The new book – titled Anders gemeinsam – written by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and French Finance Minister Michel Sapin was presented last week and reveals information on Alexis Tsipras, Yanis Varoufakis, Antonis Samaras and Evangelos Venizelos.
In his book, Mr. Schaeuble talks also about the plan of a temporary Grexit while he reveals many dialogues he had with the Greek politicians.
Among other things, he says about Alexis Tsipras: “He told me that he would organize an election campaign promising that Greece would not leave euro zone and he would not recognize any memorandum obligations. If it is so, I replied, I wish you would not win the elections. This is why I was not surprised when Tsipras won, not even with what happened afterwards. I was quite curious about how he would solve the problem afterwards. He solved it by doing the exact opposite of what he had promised during his election campaign”.
The German Finance Minister also referred to Yanis Varoufakis revealing many of the dialogues he had with him.
“He told me he had been watching my political activity for twenty years and that he believed that I was the greatest European. He told me other things, too, with passion. And I told myself, “Do not underestimate me. Such compliments do not affect me”. This is why I replied: “I come from a humble family and grew up in a small town. And I always show great respect to a professor who visits me.” By telling him that, I wanted to show him that we should not be wasting our time on such nonsense”.
Mr. Schaeuble also refers to Antonis Samaras and Greece in 2014 when, as he notes, “Greece was in the right path”.
“Back then, in 2014, Greece was in the right path – with great delay, though. Only in mid-2014, when Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras stopped imposing the reforms because of the forthcoming elections, the situation got worse. And then the crisis came back. “
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