Yanis Varoufakis is powerless, reads the German magazine Focus in connection with the "reshuffling" that the Greek Prime Minister has undertaken by replacing the Minister of Finance with Euclidis Tsakalotos in the negotiation team.
According to the publication of Focus entitled "Sirtaki Protocol: With these five missteps Varoufakis has left the ring dance", the Greek Minister of Finance himself has provoked his removal after making serious mistakes. The magazine points out five of them.
"Minister of Finance Varoufakis began as the hope of the government in Athens. Now he is picking up the pieces of his international career that he himself has destroyed in five steps. Varoufakis’ mistakes are numerous, but the most important of them are as follows:
1. He threw out the supervisory Troika
Varoufakis inflicted the first major insult a few days after the elections: on 30 January he publicly announced that he would throw the hated Troika out of the country.
The problem was two-fold: on the one hand, this was the time when head of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem was due to visit Athens and certainly he was not amused. On the other hand, Greece wanted money precisely from those participants in the Troika that Varoufakis offended. This was only the first step in a series of contradictions.
2. He posed for a glamorous interview
It could hardly be said that the Minister of Finance had attracted someone to his side with his media marathon in Europe. They say he gave over 40 interviews in the first 30 days. And the sad culmination was the photo session of Varoufakis and his wife, posing in their maisonette against the background of the Acropolis for Paris Match. He won new supporters neither in his left party, nor in Europe, where the partners had focused on the negotiations.
3. He offended Schaeuble
In an interview with his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble in Berlin the Greek Minister of Finance behaved unmannerly and as a grumbler. Schaeuble said at the press conference that both had agreed that they had disagreements. After that, the Greek said, ‘Do not think there was consent.’ These words may sound innocent but suggest that Varoufakis was there more for the show than for achieving results.
4. He called the partners "torturers"
The ill-considered statements by Varoufakis had a serious effect on the sensitive international negotiations. Shortly before the first major summit, he compared the actions of the Troika with an act of torture, causing drowning. In an interview with Spiegel, the Greek Minister of Finance said, "They will allow us to take a breath shortly before the heart attack. Then they will push us back under water and everything will start all over again." In this situation, who would have a desire for a constructive dialogue?
5. He was involved in "the scandal with the shown finger"
Varoufakis’ shown finger or at least his subsequent reaction must be entered in the chronicles of Germany. Someone may disagree and believe that this was a cheap provocation of a talk show that presented an old interview with an obscene gesture. The reaction of the Minister of Finance, however, was totally irrelevant: instead of renouncing the indiscretions of his youth as such, he accused the TV team of fabricating the interview, thus escalating a situation to which no one would have otherwise paid attention and becoming a man who cannot be trusted.
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