Late last night #ThisIsACoup trended worldwide, and spent time as the number one hashtag in Ireland, Germany, and Greece. A New York Times opinion piece by economist Paul Krugman titled 'Killing the European Project' went viral at the same time.
The economics professor begins by describing the Eurogroup's demands as "madness" - and continues, "this goes beyond harsh into pure vindictiveness, complete destruction of national sovereignty, and no hope of relief" - "it’s a grotesque betrayal of everything the European project was supposed to stand for."
He concludes: "The European project — a project I have always praised and supported — has just been dealt a terrible, perhaps fatal blow. And whatever you think of Syriza, or Greece, it wasn’t the Greeks who did it."
The underlying issue for Krugman is questioning what is motivating Germany to take such a hard stance - and whether anyone in Europe can offer credible opposition to German demands which seem to be based more on a political ideology, rather than any economic logic.
In Greece this morning's newspapers are littered with references to World War II - more hardline #ThisIsaCoup protesters on Twitter were also fast to make a connection.
Images such as a European flag with a swastika made out of yellow stars and doctored photos of German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble supporting a Hitler-style moustache were widely shared.
Stay classy #ThisIsACoup pic.twitter.com/rkDBTup5TH
— Exen (@Exen) July 13, 2015
We can expect more colourful rhetoric when this deal is debated in the Greek parliament...
Channel 4 economics editor and Guardian columnist Paul Mason commented on the extraordinary negotiating process in a video blog post on the C4 News Facebook page:
"The wishes of the government - the wishes of the people have been twice overthrown by Europe," he says.
"And everybody is worried now about what signal that sends - leave aside all the rhetoric, about 'it's a coup' - or 'it's not democracy.' The functional signal that it sends to every other country - not just in the eurozone, but in Europe is that finance will be used in a hostile way.
"The impact borders on [the introduction of] a sanctions regime."
Meanwhile, Forbes ran the headline 'Germany's Plan To Rescue Greece: Wars Have Started Over Less Than This' - while Guardian journalists Jonathan Freedland and Larry Elliott have framed the last 24 hours as the point where Germany moved away from the European unity narrative and acknowledged the German-centric nature of the Union.
This shift could have a major impact on the debate around EU membership in the UK - which in turn could have massive consequences for the Irish economy if a Eurosceptic shift causes a British exit.
The #ThisIsACoup hashtag originated among left-wing activists in Barcelona. It might be hyperbolic - but this has been arguably (almost certainly) the most openly hostile interaction between two EU countries since the inception of the Union.
It is likely to result in either the collapse of the Syriza government, or Greece's exit from the monetary union.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a coup as, "A sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government" - going by that definition this doesn't qualify because there was nothing sudden about it - and they're not breaking any laws.
