In its article titled, “A Finance Minister Fit for a Greek Tragedy”, the New York Times reports that Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis threatens to tear Europe apart with his defiant stand in ongoing negotiations.

Suzy Hansen shares tet-a-tet moments with Varoufakis: “I’m not going to humiliate myself, and I’m not going to become compromised in terms of principles and in terms of logic,” he had said early in May.

The article states that though Varoufakis has been finance minister for four months, the story of Europe’s turmoil has been brewing for years. The New York Times details the history of the crisis right from its entry to the EU’s monetary union in 2001.

Hansen points to the startling choice of Varoufakis as Greece’s finance chief for he “is neither a politician nor a banker by training. He has been one of the most visible and vociferous critics of the Greek government, the European establishment and the Greek-European bailout. Imagine that President Obama had, instead of picking Timothy Geithner to be his Treasury secretary in the midst of the financial crisis, appointed a progressive academic economist like Paul Krugman or Joseph Stiglitz, only edgier and funnier, someone who had spoken out scathingly against bank bailouts, freely expressing himself however he wanted on television and in public debates because he wasn’t running for office.”

Varoufakis states that his goal is to give people who are 15-17 years today a chance for a better future by the time they are 20. He states hard bargaining has left the country worst off but that’s just a “short-term cost.”

Asked about his feelings regarding this cost, he says he feels “Terrified! Terrified and aghast.”