AP — Greece’s economy will deteriorate further in the next six months as a result of the terms imposed on the country by its EU partners and creditors, following the lead of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, Greece’s controversial former finance minister and economist Yanis Varoufakis said.
Speaking to Austrian journalists, following a lecture given in the city, the former minister was scathing in his criticism of EU policies in response to the economic crisis.
Varoufakis claimed that the institutions representing Greece ‘s creditors and the IMF were less interested in stabilising the country’s economy than in forcing the submission of those who dared to question the authority of the so-called troika. As evidence of his claim, he pointed to the institutions’ demand that Greece force enterprises to pay an advance amounting to their entire predicted taxes for 2016 during November; according to Varoufakis, one would only do this in a country with a destroyed economy if trying to trigger its collapse.
Greece, the former minister asserted, was suffering as a result of the “collateral damage” in a battle raging for some time between France and Germany over the direction of EU common economic policy.
Describing his stint in Greece’s finance ministry as “difficult” and its ending “traumatic”, Varoufakis said that his successes included showing people that the Eurozone has no protocols for its meetings and that Europe’s economy was run by a “secret society”.
