Down to the wire, Alexis Tsipras finally blinked.
Enough other euro countries told Greece ‘time’s up’, and now he has said ‘yes’ to a tougher deal than Greeks rejected in the we’re-not-going-to-take-it referendum that he called.
They will take it if they want 86 billion euros from the European Stability Mechanism and the IMF.
At least, they will if Tsipras can get the laws that are supposed to make the programme enforceable passed in the Greek parliament.
The plan has to win endorsement in the other national parliaments as well.
Tsipras finally accepted a compromise on essentially German demands for a trust fund in which to keep the proceeds from privatised Greek state assets. Chancellor Angela Merkel made a concession: it doesn’t have to be in Luxembourg.
Merkel accepted the Greek authorities managing this under the supervision of the European Institutions. The target is to get 50 billion euros in here, pump half of that into the starving banks again, and split the res
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