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.
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”.
Why did Varoufakis go? The official reason, on his blog, was pressure from creditors. But there are a whole host of other reasons that made it easier for him to decide to yield to it.
The IMF’s report yesterday got swamped amid the gloom, despondency and fractiousness of the Greek crisis. It said, in short, Greece’s debt has become unsustainable.
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.
Last night’s ‘Yes’ campaign demo was big – I would say maybe a quarter bigger than the ‘No’ demo of Monday, and with a much more angry atmosphere.
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”.
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.
While the Riga Eurogroup meeting on Friday is not the last chance Greece has to be rescued, it is probably the last chance for it to achieve a result outside of crisis measures.
It’s the meeting that had to happen. A radical left-wing Greek prime minister and a centre-right German chancellor whose ministers have been urging her to throw Greece out of the eurozone.
Today is the Greek equivalent of Gettysburg. After the ECB agreed to extend emergency lending for Greek banks for only a few days, the Greeks have until tonight to reach a compromise deal.