Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who was forced out of his job as part of a new bailout deal to keep Athens in the euro zone, tells the BBC that the austerity measures that come with the agreement are "going to fail."
The financial reforms, imposed in exchange for an 86 billion euro ($93.6 billion) lifeline will "go down in history as the greatest disaster of macroeconomic management ever," Varoufakis tells the BBC.
"This program is going to fail whoever undertakes its implementation," he said, adding, "It has failed already."
The BBC reports that Varoufakis:
"[Said] Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who has admitted that he does not believe in the bailout, had little option but to sign.
"We were given a choice between being executed and capitulating. And he decided that capitulation was the ultimate strategy," he said.
On Friday, German lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to back the bailout plan — Greece's third such rescue plan in five years.
Earlier this month (and before his resignation), Varoufakis, along with Tsipras, used strong rhetoric to describe negotiations with creditors, accusing them of "terrorism" and trying to "instill fear in people."
In an interview with the Spanish daily El Mundo, he said that kicking Greece out of the euro zone would cost Europe "a trillion euros."
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
