As the media and the Athens stock market (down 4 percent yesterday) had widely expected, yesterday’s finance ministers’ meeting ended in failure, perhaps even a momentous one.

The tone of the Greek government’s official communiqué, which the whole media were quick to pick up on, was very tough indeed: “‘Certain circles’ insistence that the new Greek government implement the Memorandum is absurd and unreasonable. The implementation of the Memorandum program was not on the table at the summit, and those who try to put it back there are wasting their time.”

Such language is entirely out of the norm for this type of context. But even before the beginning of the meeting, Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, had been particularly insulting in his remarks, even by his own standards, declaring that “he felt sorry for the Greeks because their government is behaving irresponsibly.”