Several other nations are still expecting to survive the crisis, but they will face considerable market pressure and demands for any potential debt relief measures to come up with more substantial debt relief. The people of Greece are meanwhile feeling the pain: if a debt restructuring does not happen quickly, Greece is at risk of total insolvency.
Stocks around the world rose on Monday after Greece made progress in its debt talks. Optimism on the Greek debt crisis increased after Socialist prime minister Alexis Tsipras and his conservative challenger, New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, reached an agreement on important issues.
Mr Tsipras is now expected to call a snap election in the next few months, and the national broadcaster said it would end by December 20. It says the new election will happen if a leftist-leaning coalition failed to win a parliamentary majority at a new election.
Both Mr Tsipras and Mr Mitsotakis have been crisscrossing the country, meeting with people to say how they would handle their election campaigns if called. In particular, Mr Tsipras says Greece needs a more assertive stance in talks with its creditors — especially Germany, a country where a heady sense of crisis and possibility still dominates life. The outcome is critical because Greece remains to be one of the eurozone’s weakest members, and the prospect of an exit is still very much on the horizon.