Reporting from Athens
Greece is sinking further into confusion after the country’s parliament adopted, during the night of 27 June, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras‘ call for a referendum on a financial agreement proposed by the country's international lenders. MPs of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party voted in favour along with those of the ruling coalition of the Tsipras‘ leftist SYRIZA party and the rightist ANEL (Independent Greeks), thereby making the referendum plan appear even more radical.
The referendum - strongly…
Greece still in eurozone
Has Finance Minister Varoufakis left the Eurogroup’s 27 June session on his own will, or was he not welcome there anymore? Either way, the fact that the ministers adopted a press release in absence of Varoufakis did not help calm the mood. Noting the breakdown of the negotiations following the announcement of a referendum, the Eurogroup ministers continued their meeting without their Greek colleague. Varoufakis, in turn, wasted no time to contact the Eurogroup’s Secretariat to check the legality of such a move. Most likely he received the following response: the Eurogroup is an informal forum, it would not be constrained by written rules. The unanimity rule, which is generally accepted, would not not apply here. Furthermore, the president of the Eurogroup is not obliged to explain his decisions.This crisis within the crisis, which is interpreted by the press as a foretaste of Greece’s exit from the eurozone, has somewhat subsided by the late afternoon after the publication of several press releases, including that of Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, who announced that Greece was indeed still part of the eurozone.
