Minister’s exit clears one obstacle to Greece remaining in eurozone
Print Edition
GREECE’S outspoken finance minister resigned yesterday, removing one major obstacle to any deal to keep Athens in the eurozone after Greeks voted resoundingly to back the government in rejecting the austerity terms of a bailout.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Greece would bring a proposal for a cash-for-reforms deal to an emergency summit of eurozone leaders today, a Greek official said. It was unclear how much it would differ from other proposals rejected in the past.
Gloomy officials in Brussels and Berlin said a Greek exit from the currency area now looked ever more likely.
But they also said talks to avert it would be easier without Yanis Varoufakis, an avowed “erratic Marxist” economist who infuriated his fellow eurozone finance ministers with an informal style and hectoring lectures. He had campaigned for Sunday’s “No” vote, accusing Greece’s creditors of “terrorism.”
“I was made aware of a certain ‘preference’ by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted ‘partners,’ for my ... ‘absence’ from its meetings; an idea that the prime minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement,” Varoufakis said in a statement.
His sacrifice suggested Tsipras is determined to try to reach a last-ditch compromise with European leaders.
Greece’s political leaders, more accustomed to screaming abuse at each other in parliament, spent the day locked in talks at the president’s office trying to produce an unprecedented national unity statement.
Greece’s chief negotiator in aid talks with international creditors, Euclid Tsakalotos, was named as the new finance minister later yesterday.
Austrian Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling said publicly what other eurozone figures said in private: “Varoufakis was someone who massively destroyed trust through his name-calling and by repeatedly criticizing the institutions ... that’s why I hope that the basis for talks will now be better.”
To win any new deal, Greece will have to overcome the distrust of partners, above all Germany, Greece’s biggest creditor, where public opinion has hardened in favor of cutting Greece loose from the euro.
While Greeks celebrated, there was gloom in Brussels.
European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters there was no easy way out of the crisis and the referendum result had widened the gap between Greece and other eurozone countries.
Tsipras has spoken by phone with French President Francois Hollande, who is trying to broker an agreement ahead of today’s Brussels summit. Hollande was due to meet Merkel in Paris yesterday to seek a joint response from the eurozone’s two leading powers.
But an EU source said barring major Greek concession, eurozone leaders were more likely to discuss a Greek exit than any new aid program for Athens.
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