Alexis Tsipras
Alexis Tsipras was elected to end austerity, held a referendum that rejected it, and then signed a harder version of it within a week. He was a civil engineer and student activist who took over a coalition of the radical left polling in single figures, and rode the collapse of the Greek party system into office in January 2015. Greece was five years into a depression that had cut output by a quarter and put unemployment above twenty-five per cent, under bailout terms set by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF. The confrontation that followed lasted six months. His finance minister argued that the debt was unpayable and the programme self-defeating, which the IMF's own later analysis largely conceded; the creditors held that the terms were not negotiable. In June the banks closed, capital controls were imposed, and he put the offer to a referendum. Greeks rejected it by sixty-one per cent. He accepted a tougher package eight days later, on the judgement that the alternative was leaving the euro with a banking system already shut. Half his parliamentary group refused to follow him, and he won the election he called to settle it. His lasting act was elsewhere. In 2018 he signed the Prespa agreement with Zoran Zaev, ending a twenty-seven-year dispute in which Greece had blocked its northern neighbour's entry to NATO and the EU over the name Macedonia. The country became North Macedonia; both men were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and both lost the next election at home, partly over it.
- Lived: 1974 CE – ?
- Nationality: Greek
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
