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)