LIKE most things deemed unthinkable, Greece’s departure from the euro zone has been thought about a lot. Its open discussion at the highest levels of the European Union, though, has long remained taboo. The two weeks since June 26th, when Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, abandoned talks with the EU and IMF on a further bail-out and called a referendum on their terms, have put paid to that. Most euro-zone leaders now believe Greece has no place in the euro. Even those genuinely supportive concede that things may not go their way; François Hollande, the French president, openly discussed Grexit at the euro-zone summit which took place in Brussels on July 7th. On the same day Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, announced that the commission has a fully realised plan for Grexit.

Whether that plan will be put to use depends on discussions set for Sunday July 12th. Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, describes this as Greece’s “final deadline”. The leaders of the 19 euro-zone countries will discuss a list of reforms and cuts that Greece was due to present after The Economist went to press. That list is intended to convince Greece’s euro-zone partners to begin negotiations on a new three-year bail-out. The same day will see a summit of all 28 European Union leaders at which preparations for Grexit will be discussed in earnest. The leaders will discuss post-Grexit humanitarian aid to be paid for out of the EU budget (it was as a net contributor to that budget that Britain insisted on all 28 being involved in the discussion). Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), will explain measures for seeing off speculators looking to attack other weak links in the euro zone. Legal niceties aimed at allowing Greece to leave the euro zone without quitting the EU—an eventuality for which there is neither precedent nor protocol—may be discussed, too.

During the brief referendum campaign Mr Tsipras urged Greek voters to reject the earlier bail-out terms, assuring them that a strong No vote would strengthen his bargaining position in Brussels. They duly gave him the No he wanted (see article); but the creditors he had walked out on, and insulted during the campaign, were quietly planning to greet him on his return with a tougher line—and his rhetoric gave them a new stomach for Grexit if he did not toe it.

At the July 7th meeting they made their position abundantly clear to Mr Tsipras on four counts. First, the short-term loans his government had sought would not be forthcoming in the absence of a full bail-out. Second, there could be no backtracking on commitments the Greeks had already made on issues such as pension reform and value-added tax. Third, reforms must come before any discussion on restructuring Greece’s debt, which is now almost 180% of its GDP (the issue could be revisited in October, mused Mr Juncker). And finally, the third bail-out would involve fresh conditions in areas like product-market reform and collective-bargaining rules.

To agree to this would cut against everything Mr Tsipras’s government has done this year. But as the rest of the euro zone has been arguing repeatedly over the past weeks, Greek democracy does not enjoy priority over everyone else’s, and the voters in many other countries are fed up with bailing Greece out.

Should Mr Tsipras somehow find the stomach to submit reform proposals that the Europeans find credible, plenty more hurdles remain before any funds can be disbursed. A sum must be agreed on: one senior commission official puts it at up to €100 billion ($111 billion), and notes that the figure rises every day as capital controls eat into Greece’s economy. Greece would have to begin implementing some of its reforms. And several euro-zone parliaments would have to assent to a third bail-out.

Greece’s most vocal foes in recent weeks have been the euro zone’s poorer members, such as Slovakia and Lithuania, who compare the Greek record on reform unfavourably with their own. Germany has been more restrained, exercising its responsibility as the euro zone’s de facto leader. But a new deal would be highly unpopular there, both with the people and the politicians.

The Bundestag would have to vote twice to pass a new bail-out: once, to authorise Angela Merkel, the chancellor, to negotiate it; again to ratify it. The Social Democrats, the junior partners in her government, would probably be willing to back her. The party has historically been supportive of Greece although its boss, Sigmar Gabriel, is one of those to have taken a much more hawkish line since Mr Tsipras called his referendum. Mrs Merkel’s bigger problem is her own parliamentary group, consisting of the Christian Democratic Union and its more conservative Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union. Many in the CDU resented being cajoled into backing an extension to Greece’s second bail-out in February. In recent weeks the chorus of CDU and CSU members calling for a Grexit has grown. Mrs Merkel will prevail in the votes, but she will be weakened and embarrassed in the process. Much depends on how enthusiastically her finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, helps her sell a deal in parliament. Mr Schäuble sees the Greeks as an impediment to his dream of deepening integration among the other euro-zone members; in Athens he is the personification of German cruelty.

The fundamental flaws

However it ends, the Greek crisis has raised a number of awkward questions. The role of the ECB, which has been keeping Greece’s banks alive, is one. Nicolas Véron, a senior fellow at the Bruegel think-tank, notes that the way in which the euro zone is governed puts the ECB in an “impossible position”. The bank is the closest thing to a federal agency in the euro zone, and therefore carries much of the decision-making burden, particularly in times of crisis. But because there is no central political authority, every government wants a say. That exposes the ECB to political pressure, not least via its own governing council, which includes the central-bank governors of all 19 euro-zone countries. One day it faces accusations of meekly doing the creditors’ bidding by turning the screws on the Greeks by limiting the banks’ liquidity, causing them to close. The next it is accused of a leniency that comes close to violating its own prohibitions on monetary financing of states.