Last Sunday, Greek citizens experienced a rare moment of elation when it seemed for a split second that the country was set to reclaim its future, albeit at the cost of short-term economic catastrophe.
Swept up in the referendum fever, 61% of the country voted "no" to further austerity, cementing Alexis Tsipras' hold on power and giving the PM carte blanche to tell Angela Merkel, Wolfgang Shchaeuble, and the rest of the Bundestag that Greece's days as a debt colony were officially over.
Only that's not what happened.
Instead, Tsipras promptly submitted a virtually identical proposal to that which Greeks rejected at the polls in an apparent attempt to rescue the country from the grip of capital controls and a banking crisis the severity of which the PM might have thought Greeks didn't fully understand.
Unfortunately, it appears as though Tsipras misjudged how determined the German finance ministry is to expel Greece and now, after Saturday's Eurogroup summit served only to harden Germany's position [3], Tsipras faces the worst case scenario: he sold out voters by proposing the very deal they shunned only to be told that the deal still wasn't good enough.
Now, heading into a meeting with euro area leaders, Tsipras is left with nothing but hollow rheotric - "hope" for lack of a better word.
- TSIPRAS: GREECE IS READY FOR AN HONORABLE COMPROMISE
- TSIPRAS: AGREEMENT CAN BE REACHED TONIGHT IF ALL WANT IT
Unfortunately for Tsipras, and even more unfortunately for the poor Greeks, "all" most certainly do not want it, which explains why the broken PM now has that sinking feeling...
[4]
And as for why Europe is stalling:
without a deal Greek capital controls to continue indefinitely. Banks said to run out of all cash in 24-48 hours
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 12, 2015 [5]
