The Future of Greece - Essay Example

Interestingly, news articles and public opinion tended to believe that Greece would default and the European Union would be faced with the question of whether to integrate further whether to dissolve entirely. Although this is still very much a reasonable expectation with respect to the outcome of the PIIGS in Europe (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain), a more likely scenario that is been exhibited over the past several years is the fact that the European Union will continue to bankroll the debt of Greece, and country similar to it, as long as the central bank of Europe has the wherewithal to continue bankrolling the liabilities of this small southern European nation.

Ultimately, there are only two outcomes can exist for Greece in light of the information that is thus far been presented. Sadly, neither of these outcomes are particularly optimistic. The first outcome is necessarily contingent upon the belief that Greece will ultimately default upon the debt that the European Union has provided it and will be censured by dismissal from the European Union and forced to be something of a satellite state to the European Union; something that is never before happened.

Within this particular interpretation of overall likelihood and future potential, Greece would be able to regain control of its currency and either renege upon the debt that it has thus far accrued by printing a massive amount of money, or seeks to honor these engagements through a slow and arduous process of repayment. Within such a framework, the only tangential benefit set out to that would be the sovereignty over its own monetary instruments and the mechanisms through which a Greek central bank could seek to change the fiscal policy and dismal economic Outlook that the nation faces in the immediate and near future.

A secondary and equally dismal outcome is that Greece would maintain itself within the European Union and continue to borrow an unsustainable level of cash as a means of funding its operations domestically. Unless the European Union type is debt mechanism and does not allow for Greece to continue to exercise the bailouts that is received over the past several years, this outcome is not only likely but expected. However, the repercussions of such a decision matrix would mean that Greece would not be able to exercise any degree of sovereignty with respect to the way in which it continues to operate its economy.

Due to the ever increasing level of regulations that European funding, through the European Central Bank, has impacted upon Greece, nearly each and every economic decision that is made at the national level is not contingent upon the actual decision-makers within the country; rather, it is contingent upon how Brussels views the best interests of Greece through a strategy of debt repatriation Sadly, both of these alternatives necessarily create a situation through which the nation of Greece is at the mercy of an unbelievably high level of national that for a very long period of time.

A handful of instances can be recalled that help the reader to understand how such constricting levels of debt can impact upon the overall quality of life, GDP, and expectation for future profitability that the nation might at some point in the future hope to assume. As it stands within the current model, the debt of Greece is something of the sword of Damocles through which the Greek economy can neither escape nor hope to grow. This is not only a dire situation but one that begs the relevant powers