“We made mistakes in the negotiations, and that’s why we’re improving coordination,” was the mea culpa of newly “promoted” Alternate FM Euclid Tsakalotos on Monday, after he was tapped to “coordinate” talks with European lenders in the wake of Yanis Varoufakis’ “virtual meltdown” in Riga on Friday.

Tsakalotos, whose wordy official title is alternate foreign minister for international economic relations, made the statement in Parliament, which was mostly interpreted as an indirect snipe at the brash Yanis.

“We you’re negotiating you make mistakes; when we don’t negotiate we don’t make mistakes … We’re learning from our mistakes, and that’s why we’re telling the truth to the people,” he said.

In repeating ruling SYRIZA party’s narrative of what “went wrong” in the months after the radical leftist party won the election on Jan. 25 with more than 36 percent of the vote, he blamed the previous New Democracy government for agreeing to a two-month extension of the bailout deal – instead of six months.

Tsakalotos, who like Varoufakis is a UK-trained academic, charged that his was done to “strangulate democracy; it wasn’t a mistake, because you’re (opposition) on the same side.”

In response, former minister Adonis Georgiadis, himself one of Parliament’s most outspoken MPs, replied “(PM Alexis) Tsipras told us that he didn’t want (Ex PM Antonis) Samaras to sign an extension for even one more day, and now Tsakalotos now says we didn’t sign for six months. Audacity has its boundaries.”

Bild report

At the same time, the German mass daily “Bild” published a list of “renewed reforms” it says the increasingly cash-strapped Greek government will present creditors. In fact, the article is entitled “Tsipras’ secret list”.

The paper points to Wednesday’s extraordinary Eurogroup meeting and possible another informal EU summit to discuss Athens’ new proposals, Bild claims.

The paper asserts that SYRIZA’s list will still include an increase in the minimum monthly wage (a campaign promise) from the current 580 euros; a special luxury tax on certain Greek island – ostensibly paid by Greek taxpayers – instead of harmonizing VAT rates on the islands with the rest of the country; cutting supplementary pensions, which had so far avoided the “axe”, as well as curbing early retirement.

The last two items have been repeatedly and vociferously cited by SYRIZA, before and after the election, as “red lines” that they wouldn’t cross.