“The proposal by the five was a provocation,” controversial Greek FinMin Yanis Varoufakis told Proto Thema on Sunday, referring to a draft agreement presented to Athens’ radical leftists by the leaders of Germany, France, and the heads of the IMF, ECB and EC Commission.
The brash and increasingly embattled Varoufakis, who has apparently been sidelined from direct negotiations with creditors, also forecast that Greece will seek market borrowing by the end of 2015.
Days after Athens missed an IMF payment – bundled with other June instalments instead – and a few weeks before a second bailout package expires with 7.2 bln euros still unused but kept “frozen” but creditors, Varoufakis upped the ante by referring to a “comprehensive” restructuring of the country’s total debt and to a “growth package” for the “next day”, i.e. growth-oriented investments funneled into the Greek economy.
Varoufakis was a globe-trotting academic and consultant with an expertise in game theory and a significant social media following before spectacularly emerging on the local political scene as an elected SYRIZA MP in January 2015.
Speaking last week, he said his radical leftist government continues to maintain its objections to privatizing the state-run power company (PPC), the power transmission operator, cutting a cost-of-living bonus for lower-income pensioners or increasing the VAT rate on power bills. He also said the government is against raising VAT rates on certain islands, which enjoy lower rates than the rest of the country.
Asked directly about his status in the Cabinet, he said he does not consider himself “sidelined”, attributing the speculation, as he said, to “certain Brussels centers” of power that “want to harm the prime minister through me.”
With an eye to his immediate political future, Varoufakis said he’ll “honor the trust of voters” who chose him, in both his capacity as a minister and as a deputy.
The entire interview, given to journalist Vassilis Stefanakidis, was published in the print Proto Thema on Sunday, the highest circulation newspaper in Greece.
