European Commission head Jean Claude Juncker today urged Greece to vote “yes” in a referendum on bailout proposals or leave the euro as a bank shutdown ordered by Athens left the Greeks desperately scrambling for cash.
A visibly emotional Juncker launched a blunt attack on Greek premier Alexis Tsipras, saying he felt “betrayed” by the leftist government’s behaviour and adding it was time for them to tell voters “the truth”.
With capital controls in place, Greece is hurtling toward an IMF default tomorrow and possible exit from the euro after the shock breakdown of debt talks with creditors on Saturday.
“I will tell the Greeks, who I love deeply, that you shouldn’t choose suicide just because you are afraid of death,” the former Luxembourg premier said, urging them to vote “Yes” in Sunday’s vote.
“A ‘No’ would mean, regardless of the question posed, that Greece had said no to Europe,” he added a press conference in Brussels.
Juncker’s frustration at 40-year-old Tsipras was particularly poignant because, in five months of fraught debt talks, the EU chief has been Greece’s closest and sometimes only ally.
In response, Athens swiftly questioned Juncker’s “sincerity” in the negotiations.
Tsipras stunned Europe late Friday by calling a referendum for July 5 in which Greeks must decide whether to back a bailout agreement with creditors.
Some EU leaders said the vote would actually decide Greece’s future in the euro.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, calling for a compromise, warned that “if euro fails, Europe fails.”
She added that she was ready for new talks with Greece’s government but that any new negotiations should come after the referendum.
“What is at stake is whether or not Greeks want to stay in the eurozone (or) take the risk of leaving,” said French President Francois Hollande, while defending Greece’s “sovereign choice”.
Tsipras, whose Syriza party came to power in January on an anti-austerity platform, has advised voters against backing a deal he said spelt further “humiliation” for a country that has endured five years of recession, turmoil and skyrocketing unemployment.
PTI