#djisselbloem

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Varoufakis recordings: Eurogroup dirty laundry to be released March 10

“You can hear Schaeuble’s voice saying that the profits from Greek bonds he wanted for the German budget,” Yanis Varoufakis revealed in an interview ahead of the controversial release of his secret recordings from the Eurogroup sessions in the first half of 2015.

“Don’t you want to hear Schaeuble speaking about the ECB’s profits from the Greek bonds?” he said in an interview with Skai TV late on Thursday.

Stressing that the promise to Samaras’ government in 2012 was that the profit would return to Greece, Varoufakisrevealed that then German finance minister Wolfgang Schaueble said during a Eurogroup meeting: “No, I need the for my budget. I have no obligation to pass it on to German citizens so that they understand what their own finance minister is doing in their own name. There is no democracy without transparency.”

He revealed that then Eurogroup head Jeroen Disslebloem had threatened with closure of the banks already at the first  meeting in February 2015.

He pointed out that the lenders”took back what they had promised” and “started to lie,” adding that he was expecting “a war.”

he revealed that IMF’s officer in charge of Greece Poul Thomsen and he had agreed on the Value Added Tax issue. “While we were preparing the announcements, he took everything back demanding [a new deal?] on Labor issues,” Varoufakis said adding “that’s lack of word of honor.”

The world has to learn all these things during the negotiations, it has to hear “how we argued when they were giving deadlines to Greece.”

He accused the EU lenders of cheating saying “they never went to the meetings with proposals, but they would come out and claim I was going there with proposals.”

This is what the world has to learn. They had never come up with suggestions and they went out and said that I was going there without suggestions. This is what the world has to learn. You have to hear how they were cheating on the ultimatums they were giving to Greece, “he said, and said if there would be any legal implications for their publication:

Varoufakis announced that the unedited audio recordings will be uploaded on the website of his party MeRa25 on March 10, 2020. He added that he was not aware there were no minutes of the Eurogroup sessions, therefore there are no recordings of the first three sessions. The recordings are from some ten meetings.

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Dijsselbloem claims Greece’s “statutory retirement age will go to 76”

Former Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem wrote a blog post about the pensions system in general and the one in Greece in particular. He supports the Greek government position that  the controversial pension cuts “are unnecessary.” However, at the same time he claims that “the statutory retirement age in Greece will go to 76.”

Does he know something, the rest of us does not? Or is it just Dijsselbloem’s wishful thinking or even a typo?

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Dijsselbloem admits Greek programs were too difficult

Greece’s bailout programs were too long, too hard and led to many failures, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the former head of the Eurogroup, conceded in an interview with the French service of Euronews.

The Dutch politician, who had to handle the crises of both the eurozone and Greece, noted that the country’s emergence from the program was good news. However, he makes no secret of his disappointment, remarking that some people consider Greece’s exit a huge success but the length, toughness and failures of the program don’t allow anyone to say so.

Dijsselbloem remembers being accused of lacking in compassion during his tenure. He now wishes to amend his statement at the time that the Greeks “cannot spend all the money on drinks and women and then ask for help,” saying that he would have now phrased it in a different way if he had the chance.

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Dijsselbloem: Greece should have been grateful to European aid, kept mouth shut

Greece should have been grateful to European aid and kept its mouth shut, the former chief of Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem said more or less in an interview on Saturday. He has clearly not recovered yet from the traumatic experience with former Greek finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. At the same time and after three painful bailout agreements that increased the debt and pushed millions to impoverishment, Dijsselbloem dared saying that  “Greece is obviously not a success story, demands on Greeks were to heavy” and that the Greek “crisis has been so deep, that you can’t call it a success”

Euro zone countries have asked for too much from the Greek people in return for international bailout loans, former Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said in an interview on Dutch television on Saturday.

“On reforms, we have asked a lot from the Greek people, too much,” Dijsselbloem told current affairs program Nieuwsuur. “Reforms are hard enough to accomplish in a society with a well-functioning government, but this was obviously not the case in Greece.”

“Greece is obviously not a success story,” Dijsselbloem said. “Their crisis has been so deep, that you can’t call it a success.”

At the same time, in the usual North European arrogance, he said that Greece should be grateful for the help it received and keep its mouth shut.

Speaking about former ex finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, Dijsselbloem has obviously not recovered from the traumatic experience in front of the cameras in February 2015 in Athens.