ON FEBRUARY 20th the "Eurogroup"—the finance ministers of the 19 countries that use the euro—will meet in Brussels for the third time in ten days to try to find a way out of the Greek crisis. The mood is poisonous: on February 19th Germany unexpectedly rejected a proposal by Greece to extend its second bail-out, which expires on February 28th, just hours after the offer was made. Yet just a few months ago Greece seemed to be on the mend. After six years of recession the economy had started to grow and unemployment appeared to have peaked. The government was preparing to conclude the final phase of its second bail-out. What went wrong?
Politics, in a word. After a miscalculation by Antonis Samaras, the previous prime minister, the country was forced into a snap election on January 25th. Syriza, a left-wing party fiercely opposed to the austerity that was a condition of the bail-outs, won the vote, entering into coalition with a small group of right-wing nationalists. Many of Greece's euro-zone partners rashly assumed that once in office Alexis Tsipras (pictured), the new prime minister, would perform what in Greece is known as a kolotoumba ("somersault"), reversing his campaign pledges. Instead he and his leather-clad finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, doubled down, suggesting exotic ways to re-engineer Greece's debt and refusing pleas to extend the …<div class="og_rss_groups"></div>
