Yanis Varoufakis
BILD meets Yanis Varoufakis –
the man who was THE symbol of the Greek left-wing government’s
resistance against the targets set by the bailout troika for the broke state of
Greece. We met the professor of economics – who co-founded left-wing
movement DiEM25 – in his summer house in the mountains of the sunny island of
Aegina.
BILD: Mr. Varoufakis, Greece
went broke ten years ago. Where does Greece stand now, after three rescue
programmes, 270 billion euros in loans and two debt cuts?
Varoufakis: “At the same
point, in the same black hole, and it keeps sinking deeper into it every day.
One reason among others is that the creditors’ cutback demands obstruct
investments and consumption.”
BILD: But allegedly, Greece
can now stand on its own two feet and can be released from the hands of the
troika after August 20th …
Varoufakis: “What has really
changed? Greece’s state debts have not become lower, but higher. We just have
more time now to pay back even more debts. Despite two debt cuts over several
billion euros, the debts have grown: the state is still broke, private citizens
have become poorer, companies still go bankrupt, and our gross national product
has decreased by 25 percent. The cutback demands limit consumption and
investments. Companies owe money to each other and to the state. The state owes
enormous sums in refunds to companies. Everybody owes money to everybody – but
nobody has money to pay back their debts. Since 2010 young people have been
leaving the country, in recent years at the rate of 15000 every month. If this
continues, we’ll soon only have old people here who either stayed or came back
from abroad when they retired. Plus there are the people who work for them, or
in tourism. I call this desertification. The Roman Tacitus used the expression ‘They
made a desert and called it peace’. In Greece they call it ‘fixed’.”
BILD: But tourism is booming
with more than 37 million visitors …
Varoufakis: “We have a
dramatic over-taxation in Greece. Combined with social security contributions,
small businesses, even the self-employed, pay 75 percent to the state –
beginning with the first euro! This is killing young entrepreneurs, in
particular. In Bulgaria, next to us, the business tax is ten percent. The
companies are running away from us. And yes, tourism is booming, there has been
an incredible push over the past years. However, the infrastructure in Greece
does not suffice for this. New investments are required. But there is not
enough money for that. Plus, the boom and increase in tourism do not suffice to
lift the sunken ship from the bottom of the sea.”
BILD: Your former boss and
former buddy, head of government Alexis Tsipras, the troika, the German
government, the EU – they all point out the budget surplus of XZ percent. Are
they all lying?
Varoufakis: “The surplus is
very real, not at all a lie. However, it reflects the flesh and blood that the
state extracts from a dying private sector. It is the evidence of the crime
against logic, not of recovery or success. They portray the statistics of
misery as evidence of success. They change the rules so they can say that the
Greece bailout was a success. If it doesn’t fit, get a bigger hammer. That is
not only against any logic, it is also a crime against the people in the EU
states – from Portugal to Germany.”
BILD: Who has lied?
Varoufakis: “All of them!
Greek governments, the IMF, the ECB, everyone. And you Germans have been
heavily lied to by Ms. Merkel – twice. The first time was when she stepped into
the Bundestag for the first rescue package and said that this would be an act
of solidarity with the Greeks, when the money was intended only for German and
French banks who had, against logic, loaned a lot of money to the Greek state
and oligarchy.”
BILD: Well, the banks – mostly
Greek banks – were saved so the Greek state wouldn’t collapse, would still have
access to money, and could pay for wages and salaries … But what was the second
lie?
Varoufakis: “It was not the
Greek banks that were saved. It was Deutsche Bank and the rest of France’s and
Germany’s banks. As for the Greek banks and state, they should not have been
saved – we should have been allowed to go bankrupt, suffer the consequences but
then be allowed to pick ourselves up and move on – something that these
bailouts prohibited, forcing Ms. Merkel to her second lie: the promise to the
Germans that the bailout loans would be paid back and with interest – something
that was impossible given Greece’s bankruptcy. She has been trapped in this lie
ever since. Once you start lying about such things, you can no longer escape.
And so she continues to lie …”
BILD: Before 2002, Greece lied
its way into the euro with faked statistics. Now, after all these years of
rescuing the country, it should finally meet the euro criteria, right?
Varoufakis: “Ha! Of course
not. First, do you really think that the EU and Berlin were fooled by Greek
statistics? They always knew. They were conniving in the statistical
manipulation of Italy because the politicians really needed Italy in. Greece
entered on the basis of the same intentional manipulation of the ‘rules’. Rules
that could not be met then and which are impossible to apply now. Turning a
blind eye to this was a concession that Helmut Kohl made to France’s head of
state, Mitterand, for his agreeing to the German reunification. Wolfgang
Schäuble was present back then – he and the German Bundesbank knew this
couldn’t work. He has basically stuck to his position.”
BILD: You and Wolfgang
Schäuble were the two big brawlers in the decisive months of 2015 when your
country was close to leaving the euro. Schäuble supported an exit with billions
in help – so that Greece could either make itself fit for the euro and return
at some point, or do its own thing. In hindsight, was he right?
