PRESS RELEASE
Former Finance Minister Varoufakis: Stop ‘Greece’s Fiscal Waterboarding by an Incompetent, Misanthropic Troika’
April 3, 2015 (EIRNS)—Reacting to a leaked transcript by WikiLeaks which allegedly claims that the International Monetary Fund is planning to pull out of Greece as a tactic to force European lenders to offer more debt relief, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis highlighted
"how the way creditors are handling the bailout of Greece is not working and things have got to change."
"In 2015, the Troika stalled until July to bring Greece to its knees in order to force [Syriza Prime Minister] Alexis Tsipras’ hand,"
Varoufakis was quoted as saying in an undated statement published by BBC and Belfast Telegraph.
"In 2016, as WikiLeaks revealed today, the IMF is planning to stall until July to bring Greece to its knees (again!) in order to force Angela Merkel’s hand. It’s time to stop Greece’s fiscal waterboarding by an incompetent, misanthropic troika."
His remarks were covered by Business Insider, whose coverage continued that officials from
"EU and the IMF are scheduled to resume talks in Athens on Greece’s fiscal and reform progress next week. They will conclude a bailout review that will lay out what Greece needs to do in order to unlock further loans and pave the way for negotiations on long-desired debt restructuring."
Business Insider wrote, that the
"review has been adjourned twice since January due to a rift among the lenders over the estimated size of Greece’s fiscal gap by 2018, as well as disagreements with Athens on pension reforms and the management of bad loans."
On Feb. 4, the online daily had interviewed Varoufakis, who had been effectively forced out of the government by the Troika after Athens’ vastly popular referendum on the Troika "reforms" last year. Varoufakis polemically demonstrated how the Troika had failed: "No one believed that the compromise would be of any use, neither IMF chief Christine Lagarde, nor German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. Chancellor Angela Merkel didn’t believe it and neither did Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. It was just a show that revealed that Europe is not working. We are throwing money, which we are taking from the poorest, at the problem....
"Reducing pension costs is not a solution. In our country many families live on the pension of an older family member of €600 or €700 a month. The others don’t have a job. If we reduce this by €100 [by the ’reform’], people will no longer be spending this amount and demand will fall. This will cost more jobs...."
