Former Greek finance minister says Greece was fiscally waterboarded by creditors
In 2015, the troika stalled until July to bring Greece to its knees in order to force Alexis Tsipras' hand.- Yanis Varoufakis in a statement published by the BBC and Belfast Telegraph.
Days leading up to July 5, 2015, were filled with worry and defiance in Athens — Greece was on the brink.
The country's left-wing Syriza alliance had asked Greeks for a mandate — to refuse the austerity measures being demanded, once again, from the so-called "Troika" of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.
Years of harsh austerity had already gutted Greek government services, and left the country's social safety net in tatters. And in the end, 60 per cent of Greek voters had rejected the austerity demands.
Yanis Varoufakis was the finance minister during that tense time. And for the Troika, he became public enemy number one. He's been called a narcissist, belligerent and brilliant from pundits to politicians. Everyone from the IMF to the EU wanted to blame Greece for its financial crisis.
Varoufakis wants to set the record straight. His book is called, And the Weak Suffer What They Must?: Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future.
This segment was produced by The Current's Howard Goldenthal.