A security worker bringing money to a National Bank branch in Athens, Greece, yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has easily clinched parliamentary approval of his desired July 5 referendum on Greece’s creditors’ latest bailout terms.

By the time Greeks go to vote, however, the issue they will be voting on might be entirely irrelevant since the creditors have suggested their offer may now be off the table.

Even if the offer remains valid, many in Greece say the question that the left-wing Tsipras is posing is not actually about the bailout terms – rather the more fateful issue of Greece’s euro membership. On top of that, the only information many Greeks have about the creditors’ offer has been gleaned from leaks in the media since Greece’s government has not published the proposal. Further complicating matters, Greece could be in the middle of a full-blown financial crisis with capital controls and a default by next Sunday.

The confusion is illustrative of a country that squarely wants to remain in the euro – but bristles at what it calls the crippling conditions of its international lenders.

“The government is taking a big gamble. It is a big dilemma,” said Stefanos Nikdma, a 40-year-old shop decorator in Athens.

“Basically they are asking us if we should stay or leave Europe.”

You are calling people to vote on a proposal that has already closed

When Tsipras unveiled the referendum on Saturday, he said he wanted Greeks to decide whether to accept or reject final terms that creditors had offered. Greece’s creditors want the country to cut pensions and raise taxes in ways that Tsipras has long argued would deepen one of the worst economic crises of modern times in a country where a quarter of the workforce is already unemployed.

Though the Syriza government had floated the idea of a referendum on bailout terms before, few expected the announcement to be made days before Greece’s existing bailout expires on June 30 – which is also the day Athens owes 1.6 billion to the International Monetary Fund. To allow time for the referendum, Tsipras asked Greece’s European partners to extend the expiring bailout by a few days.

The rejection of that request by European finance ministers on Saturday now leaves Athens likely to default on its debt days before the vote. A default or a decision by the European Central Bank to yank funding to Greek banks could set off an uncontrollable cascade of events before polls open next Sunday.

Moreover, it is unclear whether the bailout offer on which the referendum is based is still valid. European finance officials made clear on Saturday that they had moved beyond bailout negotiations to emergency planning for the possible ripple effect beyond Greece of a default.

“You are calling the Greek people to vote on a proposal of a negotiation that has already closed,” former Greek Prime Minister and current Opposition leader Antonis Samaras told Parliament.