The twist of Mario Draghi who cornered Alexis Tsipras' Greece came a few minutes after the close of the Wall Street session and alarmed the financial markets and immediately pushed the euro down against the dollar. Stormy hours await the stock exchange and banks of Athens.
The ECB has closed the liquidity taps, except of course the emergency one, for Greece, suspending the derogation from the minimum eligibility requirements of the bonds issued by Athens. “Greece's bonds – said the ECB president at the conclusion of the Eurotower board meeting – are not a guarantee for liquidity. And today it is not possible to assume a positive conclusion of the program” of the Greek government. A heavy blow for Tsipras but above all for the Stock Exchange and the Greek banks which will no longer be able to participate in the ECB's auctions by withdrawing liquidity and providing the Athens government bonds as collateral despite the fact that the country no longer had an acceptable rating for some time.
The rejection of the Tsipras government program by the ECB is a cold shower for Athens, even if the ELA emergency plan remains in force, which allows the ECB to provide the Greek central bank with financing for banks that have serious liquidity problems and thus avoiding cases of dramatic insolvency. If a new agreement between Greece and the European Union does not intervene, Athens will not even be able to access the ECB's Quantitative Easing which since March has allowed the European Central Bank to buy member states' bonds on the secondary market.
The match is now all political and fully involves the Greek government but also the European institutions. From this point of view, yesterday the president of the European Commission Claude Juncker had glimmers of understanding with Greece in consideration of the fact that Tsipras assured him that Greece will respect the rules and make reforms. Solidarity with Greece has also been expressed by the French president Francois Hollande and a role of conciliation between Germany and Greece is destined to assume ever more clearly Matteo Renzi, who the other day extended his hand to Tsipras but premising that Italy will not always be in agreement with Athens and that the Italian government wants to play a leading role in changing European economic policy but without breaking with Germany, which in fact does not skimp on praise for Renzi.
