Greece, Europe and Germany deserve much better than this

The eurozone should help stabilise Greece and help save Europe - instead the European project is being sacrificed on the altar of German public opinion

Whatever one thinks about the tactics of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's government in negotiations with the country's creditors, the Greek people deserve better than what they are being offered. Germany wants Greece to choose between economic collapse and leaving the eurozone. Both options would mean economic disaster; the first, if not both, would be politically disastrous as well.

When I wrote in 2007 that no member state would voluntarily leave the eurozone, I emphasised the high economic costs of such a decision. The Greek government has shown that it understands this. Following the referendum, it agreed to what it - and the voters - had just rejected: a set of very painful and difficult conditions. Tsipras and his new finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, have gone to extraordinary lengths to mollify Greece's creditors.

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