Controversial former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on Friday again lashed out at his former comrades in the first Tsipras government over the first half of 2015, a period that began with a landslide election victory and ended with the signing of a painful new bailout agreement with creditors in August.
Roughly six months of shambolic negotiations, mostly overseen by Varoufakis on the Greek side, and a divisive referendum on a withdrawn offer by creditors punctuated the first leftist-rightist coalition government’s tenure in office.
Speaking on an Athens radio station, Varoufakis was again scathing in his criticism of Tsipras and his successor at the finance ministry, Euclid Tsakalotos. He repeated a charge that Tsipras and his SYRIZA-dominated government did not want a “no” vote in the July 5 referendum, a result that eventually emerged by a margin of two to one.
“I didn’t believe we would win, but I wanted this,” he said, again stressing that he witnessed “sad faces” among top government cadres on the evening of the referendum.
Moreover, in recalling what he claimed was another discussion with Tsipras, he expressed bewilderment when told by the latter that he had agreed to creditors’ demand for an annual 3.5 percent budget surplus, as a percentage of GDP, which the Greek state would have to achieve.
“I told him, ‘are you utterly stupid?’ And he answered: ‘Oh, did I do something stupid? We’ll take it back…” was the way Varoufakis remembered the discussion, adding that the term he used to describe Tsipras was harsher than “stupid”.
Turning to his successor, the previously UK-based academic Tsakalotos, Varoufakis called him a “yes man” in the wake of the contentious and ultimately futile referendum.
“I no longer recognize him … Euclid became a ‘yes man’ after July 6, until then he wasn’t. In Euclid’s case it pains me, because I saw this transformation. I will never support what Euclid said after July 6,” Varoufakis said in comments on the radio station “Parapolitika”.
