“As you would expect from the leader of Greece’s radical left opposition party, Alexis Tsipras has many pungent criticisms of eurozone economic policy: demand is too weak; fiscal discipline too severe; debt repayments too high; and, consequently, growth is elusive – even non-existent,” reported Kerin Hope and John Thornhill in a recent Financial Times article. But the two journalists went on to note that, “unlike many of the populist politicians” in Europe, SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras claims to be pro-European and wants Greece to remain in the Eurozone. “His stated aim is to reform the EU rather than smash it and he has been trying to sell this message abroad.” “We need a new European deal if we want to overcome this crisis,” the opposition leader said in a Financial Times interview. “The crisis is not just about Greece or Ireland or Portugal. It is a structural crisis of the European Union.” According to the Financial Times journalists, SYRIZA’s win in the recent European elections and his current lead in the opinion polls over government coalition parties have “prompted Mr Tsipras to drop his disruptive image and recast himself as Greece’s prime minister in waiting.” During a recent appearance at the Ambrosetti Forum panel in Italy, Tsipras met with key European intellectuals and challenged some of Europe’s leading policy makers to rethink their outlook.