Tsipras wants to blackmail Europe

In the run-up to the new elections in Greece next Sunday the liberal business paper Financial Times Deutschland believes the left-wing candidate and potential winner Alexis Tsipras could try to blackmail Europe if he is elected: "If Tsipras wins, and everything points to him doing just that, we will experience the first rise to power of a demagogue in the euro crisis. ... Tsipras says: 'All of Europe is in danger', as all the countries are interdependent. He wants, he says - and this sentence should be read very attentively - to convince his 'European partners that it is in their interests not to stop financing (Greece)'. 'If we don't convince them - and we are not going to adopt any unilateral measures - but they go ahead and implement unilateral measures, stopping the bailout payments, we will be forced to stop paying our creditors.' ... This is the first time a European partner has used our interdependence to take us hostage, turning its weakness and dependence into a strength. Why didn't anyone do this earlier? One thing must be clear after June 17: Europe must not allow itself to be blackmailed. If the Greeks choose this path, we must let them bear the consequences - or drop them."

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