Tsipras’s government had wasted the political momentum of its victory, missed its chance to carry out a popular rupture with Brussels and henceforth negotiated from a weakening position. But Tsipras did not want to provoke a break before negotiations had even begun. Varoufakis wanted to see whether leverage would work. He knew that every time he mentioned the possibility of default on the SMP bonds, it made the ECB blanch.
