Controversial former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who convincingly re-emerged on Greece's political scene after the July 2019 elections as the leader of a small Parliament-represented party, on Friday promised to release what he said are tape-recorded sessions of Eurogroup meetings in 2015.
Controversial former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who convincingly re-emerged on Greece's political scene after the July 2019 elections as the leader of a small Parliament-represented party, on Friday promised to release what he said are tape-recorded sessions of Eurogroup meetings in 2015.
He posted the announcement on his personal webpage hours after Greece's Parliament president, Costas Tassoulas, refused to accept a memory stick sent to him by the mercurial Varoufakis, which the latter claimed contained the tape-recorded sessions.
Varoufakis led the SYRIZA government's failed negotiations with institutional creditors in the first half of 2015, skipping from the party after then PM Alexis Tsipras accepted creditors' terms and signed a third memorandum despite an overwhelming "no" vote in a July 2015 referendum asking Greek voters whether they accepted a previous offer by the same creditors.
On Friday, after the Parliament president's "snub", Varoufakis promised to "give access" to the tapes in late February.
He also charged that "no one has the right to keep citizens in the dark, so MeRA25 (his left-wing, anti-austerity party) will assume this action," although he did not disclose why he waited nearly five years to release the tapes.
Varoufakis has faced sharp criticism for allegedly recording closed-door meetings where he and his peers discussed European economic and fiscal policy, although he has maintained that his actions were legal.