Series: Yanis Varoufakis’s Account of the Greek Crisis: a Self-Incrimination

The first capitulation of Tsipras and Varoufakis at the end of February 2015

Part Seven

9 April 2018 by Eric Toussaint


“I signed the formal letter of request and, with revulsion in my stomach, had it sent to the creditors. It was a thing of darkness. And I had acknowledged it as mine.” [1]
Varoufakis



Disclaimer: This series of articles on Yanis Varoufakis’s book, Adults in The Room: My Battle With Europe’s Deep Establishment is a guide for left-leaning readers who are not happy with the dominant narrative meted out by the mainstream media and the Troika Troika Troika: IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank, which together impose austerity measures through the conditions tied to loans to countries in difficulty.

IMF : https://www.ecb.europa.eu/home/html/index.en.html
-controlled governments. These readers are also dissatisfied with the former Finance Minister’s version. [2] As a counterpoint to Varoufakis’s story, I have highlighted events that he is silent about and I have expressed different views on what he should have done and what he did instead. My story runs parallel, and not opposite, to his.

It is crucial to thoroughly analyze the policy implemented by the Varoufakis-Tsipras government because, for the first time in the 21st century, a radical left-wing government was elected in Europe. If we want to avoid another disaster, it is absolutely vital to identify the flaws and understand what went wrong.

This critique of the Greek government’s policy in 2015 is not primarily meant to point out the respective responsibilities of Tsipras or Varoufakis as individuals. It is imperative to analyze the politico-economic orientation that was followed, so that we can ascertain the causes of failure, understand what could have been tried instead, and learn what a radical left-wing government can do in a country in the periphery of the Eurozone.

Read the other articles of this serie:

Part 1. Yanis Varoufakis’s Account of the Greek Crisis: a Self-Incrimination — Part One: Proposals Doomed to Fail
Part 2. Varoufakis’s questionable account of the origins of the Greek crisis and his surprising relations with the political class
Part 3. How Tsípras, with Varoufakis’s aid, turned his back on Syriza’s platform
Part 4. Varoufakis Surrounded Himself with Defenders of the Establishment
Part 5. The Varoufakis-Tsipras Line was Doomed to Fail from the Word ‘Go’
Part 6. Varoufakis-Tsipras move towards the disastrous agreement with the Eurogroup of 20 February 2015
Part 7.
Part 8. Varoufakis’s secret negotiations and his disappointments with China, Obama and the IMF
Part 9. Tsipras and Varoufakis advance towards final capitulation

On 20 February 2015, Varoufakis signed a disastrous agreement with the Eurogroup. It stipulated that Greece was committed to repay its creditors along the previously established schedule. This involved paying € 7 billion in several instalments by 30 June 2015. Five billion were due to be paid to the IMF IMF
International Monetary Fund
Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.

When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.

As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).

The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%).
The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.

http://imf.org
even though it was one of the institutions that had enforced calamitous economic policies. The agreement also stated that any proposal for "reforms” and austerity measures in the context of the 2nd MoU implemented since 2012 was to be submitted by Greece to the Eurogroup’s approval. This 2nd MoU was extended by four months by common agreement between the Greek government and the Eurogroup. After signing the agreement in Brussels, Varoufakis went back to Athens, where he was sharply critized by emblematic figures of Greek resistance and struggle.


Athens 21 to 24 February 2015: Varoufakis drained the cup to the dregs

Varoufakis reports contradictory reactions. Jeffrey Sachs congratulates him, while he is severely criticized by Manolis Glezos, a hero of the Resistance and Syriza MEP since February 2015, and the well-known composer Mikis Theodorakis– both leftwing childhood heroes of his, as he puts it (p. 281). In a public communiqué, Manolis Glezos apologized to the Greek people for having encouraged them to vote for Syriza in January 2015.

Manolis Glezos

Varoufakis explains that from 21 February, he got on with writing the reforms that they would propose “as a substitute for the MoU” to be submitted to the Eurogroup on 23 February. It is interesting to note that today, Varoufakis makes no bones about the fact that the idea was to try to amend the current Memorandum; but at the time, Tsipras and he told the population that it was a new agreement and that Greece was now no longer the prisoner of the Memorandum and the Troika, renamed “the institutions.”

Varoufakis proclaims that the Troika no longer exists and that Greece is free again

Varoufakis writes, “Once it [the text] was submitted on Monday evening, Mario Draghi, Christine Lagarde and Pierre Moscovici would have the following morning in which to review it before the Eurogroup teleconference scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. There would be no quibbling; the three of them would pass judgement on the list of measures in turn, giving it either a green light or a red flag, with ministers having no say.” (p. 281-282). How then could anyone claim, as Varoufakis did in public at the time, that the Troika no longer existed and that Greece was free again? He himself acknowledges that he agreed to submit to Lagarde (IMF), Draghi (ECB ECB
European Central Bank
The European Central Bank is a European institution based in Frankfurt, founded in 1998, to which the countries of the Eurozone have transferred their monetary powers. Its official role is to ensure price stability by combating inflation within that Zone. Its three decision-making organs (the Executive Board, the Governing Council and the General Council) are composed of governors of the central banks of the member states and/or recognized specialists. According to its statutes, it is politically ‘independent’ but it is directly influenced by the world of finance.

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/html/index.en.html
) and Moscovici (European Commission) the list of proposals that the Greek government then intended to send officially to the Eurogroup.

Varoufakis wrote a piece on the answers to the humanitarian crisis, meaning to insert it in the newly configured 2nd Memorandum (MoU). The text is not mentioned in the press release of 20 February 2015, as the Troika refused to talk about any humanitarian crisis in Greece and rejected Varoufakis’s proposals two days later. Next he concentrated on removing elements breaching human rights from the Memorandum as it stood. “In exchange, I left a large number of the MoU’s prior actions’ stand. Some were ugly, some bad, a few good. But that’s what the spirit of compromise dictated.” (p. 283).

Varoufakis had asked George Chouliarakis, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors and Vice Prime Minister Dragasakis’s right-hand man, to remain in Brussels after 20 February, entrusting him with the task of collaborating with the European Commission to prepare the work to be submitted to the Troika by 23 February.

George Chouraliakis with Euclide Tsakalotos in the background

On Sunday 22 February, Chouliarakis was back in Athens and Varoufakis asked him whether the text he had sent to Brussels the night before had met with the approval of Declan Costello, the European Commission’s mission chief in the Troika’s Greek bailout programme since May 2014, who had been charged with overseeing the implementation of the 20 February agreement.

Chouliarakis replied that Costello’s reaction to Varoufakis draft had been positive, but that it needed to be reformulated in line with the Troika’s style. Varoufakis agreed and a few hours later, Chouliarakis came back with the reworked document. Varoufakis was not at all happy with the text. He writes: “Its language was clearly that of the Troika’s MoU, but the insertions that were supposed to reflect my earlier draft were also either absent or unacceptably watered down.” (p. 283). Together they modified the document and sent it to Costello for approval on the Sunday at 9 pm.

