''Late
on the afternoon of Friday 10 July, as European finance ministers were
packing their bags for Brussels to attend yet another meeting on the
Greek debt crisis, a shocking email from Berlin landed in the inboxes of
a very small number of top officials. Earlier that week, the Greek
prime minister, Alexis Tsipras,
had been given an ultimatum by his fellow European leaders: deliver a
radical new blueprint for economic reform and spending cuts – or face
bankruptcy.
Tsipras had delivered a new set of proposals, but before officials
could meet in Brussels to discuss them, the German finance minister,
Wolfgang Schäuble, delivered a preemptive strike: if the Greek
government would not undertake more drastic reforms, the German email
said, “Greece should be offered swift negotiations on a time-out from
the eurozone.” There had been speculative talk that Greece
might have to quit the single currency – and sentiment among other euro
members had hardened against Athens in the six months since Syriza,
Tspiras’s leftwing movement, came to power – but until now, no one had
formally proposed pushing the country out..''
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