Greece has just experienced a nasty reality check. For Europe, the reckoning might simply lie a little further down the road. The Syriza party and prime minister Alexis Tsipras secured a triumph in the elections of January 2015 based on promises to “tear up” the bailout agreements and put an end to austerity. Until a week ago, when the notorious referendum took place on July 5, the party and its leader seemed to stick by their conviction that an aggressive stance toward EU partners should and could broker a better deal for Greece, away from halfhearted compromises. On the morning of July 13, it became obvious that this was not possible.
The Greek government had to sign an agreement not too different from those to which previous governments agreed and which were opposed by Syriza—in fact, some of the measures the Greek parliament is being asked to pass were part of previous agreements but were never implemented. Was Syriza naive? Were they populists? Probably a combination of the two.
