A New Move in Greece after the Explosive Eurogroup Meeting

• 04.29.2015, 20:49
•  Europe,  World right now,  World

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has made some moves in his team who had talks with European and IMF lenders, after the incident when his finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was left "isolated" by his fellow finance European Ministers at a stormy Eurogroup meeting in Riga last week and returned empty-handed at a time, when Athens desperately needed new aid to avoid bankruptcy. He was widely criticized both by his colleagues and the media for wasting so much time, being a cheater and a gambler. Besides Varoufakis failed to appear at a state dinner which was given after the meeting. But the culmination of all of this was his tweeter response where he quoted the USA president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "They are unanimous in their hate for me; and I welcome their hatred," - the Guardian reports. 

In the post of Mr. Varoufakis, the government appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, who is a 55-year-old Oxford-educated economist and professor, and who would probably have a more active role in the troubled talks after months of fruitless discussions on Athens' new loan deal.

While some see the move as an attempt to sideline Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, whose negotiating style has infuriated Brussels, the government source claimed that the changes did not affect Varoufakis, who will be in charge of Tsakalotos' "political team", bussinessinsider.com informs. "This changes nothing as far as Varoufakis is concerned," -  the government official told. "He will continue to represent Greece at Eurogroup meetings and will still supervise the political negotiations with euro-area member states and the International Monetary Fund."

Reacting to the news, a senior European Union official confided that it had become "impossible" to do business with Varoufakis. "It had got to the point where eyes roll," he said. "People had got sick and tired of being lectured about austerity and the effects of the crisis. Any sympathy for Greece was eroded by his failure to draft concrete proposals,” the Guardian reports. 

However, Tsakalotos is expected, along with Varoufakis, as the source informs,  to represent Greece at the next Eurogroup meeting of finance ministers on 11 May, a make-or-break date for the government to persuade creditors at the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund to release funds. On 12 May it must meet a debt payment of €780m to the IMF.