Yanis Varoufakis just completely trashed Greece's bailout deal with a line-by-line takedown
Quickly after he stood down, new finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos proposed a deal which looked extremely similar to the one rejected in Greece's July 5 referendum. After tough negotiations last weekend, the government emerged with a deal, and Varoufakis has just slammed it in an article on his own site.
It's a line-by-line evisceration of the deal, which requires pretty severe austerity measures, mass privatisation and the sort of economic reforms, like pension cuts, that Syriza campaigned against.
He calls it "the terms of Greece's surrender," which pretty much sets the tone. Remember this is a deal that his former boss, and presumably friend, Alexis Tsipras is proposing that his party votes for on Wednesday night. Tsipras clearly doesn't like the deal, but Varoufakis' timing is particularly bad for the PM.
Here's a snippet - the part inside the square brackets is Varoufakis' commentary, while the rest is the actual text of the deal (emphasis ours):
Immediately, and only subsequent to legal implementation of the first four above-mentioned measures as well as endorsement of all the commitments included in this document by the Greek Parliament, verified by the Institutions and the Eurogroup, may a decision to mandate the Institutions to negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) be taken [i.e. The Syriza government must be humiliated to the extent that it is asked to impose harsh austerity upon itself as a first step towards requesting another toxic bailout loan, of the sort that Syriza became internationally famous for opposing.]
He goes on to call the deal a Carthaginian Peace, says that the Greek parliament is once again becoming "an appendage of the Troika," and adds "it may be possible that pigs will fly" to the section suggesting Greece could raise even more money from privatisations.
In Varoufakis' first post-resignation interview he said he couldn't stand the "negatively charged atmosphere" and "air of defeat" around Tsipras following the July 5 referendum in which Greece voted No to the bailout deal on the table at the time.
Varoufakis said during the referendum that if the Greek people voted No, there was an improved deal already on the table which he could then sign, and that banks could open on Tuesday July 7, more than a week ago.