Whether the eurozone remains whole will be finally solved on July 12th in Brussels, where EU member states and Eurozone leaders will gather for an emergency summit.

European leaders gave Greece a harsh ultimatum Tuesday night: Reach a new bailout agreement with its creditors by Sunday or face bankruptcy and expulsion from the Euro currency system.

According to European Council President Donald Tusk, there are only five days left to avoid Grexit.

“The final deadline ends this week,” said Tusk after emergency talks in Brussels.

Greece remaining in the Eurozone is supported by European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker. However, as he said, Greeks had to “tell us where they are headed” by the end of the week.

According to the AP, German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a poorly veiled warning to Tsipras, saying “We are no longer talking about weeks. We are talking about very few days.”

Meanwhile, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has called for the European Union to avoid pision, as indebted Greece struggles to stay in the Euro. At one of the stormy debates in the European Parliament, he said “Let’s not let Europe be pided”.

After the Greek bailout referendum that took place last Sunday, it can be said that Europe’s opinions on Grexit are pided.

The prominent French economist Thomas Piketty, who rocketed to fame last year with his book on income inequality, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” is slamming Germany’s refusal to consider debt relief for Greece.

In an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit, Piketty claimed that Germany didn’t pay its external debt after World War I and World War II and thus has no standing to lecture other nations.

“We need to look ahead. Europe was founded on debt forgiveness and investment in the future,” Piketty said.

Greek referendum results were supported and praised by Icelandic politician and former Minister of the Interior Ogmundur Jonasson.

“Here in Iceland we are with you in spirit,” he wrote in his article “Thank you, Greece!”.

According to to him, rather than owning up to their mistakes and shouldering the costs, the leaders of Europe are looking for scapegoats.

“They display an appetite for execution. “Someone must suffer”, they think, and thus they have punished the most vulnerable among them.

Writing off all of Greece´s debt would not have the disastrous effect on the Eurozone economy that has been marketed,” wrote Jonasson.

Iconic American economist Paul Krugman believes that Europe is acting like a medieval doctor that bleeds his patients.

He also takes the somewhat contrarian position that Greece’s best bet is to exit the Euro, which has provided it with little to no help in time of need. Though this is no easy feat, it is the “best of bad options,” as he claims:

“If Greece ends up leaving the Euro, it won’t mean that the Greeks are bad Europeans. Greece’s debt problem reflected irresponsible lending as well as irresponsible borrowing, and in any case the Greeks have paid for their government’s sins many times over. If they can’t make a go of Europe’s common currency, it’s because that common currency offers no respite for countries in trouble. The important thing now is to do whatever it takes to end the ‘bleeding’,” wrote Krugman in his blog post titled “Ending Greece’s Bleeding”.

Meanwhile, a meeting of all 28 members of the EU is scheduled for Sunday be - the day after the new Greek proposals are expected to be discussed by the Eurozone finance ministers.

Author: Mari Javakhishvili