Costello refused two specific elements of their text. He rejected their idea of a moratorium on evictions of families unable to pay their mortgage Mortgage A loan made against property collateral. There are two sorts of mortgages:
1) the most common form where the property that the loan is used to purchase is used as the collateral;
2) a broader use of property to guarantee any loan: it is sufficient that the borrower possesses and engages the property as collateral.
. Varoufakis agreed to cut the “moratorium”. Costello also opposed the creation of a public development bank that Varoufakis wanted to announce. “It was another concession that I agreed to, making a mental note to place it at the top of my priorities from April onwards.” (p. 285).

On the morning of Monday 23 February, Varoufakis consulted the war cabinet and Lafazanis, the Minister of Reconstruction. “The strongest opposition came from colleagues belonging or close to the Left Platform. From their perspective, our negotiations with the creditors were fundamentally ill-advised and the couching of my list in Troika-speak bordered on the treacherous.” (p. 285).

The Greek press announces that the document sent by Varoufakis to the Eurogroup was written by Declan Costello of the European Commission

Finally, after further email consultation of the Troika representatives and having waited for their green light, it was a few minutes after the midnight deadline that Varoufakis officially sent his list to the Eurogroup as agreed. [3]

The following morning, Tuesday 24 February, the media put it out that the delay was proof of Varoufakis’s incompetence. Varoufakis comments: “It was a charge I could not challenge without revealing that I had been negotiating secretly with Greece’s creditors before formally submitting the list.” (p. 286).

There was worse to come: a few hours later, the Greek press revealed the contents of the document Varoufakis had sent the Eurogroup, announcing that it had been redacted by Declan Costello of the European Commission, which in the main was true. Varoufakis acknowledges: “Hearing this I grabbed my laptop, opened the document containing my reform list, clicked on ‘File’ and then on ‘Properties’ to see that next to ‘Author’ it read ‘Costello Declan (ECFIN) [Economic and Financial Affairs]’ and just below under ‘Company’, two words that completed my humiliation, ‘European Commission’.” (p. 287). [4]

See illustration: https://twitter.com/YanniKouts/status/570212150381301760/photo/1

Varoufakis further spins his tale and tells us that once he had swallowed his humiliation, he duly attended the Cabinet meeting. He claims that after two hours of discussion, the ministers gave him the go-ahead to pursue negotiations on the basis of the text he had sent to the Eurogroup the night before. Varoufakis provides no details of the discussion at this meeting, nor of the people who were present.

Fortunately there are other sources available to glean a correct idea of the discussions which took place in this special sitting of a restricted cabinet. There follows an excerpt of an article by a well-informed journalist from the Greek daily, Kathimerini: “Internal friction between government leaders was clear to see at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, where the Minister of Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy, Panagiotis Lafazanis, expressed strong reserves about privatizations that concerned his own ministry but also about the government’s commitment to harmonizing the electricity and natural gas markets with EU market norms and legislation. Mrs Nadia Valavani [5] raised the question of the rapid settlement of debt arrears. However murmurs of disapproval could be heard from other ministers, displeased that they had not seen the text in its final form before it had been sent.” [6]

Varoufakis claims that at that point, he should have ended negotiations

Next Varoufakis participates in the Eurogroup meeting by teleconference. The representative of the Commission declared up front that the list of measures that Varoufakis had sent “does not substitute the MoU, which constitutes the official legal basis for the programme.”(p.288). Mario Draghi said the same thing, as did Christine Lagarde.

Varoufakis claims that at that point, he should have ended negotiations and incited Tsipras to implement the unilateral measures that he, Varoufakis, had proposed to Tsipras, Papas and Dragasakis, starting with a haircut for Greek bonds held by the ECB and setting up a parallel payments system. [7]

“Instead, disastrously, I opted for the soft alternative” (p. 290); and to the Eurogroup he declared by telephone, “We shall insist… that the review be completed on the understanding that this government’s list of reforms is the starting-point.” (p. 291).


Varoufakis barely mentions the important debate within Syriza’s parliamentary group

On the evening of 25 February and until late into the night, Syriza’s parliamentary group held a crisis meeting. In his book, Varoufakis mentions it once, very vaguely, in a single line and with no date given: “The grumblings of some Syriza MPs notwithstanding, the mood across the land was ebullient.” (p. 305). [8] An endnote provides a little more information: “At a specially convened tumultuous parliamentary party meeting I spent a good hour on the podium explaining why the extension had been necessary, taking personal responsibility for the whole affair, while Alexis, Pappas and Dragasakis looked on” (Note 1, p. 526).

Members of Parliament and government ministers other than those in the war cabinet were inadequately informed about the negotiations

In fact at the meeting of Syriza MPs, about a third were opposed to the 20 February agreement. Among these were the President of the Hellenic Parliament, Zoe Konstantopoulou, and all the ministers and deputy ministers of the Left Platform (P. Lafazanis, N. Chountis, D. Stratoulis, C. Ysichos) as well as Nadia Valavani, Deputy Minister of Finance, and Thodoris Dritsas, Alternate Minister for Shipping and the Aegean. [9]

It is obvious that Varoufakis underestimated the significant opposition that was expressed very early on within Syriza’s parliamentary group and among government members, not to mention Syriza’s Central Committee. Later, when a vote was held at the meeting of the Central Committee on 28 February and 1st March 2015, 41% of Central Committee members opposed the agreement of 20 February. From Varoufakis’s account and other sources it is clear that the parliamentary group and government ministers who were not in the war cabinet were not kept fully informed about the negotiations. In fact what transpired was that neither the Cabinet, nor the MPs, nor Syriza officials had been made aware of the decisions made ahead of the agreement. At best, Tsipras would give them a biased briefing afterwards.

Protest in Athens - February 2015


On 27 February Varoufakis swore allegiance to the European Commission, the IMF and the ECB

After reporting the 24 February Eurogroup meeting during which he presented measures to be implemented in the context of the Memorandum rather than taking unilateral measures, Varoufakis adds: “The problem with errors is that, like crimes, they beget new ones. My failure to pull the plug on the 24 February Eurogroup teleconference was to be compounded with an even greater one a few days later.” (p. 292)

I’ll sign the bloody letter without parliamentary approval, send it to the creditors and turn the page. (p. 298)

On 25 February, through the office of the President of the Eurogroup, Varoufakis was summoned by the European Commission, the IMF and the ECB to show allegiance. The Troika wanted the Greek Government to send an official letter to confirm the agreement Varoufakis had given the day before at the Eurogroup conference. After much hesitation, he agreed to sign the template letter that the Troika had prepared. “Accepting the creditors’ words in full and without any emendation in a request of this nature was pure poison: it would suggest that we had not wrung the extension from them on our terms, but that the troika had chosen to impose it on theirs.” (p. 296). Varoufakis was aware of the extreme gravity of the decision to be made. Signing the template letter meant that the current memorandum was extended along terms dictated by the Troika.

Varoufakis acknowledges that the letter was so outrageous that Tsipras considered it unthinkable to sign it and inform parliament. Varoufakis asked him, “Are you sure you cannot go to parliament, tell it as it is, secure a vote that authorizes me to sign the letter and turn the page? He looked tired and depressed as he turned to Sagias, who, looking the same, advised him against it.” (p. 298)

Varoufakis then suggested he should do the dirty work: “In that case, Alexi, . . . I shall take sole responsibility. I’ll sign the bloody letter without parliamentary approval, send it to the creditors and turn the page.” (p. 287).

