2015-06-29forbes.com

Freezing ELA means that Greece can now only regard itself as a "user" of the Euro rather than a full member of the currency union. There is no legal means for countries to leave the Euro, but it seems that they can be frozen out...The ECB's statement makes no mention of bank solvency: the liquidity freeze responds to the failure of the talks and the decision by the Greek government to call a referendum. The freeze is therefore an overtly political move. The independence of the ECB has been shattered.

The "irrevocability" of the Euro is no longer credible. Using liquidity restriction to force a country to introduce capital controls is tantamount to suspending its Euro membership. So the sovereign debt of other distressed Eurozone countries will now carry a risk premium because of the possibility of membership suspension...

The Euro can no longer be regarded as a "single currency". It has been revealed for what it really is, a system of hard currency pegs between 19 -- or perhaps now 18 -- sovereign countries. And a system of hard currency pegs is fragile. The risk that the Eurozone will unravel is substantially increased.



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