Angela Merkel’s legacy at stake as she confronts choice between two disasters

Whatever happens in Athens and Brussels to resolve the Greek crisis, Germany's chancellor faces growing criticism at home

On Friday night, millions of Germans sat down to watch the TV political comedy The Icedancer, about a German chancellor whose husband whisks her away on holiday to escape the stress of conflict in Ukraine and the Greek crisis. On the way to catch their train, she is knocked on the head by a falling signpost and wakes believing she is living in the runup to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It's unlikely that Angela Merkel would wish to return to the cold war era. But the chance to turn the clock back to a time before the Greek euro crisis dominated her chancellorship is something she might have relished this past week. The German leader has faced the biggest test of her almost decade-long tenure in the days leading up to last night's dramatic debate on whether to bail Greece out again or to cut it loose from the eurozone.

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