4 ms·

This article does a poor job of explaining what could be controversial about the 2015 Eurogroup Meeting. Who cares? This just sounds like Euro-Politico Soap Ope

by aazaa 7y ago

This article does a poor job of explaining what could be controversial about the 2015 Eurogroup Meeting. Who cares? This just sounds like Euro-Politico Soap Opera. After some digging, I found this: > The Eurogroup on the 11 July 2015 discussed the request by the Greek authorities for financial assistance from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and their new proposals for a reform agenda. https://www.europeansources.info/record/extraordinary-eurogroup-meeting-11-12-july-2015-euro-summit-brussels-12-13-july-2015-european-council-brussels-12-july-2015/ https://www.europeansources.info/record/extraordinary-eurogr... So presumably, the recordings provide evidence of some kind of back-door deal between the EU and Greece as terms for refinancing its debt.

mrtksn 7y ago
As far as I remember, Varoufakis was personally offended that the eurocrats did not take him seriously and did not engage in a discussion of his ideas. He wrote about it several times, he sounded extremely disappointed that you can't have an academic discussion on that table. I had a really hard time to sympathise with him as I got the impression that he didn't pay attention to the reality of the situation and kept complaining that it's not like the way he likes it. He seems like a nice guy to drink with but not a person you would like to do business. My guess is that the recordings will prove how cool and smart is he and it wasn't his fault.
- xfs 7y ago
  > he didn't pay attention to the reality of the situation Or he paid too much attention to the reality of the situation. According to him, as a professional economist, the Euro is structurally unsustainable and is going to implode in the next 2008 because of the way the EU is set up politically creating a situation of a central bank without a country and countries without central banks. What angered him is the way Eurogroup bureaucrats pretend this situation does not exist, even when they themselves admit they understand the same thing, which, to an academic like him, is a crime against logic.
  - mrtksn 7y ago
    See, here is the problem: This was not the topic of the meetings. They did not convene there to fix the grand issue that was well known since the inception of the Euro. Not really a scientific discovery he made, a hot topic since ever. Some professional economists argue that the current capitalist economy is not sustainable, how well do you think it will go if an economist brings this up in his meeting with his bank about the restructuring of his debt he/she racked up? It's simply ridiculous. It's like those tech people over-obsessed with the technical aspect of an issue who get a managerial job and screwing up royally, get fired and keep bugging people about how company X is doomed because they did not implement his tech idea. He simply did not understand what job he got and where he is. He thought that he had all the answers for all the problems of the world and he can fix them in those meetings with the eurocrats but they did not listen to him. It's cringie.
    - xfs 7y ago
      I'm not talking about the meetings either. The meetings were even simpler: he went there for debt negotiation with an election mandate to not capitulate and with the most open mind for compromise, and was immediately handed an ultimatum to capitulate, with quote verbatim "elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy." The crime against logic was what he discovered afterwards.
      - mrtksn 7y ago
        Okay, he could have not capitulated and let the electorate face the music of their decision. It was a referendum among the Greek people about what their government should do. You can't hold a referendum about what other people should give them. The UK got a Brexit referendum and they got out. Nobody would have cared if they held "EU gives as market access but we do not allow Europeans coming over and work referendum" which is what the UK essentially wants.
        xfs 7y ago
        He could. He was committed to a Grexit, which he calculated to be substantially better for Greece than what it has now. Then he got immense political pressure and death threats to his family.

by aazaa 7y ago

mrtksn 7y ago

As far as I remember, Varoufakis was personally offended that the eurocrats did not take him seriously and did not engage in a discussion of his ideas. He wrote about it several times, he sounded extremely disappointed that you can't have an academic discussion on that table. I had a really hard time to sympathise with him as I got the impression that he didn't pay attention to the reality of the situation and kept complaining that it's not like the way he likes it. He seems like a nice guy to drink with but not a person you would like to do business. My guess is that the recordings will prove how cool and smart is he and it wasn't his fault.

xfs 7y ago
> he didn't pay attention to the reality of the situation Or he paid too much attention to the reality of the situation. According to him, as a professional economist, the Euro is structurally unsustainable and is going to implode in the next 2008 because of the way the EU is set up politically creating a situation of a central bank without a country and countries without central banks. What angered him is the way Eurogroup bureaucrats pretend this situation does not exist, even when they themselves admit they understand the same thing, which, to an academic like him, is a crime against logic.
- mrtksn 7y ago
  See, here is the problem: This was not the topic of the meetings. They did not convene there to fix the grand issue that was well known since the inception of the Euro. Not really a scientific discovery he made, a hot topic since ever. Some professional economists argue that the current capitalist economy is not sustainable, how well do you think it will go if an economist brings this up in his meeting with his bank about the restructuring of his debt he/she racked up? It's simply ridiculous. It's like those tech people over-obsessed with the technical aspect of an issue who get a managerial job and screwing up royally, get fired and keep bugging people about how company X is doomed because they did not implement his tech idea. He simply did not understand what job he got and where he is. He thought that he had all the answers for all the problems of the world and he can fix them in those meetings with the eurocrats but they did not listen to him. It's cringie.
  - xfs 7y ago
    I'm not talking about the meetings either. The meetings were even simpler: he went there for debt negotiation with an election mandate to not capitulate and with the most open mind for compromise, and was immediately handed an ultimatum to capitulate, with quote verbatim "elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy." The crime against logic was what he discovered afterwards.
    - mrtksn 7y ago
      Okay, he could have not capitulated and let the electorate face the music of their decision. It was a referendum among the Greek people about what their government should do. You can't hold a referendum about what other people should give them. The UK got a Brexit referendum and they got out. Nobody would have cared if they held "EU gives as market access but we do not allow Europeans coming over and work referendum" which is what the UK essentially wants.
      - xfs 7y ago
        He could. He was committed to a Grexit, which he calculated to be substantially better for Greece than what it has now. Then he got immense political pressure and death threats to his family.