 June, when the current bailout programme expires after its 4-month extension on 20 February.
In these conditions, the Eurogroup meeting this Thursday will very much resemble the one in Riga, at which Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis became the subject of sharp attacks from almost all his counterparts from the euro zone.
Now he will probably feel the same hostility and things will be put point-blank, either to accept the proposal of the supervisory Troika in its entirety or to assume full responsibility for the dramatic events that will follow.
The only certain thing now is that the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund are unanimous and the disagreements that Athens sees among them apparently do not exist.
In other words, the pressure on Athens in the coming days will intensify from all sides and will leave the government of Mr. Tsipras to solve the big dilemma alone. And it is whether it would take the price for keeping Greece in the euro zone or would prefer the collapse, thereby creating the conditions of total insecurity in the country.
It is worth noting that the current conditions of uncertainty could deepen and create grounds for the occurrence of developments long before the final date, 30 June, which nobody would want to happen.
In all cases, following yet another failure in Brussels, the likelihood of coming to agreement is objectively drifting away and a permanent insecurity and uncertainty about the future is taking its place.
From now on, all options are open. An economic, political and national crisis is now directly threatening Greece.
And those who are not seeing it voluntarily are closing their eyes.