QE without austerity would have been impossible politically for conservatives to bear.82 How tightly the two were coupled would become clear in the second half of 2015 as the tensions left by the eurozone crisis continued to rack European politics. The anti-Syriza front in the Eurogroup had reason to worry. First in Portugal in October 2015, and then in Spain in December 2015, elections delivered serious blows to the conservative and centrist parties that had toed the line of austerity since 2010.
