Tens of thousands of Greeks rallied to back their leftwing government’s rejection of a tough international bailout after a clash with foreign lenders pushed Greece close to financial chaos and forced a shutdown of its banking system.
The show of defiance came at the end of a day that started with stunned Greeks waking up to face shuttered banks, long supermarket lines and overwhelming uncertainty over Greece’s future in the euro zone.
European leaders and policy makers, wrong-footed by Tsipras’ shock announcement of the referendum in the early hours of Saturday morning, warned that it would be a plebiscite on Greece’s future as a member of the single currency.
With Greece hours away from defaulting on a 1.6 billion euro loan from the International Monetary Fund, the crisis has escalated quickly.
Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s cut Greece’s sovereign debt rating one notch further into junk levels to CCC-, saying there was a 50 percent probability it would leave the euro zone.
Greeks – used to seeing lengthy talks with creditors end with an 11th-hour deal – were shocked by the turn of events. Queues snaked outside ATMs and inside supermarkets while fears of disruptions to fuel and medicine supplies grew.
Drugmakers said they would continue to ship medicines to Greece in coming weeks despite unpaid bills, but warned that supplies could soon be in jeopardy without emergency action.
«I can’t believe it,» said Athens resident Evgenia Gekou, 50, on her way to work. «I keep thinking we’ll wake up tomorrow and everything will be OK. I’m trying hard not to worry.»
After months of talks, Greece’s exasperated European partners have put the blame for the crisis squarely on Tsipras for rejecting a package they consider generous. The Greek side argues that pension cuts and tax hikes demanded of it would only deepen one of the worst economic crises of modern times in a country where a quarter of the workforce is already unemployed.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald