Euclid Tsakalotos steps in to pick up the pieces of Greece’s tattered negotiations. He is the polar opposite to Varoufakis, the man who stuck up the middle finger at Berlin, came to blows with the Eurogroup Chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem in a Brussels corridor and managed to join the Eurozone together against Greece. Oxford-educated economist Tsakalotos, educated at St Paul’s school before going on to read politics, philosophy and economics is soft-spoken but firm, methodical and clever.
The economist, aged 55 – unlike Varoufakis – has been a member of the radical left coalition SYRIZA for nearly a decade but – like Varoufakis – is an academic who is well-versed on the theory of finance. He has authored and co-authored six books. The latest, titled “Crucible of Resistance: Greece, the Eurozone and the World Economic Crisis”, argues that the widening social inequality and gaping democratic deficit was the result of two decades of neo-liberal modernisation.
His wife, British economist Heather D. Gibson, has a CV that rivals that of her husband. The couple speaks English with each other, live in Kifissia and visit Preveza often as they have a holiday house there.
QUOTES:
“A Greek road to socialism where you exit the euro and do your own national strategy seems to be a straight re-run of Britain in the 1970s and France in the 1980s. The national roads seemed to have failed. We need an international flavor to any alternatives.”
“We are not asking for special treatment, but for equal treatment in a Europe of equals.”
“Syriza and Sinn Fein as well as Podemos are part of a great realignment in European politics.”
“I believe that the message sent by the referendum – the 61 percent of the votes – will remain in the history. Everything that is going on will be engraved in the collective memory of Europe… I believe, something can change Europe.”
“I cannot imagine anyone else becoming the Minister of Finance on January 28. The whole world discusses what’s going on here, in this country. All of us, not only the supporters of SYRIZA, but all people of Greece, should thank him.”
