International News

ATHENS, (APP/AFP) – A year after it fought and
lost a tug-of-war with its creditors, Greece remains a country that seems adrift, and many of its citizens view the present as joyless and the future as grim.
Summer 2015 saw Greece’s youthful left-wing prime minister Alexis
Tsipras wage an extraordinary battle between the mighty European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Over five months, Tsipras and his firebrand finance minister, Yanis
Varoufakis, took Greece and Europe to the brink as they demanded the creditors ease reforms imposed under two previous bailouts agreed since 2010.
As the EU, ECB and IMF took a hard line, Greece’s financial flows
shrank and a bank crisis loomed — but Tsipras, instead of buckling, stunned the world by announcing a referendum on the new deal proposed by creditors.
On July 5, 62 percent of voters rejected the package.
But even with the mandate of the Greek people behind him, Tsipras
backed down: the risk of seeing Greece thrown out of the eurozone was too much.
Instead, in a dramatic U-turn, he let go of Varoufakis, replaced him
with the more moderate Euclid Tsakalotos — and just over a week later, signed the third bailout.
The deal was worth 86 billion euros over three years and laden with
conditions, such as tax hikes and pension reforms, considered by critics to be so tough that social media buzzed with talk of a coup d’etat.