Varoufakis reports that in the early hours of 27 February, “I signed the formal letter of request and, with revulsion in my stomach, had it sent to the creditors. It was a thing of darkness. And I had acknowledged it as mine.” (p. 300).


On 27 February, Varoufakis retains Chouliarakis in his post

According to Varoufakis, on 26 February, following Chouliarakis’s double game (not only had he concocted a document with Declan Costello, of the European Commission, but he had also failed to forward Varoufakis an important message from the Eurogroup on 21 February), Tsipras advised him to get rid of such an unreliable collaborator. Varoufakis refused. On the following day, Tsipras changed his mind and accepted that Chouliarakis should stay.

Let us briefly go back to Varourafkis’s account.

Varoufakis writes that in the late morning of 27 February 2015, he went to the Maximos Mansion to tell Tsipras what he intended to do about Chouliarakis, “The idea was to promote him from chair of the Council of Economic Advisers to general secretary for fiscal policy, a position of higher rank in the ministry but one in which he could do relatively little damage” (p. 301). Though unhappy about the proposal, Tsipras agreed, and Varoufakis told Chouliarakis, who refused point blank and brought in blackmail: “It is your decision, Yanis. Just know that if you decide to take the Council of Economic Advisers away from me, I shall not accept the general secretariat for fiscal policy, nor any other position in the government. I shall instead go to the Bank of Greece, where Stournaras has a position ready for me.”(p. 302).

Varoufakis comments: “[...] not in my worst nightmare had I expected the reply he gave me. . . . The mask was off. The cynicism was extraordinary. He had just told me, quite brazenly, that he was ready to work directly for the troika rather than sever his privileged links with the troika’s functionaries in my ministry. Not only this, he had openly admitted that he was already in cahoots with the troika’s primary ally, the governor of the Greek Central Bank Central Bank The establishment which in a given State is in charge of issuing bank notes and controlling the volume of currency and credit. In France, it is the Banque de France which assumes this role under the auspices of the European Central Bank (see ECB) while in the UK it is the Bank of England.

ECB : http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/Pages/home.aspx
, who had begun the bank run in the run-up to our election as part of their bid to keep us from office. I was aghast.”
(p. 302). Varoufakis then took Chouliarakis’s response back to Tsipras, who, most astonishingly, decided to let things be.

Varoufakis accepted setback after setback until 6 July 2015, and never made public either his disagreements or his alternative proposals

Varoufakis’s comment about those extremely serious events clearly points to his inconsistency. He blames himself for not “pulling the plug” on the Eurogroup during the 24 February teleconference while claiming that this mistake was based on his conviction that Tsipras would be in a position to radically dismiss the Troika at some later point. Next he states that he lost this illusion on 27 February: “had I had that glimpse into the abyss before I entered the Eurogroup teleconference of 24 February, I would have most definitely pulled the plug on the Troika there and then. The only reason I had not done so was my conviction that Alexis could be counted on to trigger the rupture at a later, commonly agreed, stage if need be. That conviction evaporated when he apologized for Chouliarakis’s outrageous threat to work for the enemy.” (p. 304). He adds, “I should have confronted Alexis’s backtracking – in public if necessary.” (p. 304).

But he did nothing of the sort. As we shall see, Varoufakis accepted setback after setback until 6 July 2015, and never made public either his disagreements or his alternative proposals.


My testimony on the events of January-February 2015 and the period before

During my missions in Greece I met Alexis Tsipras

As mentioned in the Part 3 of this series (http://www.cadtm.org/How-Tsipras-with-Varoufakis-s-aid), I was personally involved in supporting the launch of the initiative for a citizens’ audit of Greek debt at the end of 2010. [10] I went to Athens eight times between 2011 and 2014 in order to take part in events on the issue of the Greek debt and on the need to reject the policies imposed by the Troika. The point was also to develop international solidarity with the Greek people’s resistance. I studied the issue of Greek indebtedness in depth and this resulted in a number of articles and interviews.

Alexis Tsipras and Eric Toussaint - Athens - October 2012

During my missions in Greece, I met Alexis Tsipras, Syriza’s main leader, and other leading figures of Syriza’s left-wing, particularly Costas Ysichos, who became Alternate Minister of National Defence in January 2015, and Antonis Ntavanelos, who led the DEA branch within Syriza and is now a member of Popular Unity. I had the opportunity to meet and debate and closely collaborate with comrades from various member organizations in the extra-parliamentary radical left coalition Antarsya, particularly Leonidas Vatikiotis from NAR and Spyros Marchetos. I had known some of them since the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century when a strong Greek delegation had participated in mobilizations against the G8 G8 Group composed of the most powerful countries of the planet: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the USA, with Russia a full member since June 2002. Their heads of state meet annually, usually in June or July. summit in Genoa in July 2001. I’d kept in touch regularly with Greek comrades through networks such as the European Social Forum, where Greek participation was significant between 2002 and 2006, [11] or the European Marches against Unemployment.

Several Syriza leaders, such as Tsipras, Tsakalotos or Valavani, and Antarsya leaders, such as Yanis Felikis and Tassos Anastassiadis, and also leaders of the SEK, an organization related to the British SWP, were extremely active in European networks, as indeed was Giorgos Mitralias, who had participated in the launching of Syriza and who was active in the network for European Marches, particularly. From 2011 on, the CADTM also closely collaborated with Sofia Sakorafa, a Syriza MP, formerly a Pasok MP, and with the jurist George Katrougalos, a former member of the Greek communist party (KKE), who was to become alternate minister in the Tsipras government and is now Alternate Minister for Foreign Affairs. Since late 2010 I have been in regular contact with Costas Lapavitsas, who became a Syriza MP in January 2015. I was also in regular contact with Yanis Tolios a close collaborator of Panagiotis Lafazanis. Tolios was active in the audit of the Greek debt. In October 2012 I also had a long interview with Manolis Glézos. I had admired his unflinching rebellious stance ever since he wrenched the Nazi flag from the Acropolis on 30 May 1941. I also collaborated from time to time with the Nikos Poulantzas Institute, which is close to the majority tendency within Syriza and deeply Euro-communist. When meeting Tsipras in October 2012, I had come upon John Millios, who was one of the people in charge of economic matters within Syriza until the end of 2014. I knew a dozen young people aged between 20 and 30 in 2011–2015 who had mobilized in favour of auditing the debt. Lastly, I was in touch with Greek trade unionists, most of them members of Syriza or Antarsya.

