The Greeks voted to end their national humiliation. Now it's time for Europe to cut them a better deal.

The great European project can still be saved

Greece EU
(Image credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

This weekend, the Greek people voted in a referendum on whether to accept the terms of the latest bailout offer from the eurozone brass. The offer had been withdrawn by the time of the vote, but Greeks voted to reject it anyway, by a nearly 23-point margin, showing that bald threats from top eurozone elites had backfired spectacularly.

So despite being technically pointless, the vote stood as a good indicator of Greece's current feeling towards domination by the bungling European Union elite: two raised middle fingers, held high. The political action now turns to that same elite. Will they continue to bludgeon the Greek people with austerity, or cut them a better deal?

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.