13 July 2015

Yanis Varoufakis: Dr Schäuble’s Plan for Europe - Do Europeans approve?

– Article to appear in Die Zeit on Thursday 16th July 2015

Pre-publication summary: Five months of intense negotiations between Greece and the Eurogroup never had a chance of success. Condemned to lead to impasse, their purpose was to pave the ground for what Dr Schäuble had decided was ‘optimal’ well before our government was even elected: That Greece should be eased out of the eurozone in order to discipline member-states resisting his very specific plan for re-structuring the eurozone.

• This is no theory.
• How do I know Grexit is an important part of Dr Schäuble’s plan for Europe?
• Because he told me so!

I wrote this article not as a Greek politician critical of the German press’ denigration of our sensible proposals, of Berlin’s refusal seriously to consider our moderate debt re-profiling plan, of the European Central Bank’s highly political decision to asphyxiate our government, of the Eurogroup’s decision to give the ECB the green light to shut down our banks.

I wrote this article as a European observing the unfolding of a particular Plan for Europe – Dr Schäuble’s Plan.

And I am asking a simple question of Die Zeit’s informed readers:

• Is this a Plan that you approve of?
• Do you consider this Plan good for Europe?

Full blog post

© Yanis Varoufakis