I became convinced that Tsipras wanted to avoid any confrontation with creditors

During contacts before the January 2015 elections I had become very critical of Alexis Tsipras’s attitude. A key moment was a meeting with Tsipras in his office at the Greek parliament in October 2012. From the start of our conversation, which lasted about an hour, I realized that he had given up on the positioning he had defended during the two election campaigns in May and June 2012. As a representative of the CADTM, I suggested that we strengthen the campaign to delegitimize the creditors of the Greek debt and to support a citizens’ audit of the debt so that we could use its findings when Syriza came to power. I realized then that, regarding the country’s public debt, he was retreating from what he had demanded in May and June 2012 in front of the Greek electorate, that’s to say: “The creation of an international debt audit committee combined with suspension of repayment of the debt until the end of the committee’s work. » [12]

I met Alexis Tsipras for a second small meeting in October 2013, along with the Syriza MP Sofia Sakorafa, who was deeply involved in the citizens’ audit of Greek debt and had collaborated more and more actively with the CADTM, attending an international CADTM meeting in Brazil in October 2011. The conversation with Tsipras in October 2013 lasted just over one hour and strengthened my conviction that he wanted to avoid any confrontation with creditors. He clearly thought, without putting it into words, that the orientation he had himself stood for in May-June 2012 was too radical, as indeed was the CADTM’s position. He considered that it was possible to use “pro-EU” arguments to persuade creditors to grant Greece significant debt relief.

My own analysis of Greece and the Eurozone had changed. From the summer of 2013 I had become convinced that leaving the Eurozone was an option to be considered by countries of the European periphery, notably Greece. [13] But I did not discuss the issue with Tsipras since the point of the meeting was to prepare a large-scale European conference on the debt and on alternatives to neoliberal policies.

A Syriza government had to be ready to take radical, unilateral, measures

By the end of the October 2013 meeting with Tsipras I was firmly convinced that the new orientation Tsipras had adopted would result in failure for the Greek people if radical forces in Greece within and outside Syriza did not mobilize to uphold the demands announced in May-June 2012 and prepare a Plan B to complement Tsipras’s Plan A. And of course it all depended on what would happen in Greece within the social and political Left. The decisive element would be popular pressure.

There was reason for concern when looking at the social and political Left: Syriza’s leaders around Tsipras were bent on avoiding confrontation with the EU establishment or with major Greek capitalists. They were giving up on the demand for a citizen audit of the debt and suspension of payments while it took place. [14] Syriza’s left wing was for a suspension of payments but was not strongly in favour of an audit. The extra-parliamentary radical Left, including Antarsya, was opposed to an audit of the debt, considering that people were already convinced that the whole of the country’s public debt had to be cancelled. A majority of Antarsya members considered that an audit would only give legitimacy to an illegitimate debt. The KKE (Greek communist party) saw partisans of an audit as agents of imperialism. Anarchists had no interest Interest An amount paid in remuneration of an investment or received by a lender. Interest is calculated on the amount of the capital invested or borrowed, the duration of the operation and the rate that has been set. whatsoever in auditing the debt.

During the two European conferences that were held in Brussels and to which Tsipras, Tsakalotos, Millios and myself had been invited in March and in April 2014, I insisted on the need for a Plan B. In October 2014 I also stated in a major newspaper in Athens, Εfimerida ton Syntakton (Journal of Editors), close to Syriza, [15] that Syriza’s proposals would meet with the opposition of the European Union and that a Syriza government had to be ready to take radical and unilateral measures. The box below reproduces an excerpt from the interview.

INTERVIEW Eric Toussaint interviewed by Tassos Tsakiroglou, a journalist from the Greek daily, Εfimerida ton Syntakton (Journal of Editors) (www.efsyn.gr)

Alexis Tsipras has called for an international conference for the abolition of the debt of the Southern European countries that are affected by the crisis, similar to what was done for Germany in 1953, when 22 countries, including Greece, cancelled a large part of the German debt. Is this a realistic possibility today?

This is a legitimate demand. Unlike Nazi Germany, Greece has not caused any conflict on European soil. The Greek people can strongly insist that the Greek debt is illegal or illegitimate and should be cancelled, just as the German debt was in 1953. However, I don’t think that Syriza and other European political forces can convince the European institutions to get together around a table to do the same as was done for Germany in 1953. Although this request is legitimate, and this is why I have supported the Tsipras candidature to the Presidency of the European Commission, it will not be possible to bring the governments of the main European economies and the EU institutions to the table on this agenda.

The experience of the last ten years has shown that unilateral sovereign acts can get results. The creditors that reclaim the payment of an illegitimate debt and impose violent measures that attack fundamental human rights, including economic and social rights, must be refused. I think that Greece has strong arguments for forming a government that would have popular support for working in this direction. Such a popular leftist government could establish a debt audit committee that would include a large popular democratic participation. This audit committee would unilaterally suspend repayments and finally repudiate the part of the debt that it identifies as illegal and/or odious.


In Greece, Syriza is topping all the polls and several of its leaders have declared that any debt negotiation will be done within the Eurozone context and will not be a unilateral decision. What do you have to say about this?


Yes, I know the official Syriza position. Personally, I try to show that another way is possible. It’s clear that most of the Eurozone governments and the ECB will not agree to an important reduction of Greek debt. So, in spite of Syriza’s willingness to negotiate, I think it will be impossible to come to terms with all. This requires a more radical approach - there is no other possibility - just as was done by Iceland after 2008, Ecuador in 2007 – 2009 and Argentina between 2001 and 2005.

Since then, those governments have made a series of mistakes and abandoned their radical positions. This why they are in great difficulty today, as is the case of Argentina, that I have recently visited. The Argentine parliament has passed a law that means Argentina must, from now on, act in a sovereign fashion in the management of its debt. It was agreed to create a Congressional Audit Committee that will sit for three months; we will see whether this does come about.


You have said that reducing public debt is necessary, but not sufficient to bring the EU countries out of the crisis, that other strong measures will be necessary in different sectors. Can you, briefly, tell us more?


First of all, nationalize the banks - I prefer to use the term socialization. I think that the Greek banks, and the banks of other countries, should become public and be put to the service of the population, in a framework of strict regulations imposing the rules and the objectives fixed by the population. Controlling the circulation of capital is also essential, in particularly that made by the big financial institutions. I am not talking about remittances of 1,000 or 2,000 euros, but large sums, which would require authorization by controlling authorities, without which a guilty bank would be sanctioned by heavily dissuasive fines and the revocation of its banking licence. This measure must be seriously applied. It would be a protection for ordinary users who make reasonably-sized international transfers of money. Tax reform is also very important: reduce taxes paid by the majority of the population and greatly increase, on a progressive scale, those imposed on the richest households and international companies, whether national or foreign.


And for Greece?


Syriza made interesting propositions during the 2012 elections. If there is a Syriza government the unjust laws (in particular, those that abolished collective bargaining between labour and employers) that were passed under pressure from the Troika must be repealed. Other necessary measures would include: radical tax reform favouring social justice and redistribution of the country’s wealth; the abolition of the most unfair taxes paid by the poor and increased taxation of the rich; an audit of the debt and the repudiation of the part identified as illegal and/or odious; socialization of the banks and control of the movement of capital."

The original Greek version of this interview published on 20 October 2014 can be accessed at: http://www.efsyn.gr/?p=245093

When an early election was called at the end of December 2014 for 25 January 2015, the CADTM published a press release that clearly sized up the threats from the European authorities that loomed over the Greek people:

“The CADTM does not have the least doubt about the real intentions of those who have used Greece as a European testing ground for the most extreme neoliberal policies and used the Greeks as guinea pigs for social, political and economic shock therapies. We must be ready for an escalation of their campaign. They cannot allow that Syriza gain victory and be emulated throughout Europe! They will stop at nothing because they are well aware that the result of the Greek elections will be decisive in the social war they are waging against the vast majority of the European population!

