WHILE Alexis Tsipras, the hard-pressed Greek prime minister, was struggling in Brussels to win concessions on a new bail-out deal, Alekos Flambouraris, his state minister, stayed in Athens to soothe angry members of his Syriza party. Its far-left faction feared that Mr Tsipras was about to cross his “red lines” and accept a tough austerity package, just as his predecessors had done in 2010 and 2012. Greece desperately needs a deal: its terms were being fought over as The Economist went to press. Without one, it cannot pay pensions on June 30th, the day the current bail-out expires, and will also default on a €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion) debt to the IMF. If the bail-out is not renewed, Greek banks may lose the “emergency liquidity assistance” they have been getting from the European Central Bank. This has enabled the banks to survive six months of accelerating withdrawals by frightened depositors. By one recent estimate, €45 billion is now stashed under Greek mattresses. Without the ECB, capital controls would have been imposed, stifling an economy weakened by six years of recession. Yet the terms of any new bail...
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