Europe's grand project to bind its nations into an unbreakable union by means of a common currency has lurched into uncharted waters after EU governments refused funding to save Greece from defaulting on its debts.
While finance ministers of the other 18 eurozone states chorused their insistence that Greece would remain inside the bloc, exasperation with the leftist government's decision to reject creditors' final offer and instead call a referendum was manifest, and some officials spoke privately of expelling Athens.
"They were playing poker," said Austrian Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling after the Eurogroup, which runs the currency, met on Saturday without their Greek counterpart to discuss how to limit the fallout. "But in poker, you can always lose."