On Tuesday, June 30^th, 2015, Greece entered uncharted and very turbulent waters by failing to repay the nearly €1.6 billion debt bailout provided by the International Monetary Fund to address the country’s increasingly volatile fiscal standing since initial downturn in the Great Recession of 2009. A default of this nature puts the country on the path to even further recession and possibly outright depression, and will only exacerbate an already abysmal economic climate. In recent days, the Greek government has responded to the impending crisis by shutting down all banks throughout the country until Tuesday, July 7^th, as well as limiting personal withdrawals to €60 per day per account. These stop-gap measures hope to alleviate pressure in the short-term while a long-term solution is formulated and negotiated.

Due to the austere measures taken to address the country’s serious financial troubles since the original crisis in late 2009, there have been some seriously negative and impactful results. Unemployment holds steady at roughly 25%, approximately 35% of the total population lives below the national poverty line, and droves of privately-owned businesses and enterprises have been forced to close up shop. Over 1 million jobs have been lost in the last six years, and Greece is the only European nation where the minimum wage has dropped and public sector salaries have not grown. As a result, Greece and her people come ever closer to total economic collapse and risk becoming a failed state entirely. Such a collapse would be unprecedented in the modern era, and have very serious global, financial, and geopolitical ramifications.

Leading the Eurozone member states in the ongoing talks is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a woman with the fate of more than one nation in her hands. Germany has been Greece’s largest creditor in the series of bailouts given to the ailing nation since 2010 and holds a tremendous stake in its fiscal well-being, as well as being a major player in the Eurozone in its own right by boasting the largest economy of the nineteen member nations. Thus far, Chancellor Merkel has been steadfast in her belief that the least immediately damaging solution to the crisis would be to accept a Greek withdrawal from the Eurozone, but was cognizant of potential long-term consequence. "Perhaps we could give them up in the short term, maybe we could say 'let's just give in for once,'" Merkel stated regarding the dilemma, "But I say: in the medium and long term, this would damage us. It would damage us in that we would cease to be relevant in the world, that our unity disappears." Many hope that a compromise between Greece and Merkel, and by extension other members of the Eurozone, will be reached to avoid potentially severe global economic ramifications.

Should Greece pack its bags and leave the Eurozone such a departure will set a very dangerous precedent for the single currency conglomerate. The veracity of the Eurozone and the stability of its currency will be brought into legitimate question, and may ultimately lead to other participating nations leaving in the future as wel, should the necessity or opportunity present itself. History has a tendency to repeat itself and, should this particular history repeat itself, it could lead, in an all-time-worst-case scenario, to the eventual unraveling of the Eurozone and European Union altogether—if taken to its extreme.

The European Union has no lawful means to force a state to give up membership of the Eurozone and return to its own currency, and so the choice is entirely in the hands of the Greek government and people. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the Greek government face an unprecedented decision and extraordinary disaster. It is a disaster the likes of which have never been seen or experienced by an advanced nation in the 21^st century, and it is a decision that will forever alter the course of Greece and fellow members of the European Union, and will ultimately shake the world as a whole.