Greek Trump Card Fails as Stronger Europe Shrugs Off Break-Up Threat !

• Will Greece or won’t Greece default? Yes, Greece will default. It remains to be seen whether the Eurozone can weather the storm.
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  Greek trump card fails as stronger Europe shrugs off break-up threat! 
  By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ 
  Europe’s dominant powers and institutions are for the first time willing to risk a Greek default and ejection from the euro if Athens refuses to comply with austerity demands, calculating that the eurozone system is now strong enough to withstand a contagion shock.
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  The European Central Bank’s flood of cheap credit for three years has removed the immediate threat of a banking crisis and proved a powerful tonic for confidence, transforming the character of the crisis.
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  Bond yields have plummeted in both Italy and Spain since November, largely decoupling from the ups and down of daily events in Athens. The effect has been to nullify Greece’s trump card: the implicit threat to bring down the whole edifice if treated too harshly.
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  “It’s not the end of the world if someone leaves the eurozone,” said Neelie Kroes, the European Commission vice-president, uttering in public a view already prevalent in Berlin and other northern capitals as Greek rescue costs rise by a further €15bn to €145bn. “It’s always said, if you let one nation go, or ask one to leave, the entire structure will collapse. But that is just not true,” she told De Volksrant.
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  Greece’s EU commissioner Maria Damanaki said “contingency plans” are now under way for a Greek withdrawal. “The policy for Greece is internal devaluation within the eurozone but there is preparation for other solutions, if Greece doesn’t make it on the euro zone path,” she said.
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