Zoom out a bit from the gushing river of breaking news about Greece’s fiscal future, and here’s the big picture of what looks to have happened in Athens on Wednesday.

Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, has spent the last six months, since his left-wing Syriza party came to power, trying to shift the entire political framework of his country’s bailout negotiations. That effort has failed. By indicating that his government could accept much of what Greece’s creditors demanded as conditions for a bailout extension late last week, Mr. Tsipras seems to have finally acknowledged this inability to reset the terms of debate over austerity and democracy in Europe.

For five years, the simple trade-off offered by the richer European countries and the European Central Bank has been this: If Greece accepts massive austerity — like pension cuts and layoffs of government employees — it can remain in the eurozone with the help of bailouts, with central bank credit extended to Greek banks, and so on. Austerity was the price to be paid for keeping the monetary stability created by the euro currency.