“It is because the stakes are so high that we can expect the ‘leaders’ of Europe and of Greece to refuse to accept the result of the poll which, for the first time in Greek history, should bring victory to the Greek left. They will certainly try to stifle the left wing government that will be the democratic result, because its eventual success will be interpreted as tremendous encouragement, to the workers and peoples of Europe, to resist.” [16]

On 2 January 2015, I was contacted by George Caravelis, who introduced himself as an emissary of the Syriza leadership wanting to know what my proposals were concerning Greece’s debt. I immediately contacted the Syriza European MP Nikos Chountis, who confirmed that Caravelis had indeed been asked to get my opinion. We had several discussions and Caravelis said that he was convinced of the need to put a debt audit committee in place as soon as possible after the election and the forming of a Syriza government. Based on our discussions, Caravelis sent me the notes he had sent to Syriza’s leadership via Chountis. I received no response from the Syriza leadership before the election.

Four days before the election on 25 January 2015, I published an opinion in the dailies Le Monde and Le Soir, the leading newspapers in Paris and Brussels. The article was entitled “Pour un véritable audit de la dette grecque” (in English: “What if SYRIZA took the EU at its word and audited Greek debt? » http://www.cadtm.org/What-if-SYRIZA-took-the-EU-at-its).

Syriza could take the European Union at its word by constituting a Debt Audit Committee

My article asked what would happen if a Syriza government decided to apply, to the letter, Article 7 of a regulation adopted by the European Union in May 2013 concerning countries subject to a structural adjustment Structural Adjustment Economic policies imposed by the IMF in exchange of new loans or the rescheduling of old loans.

Structural Adjustments policies were enforced in the early 1980 to qualify countries for new loans or for debt rescheduling by the IMF and the World Bank. The requested kind of adjustment aims at ensuring that the country can again service its external debt. Structural adjustment usually combines the following elements : devaluation of the national currency (in order to bring down the prices of exported goods and attract strong currencies), rise in interest rates (in order to attract international capital), reduction of public expenditure (’streamlining’ of public services staff, reduction of budgets devoted to education and the health sector, etc.), massive privatisations, reduction of public subsidies to some companies or products, freezing of salaries (to avoid inflation as a consequence of deflation). These SAPs have not only substantially contributed to higher and higher levels of indebtedness in the affected countries ; they have simultaneously led to higher prices (because of a high VAT rate and of the free market prices) and to a dramatic fall in the income of local populations (as a consequence of rising unemployment and of the dismantling of public services, among other factors).

IMF : http://www.worldbank.org/
plan. Paragraph 9 of Article 7 makes the following provision: “A Member State subject to a macroeconomic adjustment programme shall carry out a comprehensive audit of its public finances in order, inter alia, to assess the reasons that led to the building up of excessive levels of debt as well as to track any possible irregularity” (Regulation EU 472/2013 of 21 May 2013 “on common provisions for monitoring and assessing draft budgetary plans and ensuring the correction of excessive deficit of the Member States in the euro area”.)

The present Greek government, under Antonis Samaras, carefully refrained from applying this regulation. But after an electoral victory, Syriza could take the European Union at its word and constitute a Debt Audit Committee (with citizens’ participation) that would be entrusted with analyzing the process of excessive indebtedness and identifying illegal, illegitimate and odious debt Odious Debt According to the doctrine, for a debt to be odious it must meet two conditions:
1) It must have been contracted against the interests of the Nation, or against the interests of the People, or against the interests of the State.
2) Creditors cannot prove they they were unaware of how the borrowed money would be used.

We must underline that according to the doctrine of odious debt, the nature of the borrowing regime or government does not signify, since what matters is what the debt is used for. If a democratic government gets into debt against the interests of its population, the contracted debt can be called odious if it also meets the second condition. Consequently, contrary to a misleading version of the doctrine, odious debt is not only about dictatorial regimes.

(See Éric Toussaint, The Doctrine of Odious Debt : from Alexander Sack to the CADTM).

The father of the odious debt doctrine, Alexander Nahum Sack, clearly says that odious debts can be contracted by any regular government. Sack considers that a debt that is regularly incurred by a regular government can be branded as odious if the two above-mentioned conditions are met.
He adds, “once these two points are established, the burden of proof that the funds were used for the general or special needs of the State and were not of an odious character, would be upon the creditors.”

Sack defines a regular government as follows: “By a regular government is to be understood the supreme power that effectively exists within the limits of a given territory. Whether that government be monarchical (absolute or limited) or republican; whether it functions by “the grace of God” or “the will of the people”; whether it express “the will of the people” or not, of all the people or only of some; whether it be legally established or not, etc., none of that is relevant to the problem we are concerned with.”

So clearly for Sack, all regular governments, whether despotic or democratic, in one guise or another, can incur odious debts.
.

In the remainder of that article, I explained that the debt Greece was expected to repay might well be identified as illegitimate and odious. My article was aimed both at making a modest contribution to convincing public opinion of the illegitimate nature of the debts being claimed from Greece and to show the future Greek authorities that they could use a provision of a European Commission regulation – one we find reprehensible – as a weapon against the Commission.

That opinion was reproduced in Athens by the conservative daily Kathimerini, which asked the question: “What will a Syriza government do?”

During the election campaign, accompanied by Manolis Glezos, a European Parliament member from Syriza, I made a statement in Brussels in support of the Greek people. I also participated in debates, including with Fréderic Lordon and Serge Halimi (Le Monde Diplomatique). [17]

Following Syriza’s victory in the 25 January election and the forming of the government on 27 January, I learned that several of my acquaintances had become members of the Syriza-ANEL government.

George Katrougalos

I went to Athens on 13 February 2015 after having taken part in several conferences in Europe in support of the Greek people and in controversial debates such as the one broadcast on France 2 television on 30 January 2015, during which I was involved in some very heated exchanges with personalities from the Right, including journalist Arnaud Leparmentier of the daily Le Monde.

Do you remember that in 2011 Varoufakis refused to support a citizen audit of the debt?

On 13 February I had a meeting with Georgios Katrougalos, with whom the CADTM had been collaborating from 2011, when he became involved as a jurist in the fight for suspension of payments and an audit of Greece’s debt. Katrougalos, after being elected European MP representing Syriza in May 2014, had become Alternate Minister of the Interior and Administrative Reconstruction. I told him that I hoped he would help with the creation of an audit committee and the adoption of a firm attitude on the issue of non-payment of the debt. He answered that he would show discipline and follow Tsipras. That response didn’t augur well for the future. The following day, I had a meeting at the Ministry of Finance with Nadia Valavani, the Alternate Minister. Varoufakis was absent because he was in negotiations in Brussels. As soon as we saw each other, she reminded me warmly that we had been together for the launch of the citizen audit of the debt in 2011. She added “Do you remember that in 2011 Varoufakis refused to support a citizen audit of the debt?” and she indicated that she didn’t trust his political orientation. She then explained the plan she wanted to put into action in order to find a solution favourable to the two million Greek taxpayers who owed the State a debt of less than 2,000 euros. She also wanted to take measures against wealthy Greeks who cheat on their taxes. On 15 February, I had a meeting with Rania Antonopoulos, who had contacted me around 23 January by e-mail to say she agreed with the content of my article in Le Monde about Greece’s debt and the need for an audit. Meanwhile she had become Alternate Minister for Combatting Unemployment, in charge of creating 300,000 jobs. She explained the struggle she wanted to carry on in order to put an end to the policies that held unemployed persons responsible for their own situation. On 15 February, I took part in a demonstration on Syntagma Square in protest of the Eurogroup and in support of the commitments made by the Tsipras government. 20,000 demonstrators expressed their hope of seeing things change.

