A full-blown Greek tragedy: logjam over bailout talks

Earlier this year Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin did an interview with this newspaper in which he excoriated the Coalition for being a pushover when it sought a debt haircut in 2011. Sinn Féin, on the other hand, claimed Adams, would have put in the all-nighters and the marathon talks to have forged a better deal for Ireland that would have involved significant haircuts.

Well, we are getting a very good demonstration so far this week of how that might have turned out. And the answer is, not very well.

The basic logjam (and it's a big one) is over the bailout programme involving the Troika. Greece wants it to end, replaced by a relatively short buffer period, so that an alternative programme can be agreed. But Europe hasn't budged on the matter.

At Monday's meeting of EU finance ministers, it found itself alone and isolated. Its finance minister Yanis Varoufakis might be arguing there is no Plan B, that its Plan A is the only show in town. But as far as other Eurogroup finance minsiters are concerned, including Michael Noonan, the Plan A is the bailout programme, or rather an extension to it when it runs out at the end of this month.

Europe correspondent Suzanne Lynch has the details.

Of course, there are substantial domestic repercussions to the outcome of the talks. Sinn Féin, the smaller left-wing parties, and some independents including MEPs Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan and Nessa Childers, have all hitched their wagons to Syriza.

Syriza has already retreated from a lot of its most outspoke positions held over the past few years, including exiting the euro or repudiating its debts (unilateral default of its loans). What is seeks now is renegotiations (ie, a new deal). If it gets something approximating that, and can parlay it up, it could result in a huge electoral set back for Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil.

Domestically, it’s a simple binary outcome but a massive one.

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