Greek voters are currently going to the polls in an election that will have profound consequences for the Eurozone. If the anti-austerity Syriza party wins, as the polls suggest it will—and its lead has actually been increasing in the past few days, the Eurozone crisis will enter a new and more acute phase.
Syriza will demand a softening of the terms of the Greek bailout. But the Merkel government, the European Central Bank and the European Commission are adamant that they’ll be no leeway given. With Merkel already deeply unhappy about the ECB’s quantitative easing programme, she isn’t going to sign off on any concessions to Athens.
Another reason why the powers that be in Europe are so keen to ensure that a Syriza-led Greek government gets nothing is that they fear that if it succeeds in loosening the fiscal straitjacket imposed on Greece then it will encourage voters in other struggling Eurozone countries to vote for anti-austerity parties.
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