The President of the Greek Parliament wanted to initiate an audit of Greece’s debt to identify illegitimate, illegal, and odious debt

On Monday 16 February, I was received by the President of the Hellenic Parliament, Zoe Konstantopoulou. The meeting was very positive. Ms. Konstantopoulou wanted to initiate an audit of Greece’s debt to identify illegitimate, illegal, and odious debt. She had decided to make the meeting public. The information was picked up by a number of sites. [18] See the Box with Zoe Konstantopoulou’s account of our collaboration for the creation of a debt audit committee.

In the early evening, I met for an hour with the Alternate Minister of National Defence, Costas Ysichos. We discussed the negotiations then being held at the European level and the issue of debt. Costas Ysichos was director of Syriza’s Left Platform, which was closest to the CADTM’s own positions – that is, that the audit of the debt should be combined with a unilateral suspension of payments.

On 17 February, following Zoe Konstanpoulou’s discussion of our meeting, Nikos Chountis, the Alternate Minister of European Affairs, wanted to see me. As a member of the left wing of Syriza, he expressed his sympathy for the CADTM’s proposals, but as a member of the government he told me that Tsipras had a different orientation. He asked me if I would consider working with the government if it should take a more radical orientation towards the debt. As noted above, the contacts I had had with Caravelis from 2 January 2015 had been at the request of Nikos Chountis, but had not led to positive results.

Zoe Konstantopoulou’s testimony on collaboration to set up the Debt Audit Committee

The keen memory I had of Eric Toussaint, whom I had never met in person, went back to the big youth festival organized by Syriza in October 2012, when the party had become the leading opposition party, when the future was wide open. Eric had delivered a fiery speech which had lifted me up as well as the crowd (in English http://www.cadtm.org/Eric-Toussaint-The-Greek-people).

He himself has no recollection of the event, as he later told me, for he was particularly downcast, having noticed on that very day that Tsipras was already going back on his commitments about auditing and cancelling the debt – something most of us who were not involved in the coming betrayal were unfortunately very slow in understanding.

In my opening speech as President of Parliament on 6 February 2015, immediately after I was elected, I announced that the Parliament would actively contribute to auditing and cancelling the debt.

During the first meeting of the parliamentary group after this session the representatives of the Greens had asked with some anxiety whether it was “allowed to say such things when negotiations were under way, whereas the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister never use such terms.” I answered that this was part of the programme on which we had been elected and that we had not only to say these things in public but to actually carry them out. Nobody dared speak up at this point. However, it was already clear that the Government itself would take no initiative related to auditing or cancelling the debt and that the parliamentary group was powerless as to how things would develop.

It soon became clear that such an initiative had to rely on people with the needed knowledge but also with similar experience in the field of debt auditing and the repudiation of odious and illegal debts. Eric Toussaint was obviously the emblematic figure in this struggle; he fervently repeated in his public speeches and visits to Greece that debt had to be audited and that insofar as it turned out to be odious, illegal, illegitimate and/or unsustainable, it had to be cancelled. This position is consistent with international law, international protection of human rights and with international humanitarian law.


16 February 2015: my first meeting with Eric Toussaint


Our first meeting was short. I was aware of his precious experience and of his contribution to debt auditing, particularly his participation in the committee for the audit of the debt in Ecuador. To me it was obvious that for decades he had disinterestedly contributed not only to exposing the way debt is used as a device to subjugate peoples, but also to the struggle to liberate peoples and citizens from the burden of illegitimate debt. I wanted him to talk about his experience, and everything he said was indeed inspiring.

I then asked him whether he’d be willing to undertake auditing the Greek debt on behalf of the Greek Parliament and whether he could stay in Greece and meet with me again the following week to discuss exactly how the audit would be carried out. He answered “Yes” to both questions. I then asked for a parliamentary press release about my meeting with Eric Toussaint to be immediately published, so that the message would be out: we are working to carry out our commitments.


Towards setting up the Truth Committee on Greek Public Debt


The next days were dense and dramatic. The President of the Republic was elected on 18 February 2015. The agreement of 20 February 2015 was made public. When I read the content of the agreement in the media on the same day, I felt the earth quake under my feet: it acknowledged the debt and committed Greece to paying it back. I had to see Tsipras at once. I met him on the following day, 21 February, in his office in Parliament, immediately after his meeting with the other ministers. Flambouraris was waiting outside, and kept coming in and urging him to leave for Aegina with him.

I told Tsipras that this agreement was nothing less than another Memorandum and that we had to extricate ourselves from it as soon as possible. That we had to change the wording used about the debt at once through official communications from all involved. That we had to follow a clear strategy, carry out a debt audit, act upon Germany’s debts towards Greece after the Nazi invasion and occupation during the Second World War, open the Siemens case and all cases of corruption. Tsipras was trying to convince me that the agreement was not a Memorandum. He claimed that the debt acknowledgement only concerned payments over the coming four months; yet at the same time he reluctantly agreed to my suggestions.

I was there when he explained to Pablo Iglesias, leader of Podemos, that “what we have won is not white, nor is it black; we have managed to achieve grey.”

I left this meeting after telling Tsipras that I would immediately set out to audit the debt within Parliament and would set up a Committee on German debts, with his agreement.

A few days later I met Eric again. He was worried and dejected. I started talking about the committee we had to set up to carry out the audit of the debt. I told him I was thinking of a committee in accordance with a special provision in the Parliament’s regulations that allowed the President of Parliament to set up committees consisting of extra-parliamentary members on issues that are not related to those dealt with by Parliament on an everyday basis. I explained that I thought of this committee as both international and national, consisting of people with expertise and ordinary citizens, and that its mission would be to decode the conditions under which the Greek public debt had been created and increased and to draft the arguments necessary to repudiate any part of the debt that turned out to be illegal, odious or unsustainable. His response was positive but still cautious.

“I can see that you have something on your mind. I want us to talk about it frankly”, I said.

“Zoe, I’m really anxious. How do you stand on the 20 February agreement? ”

“Eric, I see this as a real slap in the face. I said so to the Prime Minister and told him I intended to launch the initiatives needed to overthrow the agreement, and he agreed. The debt audit committee of which I’d like you to be scientific coordinator of is a crucial initiative in this direction.”

He still looked at me somewhat quizzically.

