Stournaras: Varoufakis’ ‘brave’ negotiations cost us 86 bln euros

He said that the brave negotiations led Greece to the third memorandum and the capital controls

Bank of Greece Governor Yiannis Stournaras slammed the way government conducted the negotiations particularly lashing out at former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Nikos Theoharakis on Thursday, saying they resulted in an additional 86 billion-euro burden for the Greeks.

Speaking at an event organised by the Hellenic Observatory at the London School of Economics, he responded to comments made by Theoharakis earlier in which he described the previous government of New Democracy, in which he participated as finance minister, as “colonial”.

“He (Theoharakis) failed though to admit that the ‘brave’ negotiations that he and Yanis Varoufakis conducted, which led to the change of the name of the troika to institutions and removed the troika from the ministries to the Hilton, had also a cost. If we assume that what he described were benefits, the cost of course reached 86 billion euros,” Mr. Stournaras said.

“That was the third memorandum and the capital controls that have been imposed after 45 billion euros of deposit outflows. And these capital controls have been imposed in order to safeguard financial stability following the ‘brave’ negotiations of Mr. Theoharakis and Mr. Varoufakis. I am sorry to say that, but I had the obligation to put the record straight,” he added.