Varoufakis new book: Tsipras was overwhelmed, Macron offered deal, Schaeuble blocked any solution

Former Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, claims to have secretly recorded his conversations with top figures, and says his experience showed how far Germany was willing to go to protect the single currency. His new book is named Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe’s Deep Establishment, gives an outsider’s perspective on the inner sanctums of European power-politics, as he tried – and ultimately failed – to win forgiveness for Greece’s debts.

Recalling the last phase of negotiations with creditors in spring and early summer 2015 but also his dispute with the government of which he was a member, Varoufakis notes among others:

“Alexis Tsipras appears totally overwhelmed, unable to collide with his own consultants who were pro loan agreement, in some cases he was totally manipulated by the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ Troika.

According to Varoufakis, German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble admitted that crippling austerity measures would destroy Greece and that Germany blocked a Chinese rescue deal for Greece.

In one exchange Varoufakis said he asked Schaeuble whether he would sign up to the EU’s austerity measures, to which his German counterpart responded: ‘As a patriot, no. It’s bad for your people.’

He writes that he attempted to re-negotiate Greece’s relationship with the EU, but found his actions simply provoked the anger of European leaders.

Varoufakis clashed frequently with European finance ministers, but with one colleague he struck up a strong relationship – that was Emmanuel Macron, then the French economy minister, now on course to be the next president of France.

While nowadays, Berlin supports Macron their relations were tense two years ago.

Varoufakis writes that on June 28, 2015, he received a message by Macon, who offered him a last minute deal, debt relief in exchange for structural reforms.

“I do not want my generation to be responsible for Greece leaving Europe,” Emmanuel Macron is cited to have said, offering to close a meeting between Alexis Tsipras and Francois Holland.

However, according to Yannis Varoufakis, Schauble blocked this French effort, he suggested instead that Greece should make a “break” from the euro.

Varoufakis writes that when he had resigned form the government, Macros told him that Merkel had sidelined him, after his commented on the agreement with Greece that it was a modern version of the Treaty of Versailles. “Merkel heard this commend and, according to Emanuel, she ordered Hollande to keep Macron out of the Greek negotiations,” Varoufakis writes in his book.

During one of these conversations with the Telegraph, Varoufakis said former US president Barack Obama agreed that ‘austerity sucks’, but said he could do nothing to influence Germany.

Recently, Varoufakis warned British Prime Minister Theresa May not to expect the EU to play fair during Brexit negotiations.

He told The Telegraph: ‘My advice to Theresa May is to avoid negotiation at all costs. If she doesn’t do that she will fall into the trap of Alexis Tsipras (former Greek prime minister), and it will end in capitulation’. (dailymail, pressproject.gr, telegraph, newspost.gr)

PS from what I knew and heard about the time of the crucial negotiations in 2015 that ended in the 3. bailout out, what I know for sure was that the Greek economic team tried to change the euro zone.  this could never go well in an establishment led by men in grey suits.