“As to what you are worried about, so far as I understand, this is what I can say: I formally warned the Prime Minister against introducing the agreement in Parliament.” I repeated the same thing at the meeting of the parliamentary Group on the following days. When it was voted on within the Group on 25 February, I voted NO to the text of the agreement, which sparked off our divisions and turned me into a target. “What I can tell you is that if the agreement should be introduced in Parliament, I will vote against it.”

At this he lit up and looked relieved. I could see that he was still worried by the developments generally but it was important for him to know that he could rely on our full understanding. Much later he told me that indeed it had been a turning point for he had understood that the person who was asking him to commit himself to this frontal struggle against subjugation mechanisms was ready to match her words with actions.
That is how it all began.

“I want you to act as the Committee’s Scientific Coordinator and to tell me what you expect of me”, I said.

“You must chair the Committee’s work, to make sure that everything goes smoothly”, he said.

This is how the first and to date only institutional committee on debt audit was set up in an EU country.

In a most straightforward way.

Between people of their word.

Source: Zoe Konstantopoulou, “Greece, our struggle against odious and illegitimate debt” http://www.cadtm.org/Greece-our-struggle-against-odious
Alexis Tsipras, Éric Toussaint and Zoe Konstantopoulou - Greek Parliament - Launch of the Committee for the Truth on the Greek Debt


Conclusion

A very different orientation from the one adopted by Varoufakis and the small circle around Tsipras should have been taken

Varoufakis misrepresents the debates that took place among the public authorities in Greece and within Syriza in February 2015. He limits the debate on the possible options to what went on within the small circle of people around Tsipras and of which he was a member. He minimizes the opposition to the choices that were made by that circle by referring to “The grumblings of some Syriza MPs” when in fact the opposition within the Syriza parliamentary group and within the government amounted to roughly a third of all members. Within the Syriza Central Committee, opposition was at 41%. What is more, since Tsipras and he presented the concessions they made in a biased way, some of the MPs and ministers, while they had doubts, supported the orientation that was taken – without enthusiasm and in the hope that Tsipras, who had their full trust, would lead the government and the negotiations in the right direction.

I maintain, as do others, that a very different orientation from the one adopted by Varoufakis and the small circle around Tsipras should have been taken. To apply the Thessaloniki Programme, the Tsipras government would have had to take the following initiatives and measures:

The debt audit with citizen participation should have been launched and debt repayment should have been suspended, beginning with the debt to the IMF

- make public the government’s five or ten priorities in the negotiations, in particular as regards debt, while very clearly denouncing the illegitimate nature of the debts whose repayment the Troika was demanding;
- establish contacts with the social movements and – in the name of the government or of Syriza – urge the creation of solidarity committees in as many countries as possible, in parallel with the negotiations with the creditors, in order to develop a broad solidarity movement;
- refuse to engage in secret diplomacy;
- develop international channels of communication in order to get past the gate-keeping of the dominant media;
- use the provisions of European Regulation 472 regarding auditing of debts, launch the audit with citizen participation and suspend debt repayments beginning with the debt to the IMF. Remember that Tsipras, in presenting the Thessaloniki Programme, had declared: “We demand immediate parliamentary elections and a strong negotiation mandate with the goal to:

  • Write off the greater part of public debt’s nominal value so that it becomes sustainable in the context of a ‘European Debt Conference.’ It happened for Germany in 1953. [19] It can also happen for the South of Europe and Greece.
  • Include a ‘growth clause’ in the repayment of the remaining part so that it is growth-financed and not budget-financed.
  • Include a significant period of grace (‘moratorium’) in debt servicing to save funds for growth.
  • Exclude public investment from the restrictions of the Stability and Growth Pact.” [20]

- put an end to the Memorandum of Understanding in conformity with the commitment made to the Greek people at the time of the 25 January election. Tsipras had declared “We assume responsibility and are accordingly committed to the Greek people for a National Reconstruction Plan that will replace the Memorandum as early as our first days in power, before and regardless of the negotiation outcome.” [21]
- establish oversight over movements of capital;
- adopt a law on banks to ensure that the public authorities have oversight over them. Tsipras had announced on 13 September 2014 in Thessaloniki: “With a Syriza government, the public sector will regain its control over the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) and it will have rights over recapitalized banks. [22] This means that the public sector will now decide how the banks are run.” ; [23]
- adopt a law cancelling private debts to the State, for example for debts of less than 3,000 euros. Such a measure would have immediately improved the situation of 3.3 million taxpayers (including 357,000 SMEs) who owed less than 3,000€ (including penalties); [24]
- radically reduce the VAT on basic goods and services;
- roll back the cuts in retirement pensions and the minimum legal wage;
- implement the emergency plan to ease the humanitarian crisis called for in the Thessaloniki Programme;
- implement a parallel/complementary payment system;
- replace Stournaras by a competent and trustworthy person at the head of the central bank;
- prepare for new reprisals by the European authorities, and therefore for a possible exit from the Eurozone.


Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Alexis Cukier, Marie-Laure Coulmin-Koutsaftis, Nathan Legrand, Stathis Kouvelakis, Brigitte Ponet and Patrick Saurin for their attentive reviews of this article. The author is solely and entirely responsible for any errors or omissions contained therein.

The significance of the agreement of 20 February and of Varoufakis’s actions was the subject of a discussion in 2016 on the blog of the French-language news site Médiapart between Yanis Varoufakis, Alexis Cukier and Patrick Saurin:
- Yanis Varoufakis, “La Gauche Européenne après le Brexit” https://blogs.mediapart.fr/edition/les-invites-de-mediapart/article/050916/la-gauche-europeenne-apres-le-brexit-par-yanis-varoufakis, 5 September 2016.
- Alexis Cukier, Patrick Saurin, “Désobéir à l’Union européenne: questions à Yanis Varoufakis,” http://www.cadtm.org/Desobeir-a-l-Union-europeenne, 22 September 2016.
- Alexis Cukier, Patrick Saurin, “Réponse à l’analyse de Varoufakis sur le bilan du premier gouvernement Syriza” http://www.cadtm.org/Reponse-a-l-analyse-de-Varoufakis, 3 December 2016 (all in French).


Translated into English by Snake Arbusto, Vicki Briault Manus and Christine Pagnoulle.


Footnotes

[1Yanis Varoufakis, Adults in the Room : my Battle with Europe’s Deep Establishment, London: The Bodley Head (Vintage), 2017, p.300.

[2The first three paragraphs of this article were taken from the previous article of this series (http://www.cadtm.org/Varoufakis-Surrounded-Himself-with)

[4See also Zero Hedge, “The Reason Why The Eurogroup Rushed To Approve The Greek Reform Package?”, published on 24 February 2015, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-24/stunning-reason-why-eurogroup-rushed-approve-greek-reform-package

[5Nadia Valavani, member of the left of Syriza and Varoufakis’s Alternate Minister, opposed the concessions made to the Troika regarding tax debts owed to the State by tax-payers. She was unwilling to modify, in the restrictive sense, her draft bill concerning the payment of tax arrears to the State, especially by removing the measures of partial debt-cancellation that she had initially proposed.

