Photo: newsweek.com
Recent rumours that the negotiations between the Greek government and the representatives of Greece’s creditors have stalled and the probability of the country defaulting is great seem to bother all others but not its members.
Greece may be running out of cash and the chance of new amounts being provided to it may be insignificant, but it does not prevent Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis from going on an overseas trip to Washington where he will represent Greece at the meetings of the summer session of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
In a long press release, the Ministry of Finance announces that, in the US capital, Yanis Varoufakis will deliver a lecture at the Brookings Institute on "The Greek economy and its international partners" and participate in a "brief exchange of views" with economist and former Minister of Finance of Turkey Kemal Dervis and David Uesel from the hosting Institute afterwards. The message also reports that German Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schaeuble will be at the Brookings Institute the same day as well, and the specific announcement is in brackets.
On Friday Yanis Varoufakis will meet with President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi, and then with Ministers of Finance of the United States Jack Lew and Italy Pier Carlo Padoan.
The Greek Minister of Finance is expected to return to Athens on Saturday, after the end of the session.
The communication however contains information that has provoked not only ironic comments, but also an official denial by the US government. According to the text, today Yanis Varoufakis will meet with US President Barack Obama. It is worth noting that the text has not changed after the official clarification from the White House, according to which Varoufakis will actually cross the threshold of the building to take part in the traditional reception to mark the national holiday of Greece, but no meeting is scheduled with the US President.
A day earlier economic reporter of the prestigious Wall Street Journal Ian Talley had described on Twitter what would happen between Obama and Varoufakis in a much more sardonic way:
The Greek Minister of Finance obviously has large stocks of energy since, among other duties and trips, and dozens of interviews that he has given, he is able to find time to write his next book. It will probably be released in January 2016, but it is already advertised on the website of the publishing house PublicAffairsBooks.
The title of the book is "Europe’s crisis and America’s economic future" with the second part of the maxim of ancient Greek historian and captain Thucydides "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" appearing on the cover.
Varoufakis wrote in the book that "It is very important that Europe be left to the Europeans" and the brief presentation makes it clear that it is presented as an incubator of authoritarianism, which, if allowed to continue in the same spirit, could cause World War III.
"When disaster hit in 2009, Europe turned against itself, humiliating millions of innocent citizens, driving populations to despair, and buttressing a form of bigotry unseen since the Second World War". Yanis Varoufakis describes the events as a battle for "Europe’s soul," that "the forces of reason and humanism" led against the "new forms of authoritarianism." He writes about "regressive forces that have the capacity to cause a humanitarian bloodbath" thus depriving future generations of the hope to share prosperity.
According to the description of the book, the Greek Minister of Finance concludes, "The principle of the greatest austerity for the European economies suffering the biggest recessions would be quaint if it were not also the harbinger of misanthropy and racism. Here Varoufakis offers concrete policies that the rest of the world can take part in to help save Europe from impending catastrophe. With passionate, informative, and at times humorous prose, he warns that the implosion of an admittedly crisis-ridden and deeply irrational European capitalism should be avoided at all costs."