Waiting for the next list of reforms
Athens formally requested a new bailout from the ESM fund on Wednesday. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras also announced that he would present new reform proposals this Thursday. Some commentators appeal to Merkel and some to Renzi to finally force a solution to the Greek crisis. Others point out that the national parliaments will prevent another bailout programme for Athens.
Athens' bailout will fail in national parliaments
The citizens of the other Eurozone states would have be to convinced of the merits of giving Greece a new bailout package and for that reason the regional paper La Tribune de Genève is less than optimistic about Athens' prospects: "The Greeks have had their say. Now the other nations of Europe are to have theirs. And support for Athens will decline markedly. Because the plan must receive the approval of the parliaments in Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Estonia. What head of government will be willing to put his or her political future at stake on the uncertain issue of Greece? And the countries that have had to implement their own major austerity programmes won't be all too gentle either. Not to mention the silence of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who has no intention of strengthening the position of his opponent, Podemos politician and friend of Tsipras Pablo Iglesias. Perhaps in the end democracy won't be the Greeks' best ally after all."
Renzi must prevent Grexit for Italy's sake
A Grexit would be particularly expensive for countries with high national debts, economist Luigi Zingales warns in the liberal business paper Il Sole 24 Ore, calling on Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to finally take action: "While the cost of a Greek default is distributed proportionally between the North and South, the cost of the loss of credibility of the euro is not the same. The North (and, in particular, Germany) could even gain from this loss in credibility because the bund would become even more a safe haven. By contrast, the South (Italy, in particular) would have much to lose. 100 additional basis points on a debt of €2 trillion, would mean a cost of €20 billion more per year for Italy. ... Why then is the Renzi government so absent from the negotiations? Italy is the country that has the most to lose from a Grexit. It's time for Renzi to intervene."
Global perspectives: It's all up to Merkel now
For the good of the entire EU Angela Merkel must find a solution to the Greek crisis now, the US magazine The New Yorker argues: "For much of the past decade, unfortunately, the EU's triumphs have been overshadowed by the tribulations of the euro zone, which was supposed to be an instrument of further convergence and unity but which, for many European countries, has turned into a suffocating straitjacket. This is not the time to rehash the arguments about whether the EU constitutes an 'optimal currency area' (it doesn't) or whether a monetary union is workable without some form of political and banking union (it almost certainly isn't). But now is the time for Merkel, as Europe's de-facto leader, to acknowledge that monetary unification produced unintended consequences, many of them dire, and that helping Greece get back on its feet is part of the price that the EU must pay to move beyond this sorry episode."
Time to kick Greece out of the Eurozone
Patience with Greece must have its limits, writes economist Rūta Vainienė on the web portal lrytas.lt: "Enough time has been spent waiting for Greece to make up its mind. The time has come to show some respect for the other citizens of the Eurozone and the European Union. ... It's completely clear that in the interest of the Eurozone and the entire EU, Greece has no business there in its current situation. Both the EU's words and its deeds are hugely important now. Greece shouldn't leave, withdraw or depart from the Eurozone, it should be expelled, kicked out. Let's stop talking about a 'Grexit'; it's time for a 'Greekout'."