Varoufakis: “At least he
wasn’t completely wrong. But what he really meant was: go away, get out of the
euro. He wanted us forever out, since this doesn’t work, after all, and because
he saw that, with Italy, a far bigger catastrophe is approaching the euro zone.
What sense does it make to kick someone out with a huge amount of money, for a
short period of time? Then there would be no reason to return to the badly
construed euro, which would be expensive for Greece.”
BILD: If you had the choice,
which government would you rather enter: that of your former buddy Alexis
Tsipras or Schäuble’s?
Varoufakis: “Neither of those.
But if you’re asking who I trust more, then my answer is clear: Wolfgang
Schäuble.”
BILD: Why?
Varoufakis: “In all this time,
he was the only one who told at least part of the truth. I could trust the
things he said to me privately – even though that was not always the same as
what he said in public to the Germans. He always kept his word to me.”
BILD: And Ms. Merkel?
Varoufakis: “Never! She seems
terribly uninspired and devoid of vision to me. She will go down in history as
the politician who had almost all of the power and possibilities to unite
Europe and to lead it into the future and to implement reforms – but then she
failed to make use of a historical opportunity. And I don’t trust her in
general.”
BILD: How did Merkel manage to
make Alexis Tsipras side with her in 2015 and agree to the third rescue package
– against his conviction and the vote of the majority of Greeks?
Varoufakis: “To be honest, I
don’t know. But she has also destroyed many others with her very peculiar
charm: various leading SPD men, the men in her own party, France’s former
president Hollande – and she will also do it with Macron. Tsipras was one of her
easiest exercises. She promised him a lot and gave him nothing. For instance,
she promised him debt relief – and then obstructed them. She had an aim: we
were supposed to get more money and then shut up. Even Schäuble said then that
this wouldn’t work.”
BILD: But why don’t you trust
her?
Varoufakis: “Very early on,
she asked Tsipras – according to his narrative – to kick me out. He refused to.
Later, when there were serious struggles between me and Wolfgang Schäuble,
Merkel apparently told Tsipras something like: ‘it’s great that you didn’t fire
him, we can let Schäuble and Varoufakis fight, and then the two of us will
calmly find a solution’. So she didn’t only go behind my back, but also that of
her own minister of finance, who fought for the third rescue package in the
Bundestag, against his own conviction.”
BILD: Did Schäuble ever tell
you what he thought of the third rescue package that was under discussion in
2015?
Varoufakis: “Yes.”
BILD: And?
Varoufakis: “He told me that
he was against it, that it wouldn’t work like this. That’s why he supported the
idea of us leaving the euro. He thinks the same about Italy. But he believed –
and here he was wrong, I think – that he could keep France in the euro, even
though it is also in a bad position.”
BILD: You caused a stir, when
you rehired hundreds of cleaning ladies for the ministry of finance, despite
the bankruptcy. At the same time, there was a lack of financial investigators
for checking the dirty money lists that came from abroad – such as the Legarde list
…
Varoufakis: “I’m really fed up
with having to justify myself for the 300 poor cleaning ladies who received the
minimum wage and whose dismissal was cruel and unnecessary. Especially if you
see what the troika and Alexis Tsipras’ government did FOR tax evaders
immediately after I resigned.”
BILD: What was that?
Varoufakis: “Tsipras fired me
exactly at the point of time when we wanted to bring charges against huge
numbers of tax evaders. A special group, that I had assembled, had identified
485,000 tax evaders with the help of a particular computer programme and bank
data. These people had evaded at least 100,000 euros in taxes each between 2000
and 2014. We had everything ready, we had even linked the banks’ live data with
account numbers and tax numbers. Following the German model, we wanted to offer
something like an act of grace: whoever pays back their taxes voluntarily and
on their own initiative will only pay a minimum fine of 15 percent. We would
have caught anyone who then didn’t pay. Among the people we found were many
Greek oligarchs and their families.”
BILD: Are you saying that
Tsipras fired you because you were going after the rich?
Varoufakis: “No. I was pushed
out because I would not sign the 3rd bailout loan. However, the moment I
resigned in early July 2015 the troika, with the acquiescence of the Tsipras
government, killed the programme that would have caught the tax evaders. As far
as it was reported to me, the senior representatives of the troika – not the
ministers of finance – wanted to protect the oligarchs. The oligarchs were the
troika’s allies in Greece, running the banks and controlling public opinion.
They had to be protected.”
BILD: Final question, Mr.
Varoufakis: Can you understand the regular German taxpayers’ view that Greece should
be grateful for their help and the huge amount of money? You don’t really
sound as if you do …
Varoufakis: “I understand that
this is how they feel because the facts have been kept from them. I am sure
that if your readers knew the truth, they would be very angry with their own
government for giving so much money to the German bankers and the Greek
oligarchs while pretending they were helping the normal Greek – who only saw
pain and misery in the past decade, thus finding it impossible to be grateful.
Germans and Greeks must be united in our anger against our governments!”
https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/bild-international/interview-yanis-varoufakis-greek-crisis-56758080.bild.html
No comments:
Post a Comment