He was controversial in Greece even before being chosen by the leftist premier Alexis Tsipras to rescue the country’s finances. For some, Yanis Varoufakis is a brilliant, unconventional economist; for others, he’s just a compulsive liar: “Baroufakis”, as some call him, a rather much too easy pun on “baroufa”, a slang word for nonsense.
He is envied as well - he comes from a rich family, as does his wife, the artist Danae Stratou. He taught 12 years in Sydney, Australia, and has the double citizenship: Greek-Australian. He came back to teach in Athens in 2000, then traveled extensively with wife Danae Stratou along “dividing lines around the world” (such as the dividing wall in Cyprus).
He became an advisor to Socialist prime minister George Papandreou. When Papandreou revealed the extent of the Greek debt, in 2009, Varoufakis was very critical of the EU answer. He proposed default, bankruptcy, but was not heard. He then left for Austin, Texas where he continued teaching and publishing.
He calls himself an “occasional Marxist”and is said to be a fitness freak, a Bruce Willis with intellect. No tie, of course (the obligatory revolutionary attire), he speeds on a motorcycle between ministries. He keeps a blog and a Twitter account with tens of thousands of subscribers. Having a fine feeling for words, he calls his country a “trapezocracy”, from the Greek word “trapeza”, meaning a bank.
Not only the Europeans, but the Greeks are also more than eager to see what he’ll do. His first moves were clever, but then again he and his country didn’t have much to lose. Everybody watched him, looking relaxed, greeting the Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem with a hand stuck in his pocket. At the press conference following their meeting, Varoufakis droped a bombshell: “We have no aim to cooperate with this flimsily-constructed committee. Thank you.”
Varoufakis was of course referring to the much reviled Troika, the country’s official creditors consisting of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. When Dijsselbloem whispered in his ear “you have just killed the Troika,” a beaming Varoufakis grinned simply… “Wow!”
After the clapping and the bravado, last week he started a tour of the capitals, together with Tsipras, as if on a school trip, learning politics the hard way. In Paris, he met his French counterpart Michel Sapin, whom he informed that Athens had allowed itself to become addicted to debt, now at 175 % of the output. “It isn’t that we don’t need the money, we are actually desperate,” Varoufakis informed a puzzled Sapin.
“For the last five years, Greece has been living for the next loan tranche. We have resembled drug addicts craving the next dose. What this government is all about is ending the addiction,” he went on, noting it was time to go “cold turkey”.
Alas, he was less successful in Berlin with Wolfgang Schäuble, who, from his wheelchair, would not let himself be moved. Varoufakis flew there economy class and warmly pleaded with Schäuble, comparing today’s Greece with Germany in the 1930s, but to no avail. (Schäuble had in memory rather some earlier comparisons with Nazi Germany.)
Varoufakis then asked that at least the austerity program be suspended until the end of May... but the inflexible Schäuble would still have none of his hugs and antics.
“The cause of the crisis lays in Greece, and not in Europe... and certainly not in Germany”, Schäuble cruelly answered, telling the press about his meeting with the discomfited Greek that they “agreed to disagree”… to which Varoufakis commented: “We didn’t even agree to disagree.”
And Schäuble proved that he is also endowed with a dangerous sense of humour: “We already proposed to send 500 German tax collectors to Athens. The offer is still up.”
Maybe in the end, the problem with Varoufakis is not that he is a Marxist, but that he does it only “occasionally”.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/yanis-varoufakis-%E2%80%9Coccasional-marxist%E2%80%9D