Yanis
Varoufakis talks again, insults everybody
The
ex-Greek finance minister closes out a difficult year by torching his
former Eurogroup colleagues.
By LAURENS CERULUS
12/24/15, 6:06 AM CET Updated 12/24/15, 9:13 AM CET
Never waste an
opportunity to antagonize — that could be Yanis Varoufakis’s
motto.
The Greek economist
who served as finance minister at the height of the country’s debt
crisis this year lashed out yet again at his opponents.
In an interview
published in Thursday’s edition of the Dutch newspaper De
Volkskrant, Varoufakis took dozens of hard swings at those who have
vilified him and his negotiation tactics. Among the greatest hits
were Varoufakis claiming the Eurogroup is a place fit only for
psychopaths, calling German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble a
puppet master and bashing Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem as
an ineffectual tool of the Germans.
Here are the
highlights:
1. It was one big
coup d’état
European partners
came to an agreement with Tsipras’s left-wing government on a third
bailout after a hot summer of tense negotiations and slow progress.
Many still blame the Varoufakis for the disastrous turn of events.
Does Varoufakis
agree?
“No! I won’t do
that. It was nothing but a coup, one big coup d’état. And it
succeeded,” he said.
“I’m not taking
any responsibility for that,” he said. “My speeches were
moderate, my plans measured, my advisors were not left-wing lunatics.
There was another reason that the other side poured poison and lies
over me, and portrayed me as a dangerous radical while I was the most
right wing minister in the cabinet. If I was a crazy left-wing
lunatic, they wouldn’t have been afraid of me.”
“No, they wanted
to get rid of me because I knew what I was talking about.”
“My speeches were
moderate, my plans measured, my advisors were not left-wing lunatics.
If I was a crazy left-wing lunatic, they wouldn’t have been afraid
of me” — Yanis Varoufakis
Jeroen Dijsselbloem,
the president of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, confirmed to the
Dutch broadcaster NOS that he pushed Tsipras to pull out his finance
minister. The Dutchman said he didn’t think Varoufakis had a
mandate to negotiate, and thus “I went to do this with the prime
minister instead,” he said in an interview to be broadcasted next
Monday.
2. Dijsselbloem is a
puppet, Schaüble his master
Varoufakis clashed
repeatedly with his fellow finance ministers in the Eurogroup.
Soothing the egos of politicians and power brokers was not his strong
suit.
When asked who
dominated the meetings, he said: “(German Finance Minister)
Wolfgang
Schäuble. He’s
the puppet master who pulls all the strings. All the other ministers
are marionettes. Schäuble is the grandmaster of the Eurogroup. He
decides who becomes the president, he determines the agenda, he
controls everything.”
The Greek
ex-minister is especially hard for Dijsselbloem. “[He] has no real
power. Dijsselbloem has no authority; he is a soldier, a puppet …
He can’t make any decisions without calling Schäuble.”
“Dijsselbloem is a
cog in a machine that he doesn’t understand himself,” he said
later in the interview. “There was absolutely no reason for me to
speak with Jeroen because he was neither willing nor able to have a
real discussion, let alone interested.”
But one leader gets
praise from the Greek economist: the European Central Bank’s
President Mario Draghi: “A formidable economist,” Varoufakis
called him, adding that “Draghi is very frustrated by the
suffocating limitations of his ECB mandate.”
3. Eurogroup is the
place to be — if you’re a psychopath
“Anyone who speaks
about blissful moments in the Eurogroup should be locked up
immediately for being a dangerous lunatic,” the ex-minister said
laughingly.
“The Eurogroup is
a very unpleasant place, including for Schäuble, Dijsselbloem and
the ECB president Draghi. Centers of power are stressful by
definition, with big egos and continuous conflict.”
“If you’re a
psychopath and you thrive on conflict, then the Eurogroup is the
place to be.”
Asked whether it was
a place for power-hungry politicians, he said: “Ultimately, almost
no one has any power … [Individuals] power is undermined by
opposing power, everyone cancels each other out. I’ve seen a lot of
frustration in the Eurogroup.”
4. I was the only
one with a sense of ethics
Varoufakis says
that, apart from the first Eurogroup meeting he attended, “I
recorded all the Eurogroup meetings. But no one got that information
from me.”
“Among my
colleagues who leaked all kinds of things — especially about me —
I was the only one with a sense of ethics.”
“I recorded
everything for one simple reason: Those meetings often lasted so
terribly long that, afterwards, I could barely remember what exactly
had been discussed and happened. Everything took place in a big
haze,” said Varoufakis. “In a normal currency union, there would
be confidential minutes that you could fall back on.”
5. I had more to
swallow in 72 hours than most ministers in their whole career
“On my first day
as the minister, I was told the country was going to go bankrupt in
11 days. On the third day, Eurogroup chair Jeroen Dijsselbloem
visited and threatened to close all the Greek banks if I didn’t
sign on the dotted line for an austerity package that I had denounced
during the elections,” Varoufakis said.
“I had more to
swallow within 72 hours than most ministers have to take in their
whole career. Fortunately for them, by the way.”
6. I trusted blindly
in Tsipras, wrongly
His strongest
regret, Varoufakis said, is “that I trusted in the unity of the
Greek government, or to be more precise: the unity within the war
cabinet of seven people, including Prime Minister Tsipras and me.”
“I slept the way
you sleep in the trenches in a real war: a few hours here and there,
with all your senses on edge’ — Yanis Varoufakis
“We were together
day and night during that time. I slept the way you sleep in the
trenches in a real war: a few hours here and there, with all your
senses on edge.”
“I trusted blindly
in Tsipras, wrongly.”
“Tsipras
surrendered to the demands of the Eurogroup – without consulting
me,” he said.
The Greek
ex-minister blames eurozone leaders to have driven a wedge between
him and the prime minister.
“They said to
Tsipras: If you want a deal, you have to get rid of Yanis … The
Eurogroup was looking for a political way to eliminate me: It was a
conspiracy. In [the bloc’s meeting in] Riga, they succeeded in
playing me and Tsipras against each other.”
Authors:
Laurens Cerulus
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