Greece’s bailout odyssey is over
End to Greece’s bailout more a day of reckoning than celebrating
Athens — Greece has emerged from the biggest bailout in economic history after nine years of creditor-mandated austerity, with European institutions hailing the exit a success but jaded Greeks finding little reason to celebrate. The milestone weans the debt-burdened eurozone member off financial lifelines offered on three occasions by creditors over the best part of a decade, and the country will now need to support itself. Athens will rely on bond markets to refinance its debt, leaving behind a crisis that shrank its economy by a quarter and pushed many into poverty. "Nothing changes for us," shrugged Christos Iosifidis, an 80-year-old pensioner. "We are a bankrupt country, and it won’t change for many more years." Since early 2010, Greece has relied on €260bn lent by its eurozone partners and the IMF. The European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the eurozone’s bailout fund, expressed confidence that Athens could manage without an international financial safety net. "Today we can safely...
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