Proposals

US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has stated the official position of the US administration regarding the Greek financial crisis Wednesday.

"There's a lot of unknowns if this goes to a place that completely melts down in Greece," Lew said, as quoted by the Economic Times. Such an action would be, in his words, "geopolitically a mistake." 

Sunday is a “monetary D-Day” for Greece, as it is facing the harsh reality of a possible exit from the European common currency. The fate of the country’s membership will be decided at the EU-29 Summit — where all 29 member-states of the European Union and not only the Eurozone members are participating — a sign that shows the gravity of the situation.

EU leaders are due to hold a full (EU-28) summit in another attempt to look for a viable solution on Greece.

This has been announced after a Eurozone summit on Tuesday evening where Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has already outlined plans of his country for a new aid program.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz said that confrontation is not the solution to the Greek crisis. “We hope to reconcile the proposals of both sides,” he said during a press conference in Strasbourg.

If Grexit, troika and the like are Greek to you, then the humorous UK site – Poke – has printed out this indispensible guide into better understanding the debt default… and Greece!

The site of the Ministry of Finance issued six short bullet points as to why people should vote ‘No’ in the referendum:

1.Negotiations have stalled because Greece’s creditors (a) refused to reduce our un-payable public debt and (b) insisted that it should be repaid ‘parametrically’ by the weakest members of our society, their children and their grandchildren

Retired US admiral James Stavridis, who once commanded the US European Supreme Allied Forces, paints a very gloomy picture of the implications of a possible Grexit, writing in an article published in the Foreign Policy magazine.

Stavridis warns of grave geo-strategic dangers if Greece leaves the euro area.

Despite talk of the bitcoin, Greek banks have actually been preparing for a return to the drachma for years. Were a hypothetical Grexit to take place, the previously decommissioned currency would not be used but new banknotes based on the old design would most probably be printed.

Gamblers can typically ‘smell’ the odds of something happening and there’s a theory that betting markets offer a better guide to predicting the non-sporting world better than opinion polls and the mainstream media. Greece, however, is splitting pundits as much as it is splitting citizens of Europe with divisive responses to the question: “Will Greece be forced to leave the Euro?”

While Greece sinks further into a political and economic quagmire, El Pais reports that a small group of ECB and Commission experts are setting in motion a “firewall” of protection for member-states in case of Grexit, an alleged plan called … “Operation Albania”.