Varoufakis not running in snap elections, wants to create European network
Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis will not be a candidate in the snap elections next month, but instead hopes to be part of a European network.
In an interview with Australia’s ABC radio, the outspoken former minister said that he felt “a responsibility to the people of Greece, who still look at those of us who represented that majestic 'no' vote, to tell them what I think is happening.”
In the interview, Varoufakis likened Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to mythological Sisyphus, a man “carrying on pushing the same rock of austerity up the hill, against the laws of economics and against very profound ethical principles.” According to the former minister, although the outgoing premier was trying to “pull off this austerian, memorandum of understanding-kind of facade”, he did not believe the new agreed bailout agreement was viable.
Varoufakis also told ABC he had sympathy for Popular Unity, a breakaway party of 25 former SYRIZA deputies led by Panayiotis Lafazanis, but that he disagreed with the radical leftist formation’s “isolationist” position which advocates a return to the drachma.
“Instead of becoming engaged in an election campaign which in my mind is quite sad and fruitless, I'm going to remain politically active – maybe more active than I have been so far – at the European level, trying to establish a European network,” Varoufakis said.
