The risk of an accidental but devastating Greek exit from the eurozone has increased in recent days because of the “palpable ill-will” between the two sides, George Osborne warned yesterday.
The chancellor’s clear impatience over the brinkmanship and name-calling between Greece and its eurozone partners came amid unconfirmed claims that the Athens government was 26 days away from running out of cash.
Mr Osborne told MPs that a Greek exit would be traumatic for that country and the wider 19-nation eurozone, which is Britain’s biggest trading partner by far, and rejected suggestions that the euro bloc was now strong enough to withstand it. It “would establish the principle that people can leave and that of course opens the eurozone up to repeated bouts of instability”,