Greece’s debt crisis
Witness History16 Jul 2025

Greece’s debt crisis

It was a week that brought the future of Greece and the Eurozone to the brink. Ten years ago, on 6 July the Greek people voted against the terms of a financial bailout which included raising taxes and slashing welfare spending.

Greece owed €323bn to various countries and banks within Europe. Its banks were closed. A quarter of the population and half of Greece’s young people were unemployed.

The morning after the vote, Euclid Tsakalotos was brought in to replace Yanis Varoufakis as finance minister. His predecessor had accused European leaders of “terrorism” in their handling of the crisis. Parachuted in to last-ditch talks with angry European leaders, Euclid Tsakalotos describes to Josephine McDermott the make-or-break 17-hour summit in Brussels.

He reveals that when Angela Merkel, the leader of Greece’s biggest lender Germany, said she was leaving the room because she could not accept what was on the table, Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, actually locked the door to stop her leaving and force an agreement to be reached.

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(Photo: A queue outside a bank in Greece in 2015. Credit: Getty Images)

Episoder(2000)

The warship lost for more than 300 years

The warship lost for more than 300 years

In 1628, at the height of Sweden’s military expansion, the Swedish Navy built a new flagship, the Vasa. At the time it was the most heavily armed ship in the world. But 2 hours into its maiden voyage, it sank in Stockholm's harbour. It remained there for more than three hundred years, until its discovery in 1961. Tim Mansel hears from the former Swedish naval officer, Bertil Daggfeldt, about the day that the warship was recovered in near-perfect condition. Image: The Vasa after its recovery (The Vasa Museum)

3 Apr 201910min

EMDR: the eye-movement therapy

EMDR: the eye-movement therapy

EMDR is a form of psychotherapy which works for many sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder. The 'eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing' technique was first developed in the USA in the late 1980s by Francine Shapiro. She set up an EMDR Institute and Ashley Byrne has been speaking to psychologist Dr Gerald Puk, one of its senior trainers.(Picture: a model looking downwards. Credit: Getty Images.)

1 Apr 20198min

Patty Hearst the rebel heiress

Patty Hearst the rebel heiress

Patty Hearst was kidnapped by an extreme left-wing group called the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. She had been held hostage for two months when, in April of that year, she announced that she had come to share their beliefs. She would go on to take part in an attempted bank robbery before being arrested and put on trial. Louise Hidalgo spoke to two women who remember the impact of her kidnapping in California in 1974.Photo: Patty Hearst posing with a machine gun in front of a Symbionese Liberation Army flag in 1974. (Credit: Getty Images.)

1 Apr 20199min

Mindfulness for the masses

Mindfulness for the masses

In 1979 scientist Jon Kabat-Zinn opened the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, pioneering a meditative approach to treat pain and depression.  In a few decades mindfulness has gone from being a specialist element of Buddhist teaching to a billion dollar industry. Farhana Haider has been speaking to Dr Kabat-Zinn about the popularising of mindfulness to tackle the stresses of modern life.(Photo Jon Kabat-Zinn teaching MBSR at the University of Massachusetts Medical School 1992, Credit Jon Kabat-Zinn)

29 Mar 201911min

The secret Nazi past of Kurt Waldheim

The secret Nazi past of Kurt Waldheim

Witness History talks to the American lawyer who led the investigation into the secret Nazi past of former United Nations Secretary-General, Kurt Waldheim. Kurt Waldheim was standing for election to the Austrian presidency when the allegations first emerged in the New York Times in March 1986. Lawyer Eli Rosenbaum, on whose information the New York Times story was based, tells Louise Hidalgo how he helped to expose the truth about Waldheim's wartime record and how UN war crimes files naming Kurt Waldheim had lain hidden for decades in the vaults while Waldheim was UN Secretary General.Picture: Kurt Waldheim talking to voters in Vienna in 1986 during his campaign for the Austrian presidency (credit: Jacques Langevin/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)

28 Mar 20199min

Around the world in 20 days

Around the world in 20 days

In March 1999 Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard made the first non-stop flight around the world in a balloon. Beginning in Switzerland and finishing over Africa, the record-breaking trip took just 20 days. Pilot Brian Jones has been telling Mike Lanchin about the highs and lows of the amazing and dangerous journey.(Photo credit BBC)

27 Mar 20199min

Drama in the British parliament

Drama in the British parliament

In March 1979, the British Prime Minister James Callaghan was struggling desperately to govern with a parliamentary majority of just three. When the Conservative opposition tabled a motion of no-confidence, his party whips fought a furious - and ultimately unsuccessful - battle to keep him in power. Simon Watts listens through the BBC's archives to tales from the collapse of the Callaghan government. Picture: James Callaghan outside 10 Downing Street (Fox Photos/Getty Images)

26 Mar 20199min

The first home pregnancy test

The first home pregnancy test

A female designer working for an American pharmaceutical company came up with the idea in the 1960s, but her bosses didn't like it at first. Margaret Crane has been telling Maria Elena Navas how she had to develop her designs on her own after being told that women couldn't be trusted to use a home testing kit properly.Photo: Margaret Crane's first home testing kit. Credit: National Museum of American History.

25 Mar 20199min

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