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It's amazing to have people on such a forum who can give some insights. Could you perhaps write a longer response outlining how you see what happened there? How

• YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
  The following is my recollection so I might get the order or some other details wrong. Please feel free to check me. There's just too much trying to come out so I'm trying to keep it as short as possible. Briefly, then. In 2015, Syriza, a left-wing party, won the Greek parliamentary elections on a platform rejecting the austerity measures that had been imposed as bailout conditions. Greece was in the throes of the crisis that started in 2009, and had already been bailed out twice by the Troika: the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Central Bank (ECB) and the Eurogroup. The new prime minister Alexis Tsipras appointed Varoufakis as the minister of finance. Soon after the second bailout from the Troika expired without any agreement about a third one. There was a run on the banks and capital controls were put in place, a great humiliation for Tsipras and a loss of trust to his party. A Greek delegation then went to meet the Eurogroup in Brussels to discuss the conditions of a possible third extension. Varoufakis had just completed a "whiste-stop tour" of European capitals trying to drum up support for his arguments, that Greece should be granted debt relief with a loosening of the austerity measures demanded by the Troika. I remember interviews he was giving at the time, where he claimed that if Greece left the Eurozone the next day that we'd be "holding all the cards" and therefore could give the Europeans the finger. I believe there was also some rhetoric about playing chicken with Angela Merkel but maybe that didn't come from Varoufakis himself, I can't remember. I have a memory of Tsipras sitting across the table from Merkel, Nicolá Sarkozy and others, whom I don't remember- possibly Christine Lagarde, of the IMF, Mario Draghi, of the ECB, Wolfgang Schauble, the German chancellor and the darling of all the Greeks at the time (I'm being sarcastic, everyone hated his guts) and who knows what else. I don't recollect Varoufakis being there. I remember Merkel speaking with a sombre face and saying that the EU didn't want to see Greece leave but that if that's what we wanted to do, they couldn't stop us. And that was that for holding all the cards and giving the finger. I believe it was at that time that a new bailout plan was put on the table. After that -but I'm possibly mixing up the timing and it was before- there was an ill-advised referendum, with a confounding question that was interpreted in the UK press as Grexit/ No Grexit, and in the Greek press as "bailout/ no bailout". The referendum went towards the way that Tsipras and Varoufakis _probably_ wanted it to go (I'm not sure because the question was so confusing) but Tsipras decided to do the opposite anyway and accept the proposed bailout plan. Varoufakis resigned in protest, Tsipras appoitned a new finance minister (Euclid Tsakalotos) and Varoufakis rode into the sunset on his Japanese motorcylce. At least he had the common decency to wear a helmet. Nobody ever wears a bloody helmet in Greece. Most don't even wear seat belts. I guess we're made of sterner stuff. What was Varoufakis plan in case the Europeans didn't agree to his terms? He had a plan. He got some of his old school pals together and they tried to hack into the computers of the Greek tax service. They wanted to implement a system of direct debt exchange between all greek taxpayers, so that the economy could continue to function even if the banks went down. A great plan, but the capability to make it work was another of Varoufakis self-inflating fantasies. What would happen if Greece really left the Eurozone? At the time there were plenty of voices advocating for a Grexit. Joseph Stiglitz was one, another was Wolfgang Schauble, and then there was an unending flow of pundits, talking heads, analysts etc. A few EU finance ministers also didn't so much support it but clamour for it - because they were fed up with the Greek government's games (that's Varoufakis basically). I think the Maltese minister of finance was one. In any case, a Grexit would have been a catastrophe. There are three people around the Mediterranean that have a word for disaster, a particular disaster, such that using the word leaves no doubt of the disaster spoken about. The Palestinians have the Nakba; the Israelis have the Shoah; and the Greeks have the Catastrophe. The latter refers to the disastrous nationalistic spasm that led to the uprooting of the Greek communities from Asia Minor in 1922. A Grexit would have given us a second Catastrophe, perhaps worse than the first. I have no doubt that without the support of the EU our existence as an independent nation would be in danger. Varoufakis liked to think of himself as a hero, most likely, but his brinkmanship put every Greek, every Greek's fortunes and even their lives, in danger. He will never admit this of course, and he probably still sees himself as a saviour. In Greece, very few people still do.