[6Dora Antoniou, “L’accord provoque des remous dans Syriza”, 25 February 2015. (trans. CADTM) http://www.kathimerini.gr/804911/article/epikairothta/politikh/h-symfwnia-prokalei-kradasmoys-ston-syriza Regarding Nadia Valavani’s criticism and the toughening of the draft bill on payment of tax arrears, see: “Κούρεμα» στη ρύθμιση των 100 δόσεων” (Haircut of the draft bill on the 100 monthly payments), 25 February 2015, http://www.kathimerini.gr/804896/article/oikonomia/ellhnikh-oikonomia/koyrema-sth-ry8mish-twn-100-dosewn

[7Note that Varoufakis, in his book, claims that the war cabinet had authorized him to notify the Troika of three points: that to any attempt to weaken the country through a liquidity crunch, the government would respond by refusing to honour debt payments due to the IMF; that at any sign that the Troika was trying to contain the government within the Memorandum and refusing debt restructuration, the latter would end negotiations; that at any threat of bank closures and capital control, the government would respond with a unilateral haircut of the Greek bonds held by the ECB since 2010-2012 and by setting up a system of parallel payments. The trouble is, these threats were never communicated to the Troika. Nor were they ever made public. Varoufakis admits as much. As for carrying them out, as will be seen further on, Tsipras and most of the Cabinet firmly opposed the idea and Varoufakis let it go until the final capitulation of July 2015. All this was discussed by a very small committee and neither the government nor the leadership of Syriza were ever informed. The Greek population were kept totally in the dark.

[8The story about “the grumblings of some Syriza MPs” is the official version that was taken up by certain media (To Vima in particular, though not Kathimerini). All, however, noted that the atmosphere at the meeting had been “dramatic”.

[9An indicative vote by a show of hands had been held towards the end of the meeting, very late at night. At that point, there were about 120 MPs present and about 40 of them voted “no” or indicated a “blank” vote, which in Greece is tantamount to voting against. The six ministers concerned voted blank. A brief account of this meeting was published on 26 February 2015 on the Greek alternative press website, “ThePressProject” (https://www.thepressproject.gr/ ) in an article written by Vasiliki Siouti: “It seems that the SYRIZA government is having a difficult time gaining support for the deal signed between Varoufakis and the Eurogroup.

At a twelve hour-long meeting of the SYRIZA Parliamentary Group held on Wednesday 25th February, parliamentarians criticized the deal signed between the Greek government and the Eurogroup. The meeting culminated with an indicative vote for or against the deal. Panagiotis Lafazanis, the leader of the Left Platform and current minister for productive reconstruction and energy, requested that the votes be counted, but this was rejected. Nonetheless, with about thirty MPs having left the room when the vote took place, a third of the MPs present rejected the deal either with a ‘no’ or a ‘blank’ vote.

All deputies of the Left Platform and several others – amongst them Zoe Konstantopoulou, the President of Parliament; Nina Kasimati and others – voted ‘no’ or blank. Government ministers such as Panagiotis Lafazanis, Nikos Chountis, Dimitris Stratoulis, Kostas Isichos, Nadia Valavani and Thodoris Dritsas voted blank. Many of those deputies who voted blank expressed disapproval of Varoufakis’s manœuvres.

Deputies took their positions based mainly on briefings from Varoufakis and prime minister Alexis Tsipras, since they have not received full documentation of what was agreed at the Eurogroup.”

Published 28 February 2015 at: http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/syriza_mps_revolt_against_the_agreement

[10For an assessment of the CADTM’s commitment to Greece, see Eric Toussaint, “L’action du CADTM en solidarité avec le peuple grec” (2009 – 2016) http://www.cadtm.org/L-action-du-CADTM-en-solidarite (in French only).

[11In May 2006 the last large European Social Forum was held in Athens. Tens of thousands of activists came from all over Europe. Afterwards the ESF went into decline, for reasons unrelated to what was happening in Greece.

[12In May-June 2012, Tsípras put forward five concrete proposals for beginning negotiations with the parties opposed to the Troika (except Golden Dawn) : 1. Abolition of all anti-social measures (including the reductions of wages and retirement pensions). 2. Abolition of all measures that reduced workers’ rights as regards protection and negotiation. 3. Immediate abolition of parliamentary immunity and reform of the election system. 4. An audit of the Greek banks. 5. The creation of an international debt audit committee combined with suspension of repayment of the debt until the end of the committee’s work.

[13See Eric Toussaint, “Greece: an alternative” http://www.cadtm.org/Greece-an-alternative

[14I explained how a citizens’ audit developed in Greece in the third part http://www.cadtm.org/How-Tsipras-with-Varoufakis-s-aid. I also tried to explain how this initiative, that had started in 2011, significantly influenced Syriza’s 2012 programme: the demand for a debt audit combined with suspension of payments and cancellation of illegitimate debt had met with wide-spread approval among the Greek population during the Occupy the Squares movement in June-July 2011.

[15See “Alexis Tsipras is right to call for an international conference on debt” http://www.cadtm.org/Eric-Toussaint-Alexis-Tsipras-is, 27 October 2014.

[18Συνάντηση Κωνσταντοπούλου με ειδικό περί της διαγραφής χρεών κρατώνΠολιτική | ΓενικάΜε τον Eric Toussaint συναντήθηκε η πρόεδρος της βουλής. Ο κ. Toussaint έχει μακρά εμπειρία σε ζητήματα επονείδιστου και παράνομου χρέους.
Source

[19At the London Conference, on 27 February 1953, the Federal Republic of Germany, with the consent of twenty-one of its creditors (including the USA, the UK, France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, and Greece), was granted a 62.6% reduction of its debt. See: Eric Toussaint, “The cancellation of German debt in 1953 versus the attitude to the Third World and Greece.”

[20Excerpts from the Thessaloniki Programme, presented by Alexis Tsipras on 13 September 2014 (https://www.syriza.gr/article/syriza---the-thessaloniki-programme.html)

[21Excerpt from the Thessaloniki Programme (see the link above)

[22Varoufakis was opposed to this measure, since he wanted to transfer the “shares and management” of the Greek banks to the European creditors. As for the Tsipras government, it has not taken any action yet so that the Greek State can exercise its rights over the recapitalized banks. Moreover, the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund has been left in the hands of close associates of private bankers and the European leaders.

[23Excerpt from the Thessaloniki Programme (see http://www.cadtm.org/The-Varoufakis-Tsipras-Line-was)

Eric Toussaint

is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the spokesperson of the CADTM International, and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France.
He is the author of Greece 2015: there was an alternative. London: Resistance Books / IIRE / CADTM, 2020 , Debt System (Haymarket books, Chicago, 2019), Bankocracy (2015); The Life and Crimes of an Exemplary Man (2014); Glance in the Rear View Mirror. Neoliberal Ideology From its Origins to the Present, Haymarket books, Chicago, 2012, etc.
See his bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Toussaint
He co-authored World debt figures 2015 with Pierre Gottiniaux, Daniel Munevar and Antonio Sanabria (2015); and with Damien Millet Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers, Monthly Review Books, New York, 2010. He was the scientific coordinator of the Greek Truth Commission on Public Debt from April 2015 to November 2015.

Other articles in English by Eric Toussaint (621)

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