Juncker: “Greece Was On My Mind Every Single Night” as Grexit Loomed
A new documentary has pulled back the curtain on the summer of 2015, when Greece came within a hair of crashing out of the eurozone. "Sto Xiliosto" (At the Millimeter), directed by Eleni Varvitsiotis and Victoria Dendrinου, features the key players breaking their silence more than a decade later, and what they reveal is striking.
Jean-Claude Juncker, who was European Commission President at the time, admits he was furious as the crisis peaked. He also confesses to something few knew: he would occasionally call ordinary Greek families just to ask how they were living through the chaos. "I'd ask them: how is the situation at the hospitals?" he says. Some called him back to confirm it wasn't a prank. "Greece was day and night on my mind. I've spent so many nights of my life with Greece on my mind. You cannot imagine," Juncker says in the film.
"I'd ask them: how is the situation at the hospitals?" — Jean-Claude Juncker
Thomas Wieser, who headed the Euroworking Group from 2009 to 2018, puts it bluntly: when the rupture came, he felt it was the end. Margaritis Schinas, who served as European Commission spokesman during Juncker's presidency from 2014 to 2019, reveals that Juncker specifically wanted a Greek voice representing Europe during the country's darkest hour.
Inside the Greek government, the decision to call a referendum blindsided almost everyone. Former Defense Minister Panos Kammenos recalls getting an early morning call from Tsipras in Brussels, hearing the strain in his voice and flying there immediately. Former Minister of State Nikos Pappas describes being woken up and summoned to a meeting on the 25th floor of a hotel, where Tsipras told the cabinet there was no viable path forward and the Greek people had to be asked directly. Panagiotis Lafazanis, then Energy Minister and from the left faction of Syriza, says the cabinet froze. He personally read the referendum decision as Tsipras preparing to leave the euro if necessary.
Angela Merkel, in her own testimony, says EU leaders urged Tsipras to accept what she called an unusually generous offer from the three institutions to take the final step. Tsipras rejected the framing entirely, insisting EU principles were not built on blackmail.
The documentary captures a moment when ATMs ran dry, petrol station queues stretched around the block, and the entire Greek financial system teetered on a de facto return to the drachma.
