In pursuing that project one could make concessions neither to the short-term time horizons of markets nor to Syriza-style protest politics. To ensure that Europe stayed the course, it was essential to contain “political contagion.” It would be disastrous to make concessions to the Far Left government in Greece, concessions that during the crisis had been denied to the governments of Eastern Europe, Ireland, Spain and Portugal. Whatever the misery of the Greek population, it hardly mattered in the wider economic balance of the eurozone. The battle was about the wider questions of political
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