“Reforms” in Greece are as successful as the establishment of democracy in Iraq, according to FinMin Yanis Varoufakis’ statements on Thursday during an address at the Institute for Paris-based New Economic Thinking, an event hosted by George Soros and attended by top economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The universally outspoken Yanis told the VIP audience that when Greeks hear the word “reform” they immediately think “they will cut my pension. They will raise my taxes”.

He also stated that he believes European institutions do not offer satisfactory solutions, and underlined that the EU is an “asymmetric union” and at some point these unifying points are in danger of collapsing. He reiterated that the “Institutions”, a neologism for “Troika”, which created this asymmetric union, must now deal with the consequences, while he added that European Institutions operated as banks and claimed that they have no knowledge of an upcoming crisis.

Referring to Greece, Varoufakis said there was a long period of extreme learning from some. He answered the question on whether Greeks have understood this lesson of economic history by saying: “No, we did not learn our lesson. We still have a lot of work ahead of us”.

Commenting on a possible “Grexit”, he said “no country should join the EU as the EU has been designed. That doesn’t mean that any country should leave. There should be a redesigning of the Union”.