The Guardian published today an inside story about the drama of last summer’s negotiations between Greek government and its creditors. It reveals what exactly happened last June, when Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras stepped back and accepted to sign a third memorandum keeping Greece in the euro zone.

“Late on the afternoon of Friday 10 July, as European finance ministers were packing their bags for Brussels to attend yet another meeting on the Greek debt crisis, they received a shocking email from Berlin” the article starts.

As it mentions, before officials could meet to discuss the new set of proposals sent by Tsipras, Germany sent an email saying “ if the Greek government would not undertake more drastic reforms, the German email said, Greece should be offered swift negotiations on a time-out from the eurozone.”

As it is mentioned, “it was clear that Grexit was an option and Athens would need to capitulate to German demands on austerity”.

Schäuble’s proposal was sent in an one-page memo form and, according to the article, that proposal was designed to ensure a Greek departure from the euro.

“A lot of people were really scandalised,” a senior diplomat in Brussels said. “It was incredible. No country could have accepted this.” And for Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, the Schäuble ultimatum was an untenable exercise in German humiliation of Greece and it had to be stopped.

The three days that followed Schäuble’s shocking email would see finance ministers and central bankers locked in negotiations, since the stakes could not have been higher.

If they kicked out Greece, then they would have sent a “terrifying signal to the weaker countries of the eurozone, a warning that they must observe German-led instructions on sound budgets, austerity, public expenditure cuts, structural reforms. In short, if they did not become more German, they might become the new Greece.”

Click here to read the full article.