How Tsipras and Varoufakis’s turned their backs on Syriza’s platform

by Eric Toussaint

Yanis Varoufakis traces his collaboration with Alexis Tsipras and his alter ego, Nikos Pappas, back to 2011. That collaboration gradually broadened, starting with 2013, to include Yannis Dragasakis. There is a constant in the relations between Varoufakis and Tsipras: Varoufakis constantly argues for changes in the political programme that Syriza had adopted. Varoufakis tells us that Tsipras–Pappas–Dragasakis themselves clearly wanted to move toward an orientation that was different from, and significantly more moderate than, the one their party had adopted.

Varoufakis’s narrative is lively and piquant. Through it, we see how choices were made behind Syriza’s back at very important stages, without regard for basic democratic principles.

To hear Varoufakis tell it, he played a central role, and he did in fact exert influence on the line the Tsipras–Pappas–Dragasakis trio adopted. It’s also certain that Tsipras and Pappas, outside of Syriza, sought to create fairly close relations with certain individuals and institutions in order to gradually move the policies put into practice farther and farther away from the positions Syriza had championed. Varoufakis is not the only person they contacted, but at a given point Tsipras and Pappas felt that he was the right man to negotiate with the European institutions and the IMF.

Greece in 2015 :

A questionable account by Varoufakis of the origins of the Greek crisis

by Eric Toussaint

In the previous article entitled ‘Greece 2015: Varoufakis’ proposals were doomed to fail’, I critically analysed the proposals made by Varoufakis before joining Tsipras’ government in January 2015, showing that they led to failure. This article covers the ties Varoufakis maintained with Greece’s ruling political class (both the Pasok, historically linked to social-democracy, and the conservative New Democracy) for several years.

On several occasions, Varoufakis mentions the broad range of his relations with members of the Greek political milieu. He stresses his past friendship with Yanis Stournaras (the current governor of the Bank of Greece, an ally of Mario Draghi and of the private Greek and foreign bankers), his good relations in 2009 with George Papandreou (who implemented the policies leading to the first Memorandum of Understanding in May 2010) and his relationship with Antonis Samaras (who led the Greek government after the second Memorandum of Understanding), and he devotes a large part of the first four chapters of his book to relating how a close collaboration, and at times a complicity, was formed with three Syriza leaders. Those leaders were Alexis Tsipras (who led the Greek people into the third Memorandum of Understanding) and Nikos Pappas (Tsipras’s alter ego, who became a minister of state in the first Tsipras government), who were joined later by Yannis Dragasakis (before he became vice–prime minister of the first and second Tsipras governments). In this second chapter I will deal with Varoufakis’s account of the start of the crisis in Greece and his relations with Greece’s traditional political class.

Greece 2015: Varoufakis’ proposals were doomed to fail

by Eric Toussaint

In his book Adults in the Room [1], Yanis Varoufakis gives his version of the events that led to the shameful capitulation of the government of Alexis Tsipras in July 2015. Essentially it analyses the period 2009–2015, though it makes incursions into earlier periods.

With this voluminous (550-page) work, Yanis Varoufakis shows that he is a gifted storyteller. At times he succeeds in moving the reader. His direct and vivid style makes it easy to follow events.
This initial chapter will cover the first four chapters of a book that comprises seventeen in all. It deals with the proposals Varoufakis made before he became a member of the government in January 2015.

 Series Understanding what happened in Greece in 2015 when hope came from Athens

Greece 2015 | From hope to capitulation | Lessons for the future

by ERIC TOUSSAINT

25 January 2015, at a time when Greece had been suffering since 2010 under the burden of a severe austerity regime forced on the country by its creditors and by the social-democrat (Pasok) and conservative (New Democracy) parties who have taken turns exercising power in the country, Syriza (an acronym whose Greek meaning is “coalition of the radical Left”) won the legislative elections in Greece, with 149 deputies out of a total 300. Lacking an absolute majority in the Hellenic Parliament, Syriza formed a coalition government with ANEL (a small “souverainist” right-wing organization which announced that like Syriza, its priority was to put an end to the austerity policies). Syriza’s leader, Alexis Tsipras, became prime minister and appointed Yanis Varoufakis, a left-leaning economist close to Syriza, his finance minister.

‘Trump likes what Putin does,’ Bernie Sanders says in Kyiv Independent

As Ukraine enters the fourth year of Russia’s full-scale invasion, shifting political dynamics in the U.S. threaten to influence the course of the war. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly misrepresented the war’s origins, excluded Ukraine from initial negotiations, and advocated for what many see as an exploitative deal that would force Ukraine to surrender national resources as “repayment” for U.S. aid.

Trump’s rhetoric raises urgent questions about America’s long-term commitment to aiding Ukraine.

In an interview with the Kyiv Independent, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders shares his concerns about Trump’s growing alignment with Russia and other authoritarian regimes, what a possible U.S.-Russia alliance would mean for the American people, the role of billionaires like Elon Musk in shaping both domestic and international political discourse, and why defending Ukraine is crucial for the future of global democracy.