It was the unswayability of the left vote that put Alexis Tsipras straight back into the prime ministerial mansion he resigned from a month ago, calling a snap election.
The levels of economic pain and dysfunctional borrowing set to be inflicted on Greece mean that at some point public opinion will flip.
Alex Thomson
Juncker and Merkel saying early today they are confident Athens will do as it is told and as its own leader has negotiated, but the scale of the Greek PM’s U-turn remains breath-taking.
There is now the basis of a deal to keep Greece in the eurozone – but it involves the crushing of a government elected on a landslide and the flouting of a referendum.
The Greeks arrived with a set of proposals widely scorned as “more austere than the ones they rejected”. The internet burst forth with catcalls – “they’ve caved in”.
Matt Frei
Berlin had calculated that the Greek people would come to their senses and vote yes. The opposite happened – and Chancellor Merkel must now untangle a Gordian knot of a problem.
Alexis Tsipras is getting ready to stage a climbdown and he will tell the people of Greece he’s about to accept something very very similar to the conditional bailout he rejected.
The level of pressure that’s being exerted on Syriza right now, I don’t think is enough to derail a deal from below.
The country will divide: right versus left – as it has been divided since British tanks rolled into Syntagma Square in 1944 to install former Nazi collaborators into office.
The Greek crisis ramped up a gear last night when, at the start of supposed “last chance” talks in Brussels, EU negotiators told the Greek delegation that “negotiations were over”.
While Tsipras, Varoufakis and their negotiators have been trying to get the country’s debt reduced via the IMF and ECB, Zoe Konstantopoulou has been working to get it declared invalid.
There may be a technical get-out clause that allows Greece to wrap its four repayment dates to the IMF this month into one, but the IMF’s own assessment is correct: Greece can’t pay.
Running short of cash to pay public sector salaries, pensions and debt obligations, Greece’s Syriza has laid out what it will and will not negotiate with its creditors, but will it be enough?
European officials trying to secure a last-minute deal in the debt stand-off between Greece and the IMF now have to anticipate the threat of revolt within the country’s ruling Syriza party.
After a weekend of leak and counter-leak, today has seen another dramatic development: the leak to a newspaper of the European Commission’s proposal to break the Greece logjam.