Greece is invariably held up as Exhibit One in the case against the European Union. Its six-year debt crisis—now threatening to reignite right before a British referendum on EU membership—is often presented as proof that the EU is an anti-democratic, sovereignty-destroying, austerity-loving bully. But this narrative is wide of the mark. The starting point for any debate is to recognize that most of the blame for Greece’s problems lies with Greece itself, which in the decades before the crisis embraced a catastrophically unsustainable economic model and has largely refused to change it since.

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