Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

a remarkable 61.31 percent voted against accepting the troika proposal. Given that the plan had by that point been repudiated as unsustainable by the IMF, the vote was not so much a wild act of political desperation as a brave and much-needed assertion of common sense. But the response from the creditor side was unyielding. Athens had until July 12 to come up with an even more austere and even less sustainable proposal or face expulsion from the eurozone. On July 9, with help from the French Treasury, the Syriza government cobbled together a new scheme, taking up a compromise on welfare cuts and tax increases proposed by the commission and coupling it to an appeal for modest debt write-offs and new credits of 53 billion euros. For the left wing of Syriza it was shameful surrender. Varoufakis, who resigned following the referendum, joined the internal party opposition.