Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis lobbed his latest ‘bombshell’ at Europe over the weekend, leaving open the possibility of a referendum in Greece if the Eurogroup on Monday rejects the latest plan submitted by the new leftist government in Athens. In an interview with Italy’s prestigious Corriere della Sera, he says that the next step in negotiations is, none other, than Monday’s Eurogroup venue.”If they don’t accept our plan then there will be problems,” he underlined, adding that a new snap election or even a referendum may be options to consider. No details were offered on what the question of the referendum would be.
Varoufakis describes his relations with European Central Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi as formal, stressing that the “ECB, instead of buying huge amounts of German bonds, would have to buy Greek bonds — yesterday and not tomorrow … The ECB in 2012 faced a similar crisis, but led by a conservative government (in Greece), it opened up funds in order to deal with the funding needs. Now it has a strict stance never before seen, a stance where it wants to discipline Greece,” said Varoufakis.
“All I can say is that we have enough money to pay wages and pensions of public servants, as for the rest we’ll see,” he said at another point in the interview. Nevertheless, he said he believes that the government will survive even if there is no agreement with Brussels and characterised talk of a Grexit as toxic.
The last time a top Greek office-holder mentioned a “referendum” when facing obstacles in talks with European partners was former PM George Papandreou in late October 2011, following his purportedly diastrous meeting with Angela Merkel and then French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Cannes. Papandreou soon resigned as Greek premier, with an appointed coalition government led by one-time central banker and ECB vice-president Lucas Papademas taking over.
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