On this side of the pond we hear plenty about the Greek debt crisis, Tsipras, his finance minister, Lagarde, Merkel, the European Central Bank and drachmas.

But at the heart of Prime Minsiter’s Tsipras’ unwillingness to make a dea with Greek’s creditors is his partner and mate, Tsipras says his partner will leave him if he settles with Greece’s creditors.

Betty Baziana and Tsipras fell in love in grade school.  They have never married.  They have two chidren, one of whom is named after Che Guevera.

When they met, Tspiras was interested in sports, Betty in politics.  She is extremely accomplished:

Peristera Baziana (Betty) received her Dr.-Ing. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece in 2008. Since 2002 she has been a research fellow of the NTUA, while during the period 2000-2002 she was a research fellow of the University of Patras, Greece. Her research interests include optical communications, optical networks architectures and transmission protocols, analytical modeling and optimization, and telecommunication systems simulation. She has more than 35 publications in international journals and conferences with reviewers, related to these fields. Also she has supervised many diploma theses. As a seconded teacher of Informatics, during the period 2014-2015 she has been a laboratory assistant at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, NTUA, Greece.

Is Tsipras choice really betwen love and a deal?