The Greek government was gauging the effects of the vote for Brexit in the hours and days after the referendum in Britain, with the main emphasis on what repercussions are in store for the still fragile Greek economy and its efforts to stabilize.
The referendum result was inauspicious for Athens, given that it came within a month after the leftist Greek government finally concluded a first review of the Greek program (third bailout) with creditors, a development punctuated by six months of delays.
All eyes are now on Wednesday’s EU Council summit in Brussels.
In a bid to dissect the British referendum result through its own political and ideological prism, the Greek government leaked, through “sources”, what it believes caused “Brexit”, namely, poor handling of the European economic crisis going back to 2008.
Government sources, which echoed previous SYRIZA party assessments on recent European policies, claimed that Europe’s reaction “feed isolationism and nationalism”.
In one initial reaction, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras referred to a “shock and landmark” decision. He told the leader of the small centrist Potami party, Stavros Theodorakis, that Europe was concerned with “Grexit”, only for Brexit to materialize.
On his part, main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis cited what he called a “loud message for all of Europe,” calling for a “new plan to again inspire European peoples and to improve the life of all its citizens, which have been affected by the crisis”.
