The euro-crisis and the Greek crisis

The response to Syriza's electoral victory in Greece has been characterised by knee-jerk reactions, with plenty of calls that Greeks should just pay up when it comes to their debts.

While it was indeed the Greeks themselves who chose the politicians who led the country into disaster, such simple declarations mark a more complex truth.

And they effectively shut down discussion about the EU’s grave economic problems. Unemployment in the euro area in the past two years has been alm...