It looks like we aren't going to have to wait much longer to see if Greece remains part of the eurozone or not.

Instead of softening their demands in the wake of the Greek referendum, European leaders have given the Greek government an ultimatum.  On Tuesday night, EU officials gave Greece a deadline of Thursday to submit a new proposal and a deadline of Sunday for agreeing to a deal.  If a deal is not reached on Sunday, all aid to Greece will be cut off and the nation will be faced with financial oblivion and a forced exit from the common currency.  But Angela Merkel has already made it abundantly clear that any new deal will not include a debt haircut – one of the key things that the Greek government wanted.  If a deal is actually made, it is almost certainly going to look very much like what Greece's creditors have been offering all along.  Needless to say, this is precisely what the Greek people just voted against, but the pressure on Greek leadership is immense at this point.  In essence, they are being given "an offer they can't refuse".  So will the Greek government buckle under this mobster-like intimidation?

First, let's watch what happens on Wednesday and Thursday.  The Greeks are being told that they better submit a "workable proposal" by the end of the day on Thursday or else.  The following comes from a BBC report…

The eurozone has given Greece until Thursday to present new proposals to secure a deal with creditors, and has called a full EU summit for Sunday.

European Council President Donald Tusk said this was now the "most critical moment in the history of the eurozone".

"The final deadline ends this week," he said after emergency talks in Brussels.

If a proposal that is "workable" is submitted by the end of the day on Thursday, then it will be submitted for consideration to a special summit of all 28 members of the EU on Sunday.  If an agreement is not reached by the end of the day on Sunday, then EU officials have said that they are ready to move on to Plan B.

It had been expected that the Greek government would submit something new on Tuesday, but apparently that did not happen.  The following comes from the Daily Mail…

European stock markets plunged suddenly into the red this afternoon as the war of words between Greece and its eurozone partners blew up again today and Greek banks watched their cash reserves disappear.

Greek negotiators were accused of arriving at crunch talks without any new proposals as a European Central Bank funding shutdown left the country's crippled banks with just enough cash to remain solvent for a day or two.

Ahead of a 'last chance saloon' summit for Greece to persuade its creditors to resume bailout talks, Greek officials insisted to Reuters news agency that they had submitted new credit proposals to eurozone partners.

But eurozone counterparts denied that they constituted a new plan.

At this point, the two sides cannot even agree on whether a "new plan" was proposed or not.

What hope is there that a comprehensive agreement can be reached within the next couple of days?