Alexis Tsipras says Yanis Varoufakis was ‘unsuitable’ as Greek finance minister during debt crisis

Original article by Helena Smith in Athens

Yanis Varoufakis, the firebrand economist who rose to fame at the height of Greece’s debt drama, was not only egotistical but ultimately more interested in testing out his game theories on the nation than winning its battle to keep afloat.

So writes the former prime minister Alexis Tsipras in his newly released memoir, Ithaki, as the once radical leftwing leader, sparing no punches, seeks, 10 years later, to put the record straight.

“He was, in reality, more of a celebrity and less of an economist,” recalled the 51-year-old, who described handpicking the maverick as his finance minister because of his international reputation and “extremely attractive” skills as a public orator.

“I wanted to send the message of hard negotiation, but I underestimated the human factor. Very quickly, Varoufakis turned from being an asset into a negative protagonist. Not only could our potential allies not stand him, neither could his own colleagues.”

In a chronicle of events that has been quick to send ripples through Greece, Tsipras, who appears bent on staging a political comeback two years after renouncing the leadership of the Syriza party, said it was clear the Greek Australian academic had a personal agenda that included promoting his books.

Negotiations to stave off bankruptcy were “not just a way of achieving a better deal for the country. They were an experiment, an historic opportunity to prove the truth of his economic theories,” Tsipras wrote.

During rollercoaster talks that pitted the two men against Germany’s late economic tsar, Wolfgang Schauble and other fiscal hawks, Greece came perilously close to exiting the eurozone.

At stake was not only the country’s future but the punishing austerity policies demanded in return for rescue loans from international creditors that Tsipras and his Syriza government had vowed to cancel.

Efforts to find funds elsewhere, including a desperate plea to the Kremlin to buy Greek government bonds, fell on stony ground, with even Putin making clear that Athens should find accommodation with its EU partners.

Helping the indebted country would be tantamount to throwing money in the trash-can, the Russian leader is reputed to have told his Greek counterpart in Moscow.

“I wanted an honourable agreement within the eurozone,” Tsipras wrote, “but we also didn’t hide the fact that we wanted radical change in Europe, that we wanted to stop the imposition of the economic absurdity of neoliberalism not only in Greece but from one end of the continent to the other.”

In July 2015, to the shock of Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel, the excoriating bailout terms were put to popular referendum, a move that threw the EU into further existential crisis.

Although the vote was won resoundingly by those who opposed austerity, Tsipras had little option but to reject its outcome and negotiate a bailout package with foreign lenders that proved to be even harsher, even if he argued the vote also served the purpose of staving off national humiliation. His intention, he insisted, had never been for Greece to leave the eurozone.

Varoufakis, who prior to the referendum had jousted heatedly with colleagues in eurogroup meetings, subsequently resigned, although the two politicians attempted, at least publicly, to maintain friendly relations.

But in the book, named after the island where in 2018 Tsipras declared Greece’s exit from the decade-long crisis, it is his erstwhile ally, who now heads the leftist MeRA 25 party, that he most takes issue with.

In what will go down as one of the greatest character assassinations in modern Greek memory, the former premier claimed it had been Varoufakis’s confrontational style that left him increasingly isolated among peers, put Greece at risk and helped hawks, led by Schauble, who were clearly pushing for Grexit.

“Varoufakis had proved himself to be unsuitable for an agreement that required complex and delicate handling,” he claimed, adding he had begun to doubt his finance minister quite early on.

“He was the face of negotiation, the man who attracted publicity, who graced the covers of magazines the world over … he gave the impression he was enjoying his new role.”

When Varoufakis outlined a contingency plan that included establishing a parallel currency and distributing vouchers to pensioners – as a way of strong-arming creditors to meet Greek demands – Tsipras said he realised it was game over, and asked Varoufakis: “Are you serious?”

Ahead of the book’s long-awaited launch, the politician had declared it was time for his voice to be heard.

And in a tome that recounts the behind-the-scenes meeting that led to his controversial decision to form a coalition with a populist rightwinger, to the groundbreaking deal to end the long-running dispute over the then-called Macedonia’s name, he does not disappoint.

But it is a retelling of history that has been met with fury and stunned disbelief. And in the case of Varoufakis, who has since won international acclaim as a bestselling author, deafening silence.