Sometimes the game of chicken ends in a crash

Tsipras favours Greek jobless over creditors in defiant policy speech

I would rather Syriza did not back down, and the Germans and the bankers did.

But no one is backing down

This is the cultural background to the meeting last week between Wolfgang Schäuble and Yanis Varoufakis, respectively the German and Greek finance ministers. 

It took Varoufakis less than five minutes in the press conference to get to the N-word. 

“Germany must and can be proud that nazism has been eradicated here,” said the Greek finance minister, “but it’s one of history’s most cruel ironies that nazism is rearing its ugly head in Greece, a country which put up such a fine struggle against it.”

The subtext understood by many Greeks was: you were once Nazis, we fought and beat you, you have no moral right to push our country into chaos. 

It must have been tough for the Germans to hear – but they’ll be hearing an even tougher message should their politicians succeed in ejecting Greece from the euro.

For Germany’s unwillingness to lead Europe is the old problem. 

The new problem is Germany’s demonstrable willingness to break up Europe. 

Pleas for the continent’s largest economy to expand state spending are met with the schwarze null policy: 0% budget deficits, imposed by law. 

Brazen acts of proxy warfare by the Kremlin are met with diplomatic dithering. 

The sight, on top of that, of large anti-Muslim demonstrations in this, the richest and most politically stable country in Europe, is now reviving hostility towards Germany way beyond Greece.