Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis struck again on Monday by saying there's absolutely "no chance for Greece's public debt to ever be repaid", speaking on the same day as the more-or-less modest commemoration of the country's official exit from the third successive bailout.
The mercurial Varoufakis, the most controversial figure to emerge on the European political scene from the six months of shambolic negotiations between the new Tsipras government at the time and institutional creditors, added that the thrice bailed-out country should have been "ready for the drachma... in order to restructure the Greek debt."
Speaking to the Athens-based Skai broadcaster, the self-described "erratic Marxist" said that what's catastrophic for Greece is not a return to a national currency but an ongoing "brain drain", unemployment and over-taxation.
Varoufakis again blamed institutional creditors (the one-time troika) for Greece's woes, beginning in 2010, and called the European Stability Mechanism a "wicked mechanism aimed to destabilize the Greek economy".
True to his "maverick" political image, Varoufakis also promised that his Diem 25 political grouping will participate in the next Greek general election.
