The suffocation at the General Accounting Office in 2015, the “case heading for shipwreck” & Europe’s contempt for Varoufakis

Eleven years aft the 2015 crisis, Alexis Tsipras is attempting to trade the representation of a governmental “Reaper” — a mature subordinate returning to “clean up” the landscape. But past has a ruthless memory, and the 2nd occurrence of the documentary “By a Hair” (Sto Chiliosto, SKAI) served arsenic a harsh reminder: earlier Tsipras styled himself arsenic a Reaper, helium was the person who — contempt the sympathy helium enjoyed — endured 1 slap aft different from Jean-Claude Juncker, whose cynical remarks abruptly grounded the then-prime curate implicit the “suffocation” that civilian servants astatine the State General Accounting Office had warned astir from the precise archetypal infinitesimal of the “first-time Left” government.

The Blunt “No” from Jean-Claude

But the humiliation did not halt there. The documentary reveals that portion Athens was “flirting” with Moscow, Vladimir Putin contacted Juncker regarding the Greek issue. The Luxembourg politician’s reply was a blunt “no,” making it wide to the Russian person that Greece was a European substance and crushing immoderate hopes successful the Maximos Mansion for a “Russian lifeline.”

Besides, it aboriginal became evident that Moscow had nary volition of inflating specified a lifeline with its rubles. At the aforesaid time, Europe was allegedly demanding the Acropolis arsenic collateral, with Juncker delivering the celebrated “Shut up!” successful bid to prevention the Parthenon from the amateurism of a enactment that thought it was playing chess, portion Thomas Wieser was already “pulling the plug” with the blessing of Wolfgang Schäuble.

Abandonment and SOS Signals

All this was happening while, according to testimonies, implicit disorder prevailed wrong the authorities itself. On 1 side, Yanis Varoufakis believed helium could endanger Europe with “Marxist dances” successful bid to unafraid loans without conditions, portion connected the other, Panagiotis Lafazanis present describes the concern arsenic a diplomatic disaster: “The lawsuit was heading for shipwreck.”

“Tsipras signed an hold without securing a loan. We were scraping the bottommost of the authorities coffers to wage installments,” helium admits, revealing that the alleged “proud negotiation” was successful world a hopeless effort to halt the state from defaulting the precise adjacent day.

At the aforesaid time, Stavroula Milakou (Director General of the Budget Office) confirmed the chaos: “There was nary knowing of the occupation by my governmental superiors.” Dimitris Mardas’s infamous spreadsheet showing bankruptcy by Clean Monday became the blackboard of a authorities spiraling into delusion.

Contempt

International disdain was cemented successful Washington and Frankfurt. Jack Lew and Daleep Singh from the U.S. Treasury reportedly watched successful alarm arsenic Greece displayed a implicit deficiency of strategy, with Singh admitting helium had been sent to Athens due to the fact that “there was nary credibility.” Washington, contempt wanting to assistance prevention Greece, would not let the Greek authorities to usage the U.S. arsenic a bargaining chip.

Tsipras’s undermining of Varoufakis done a concealed telephone telephone to Mario Draghi was portrayed arsenic the hopeless determination of a premier curate watching chaos approach, portion Jeroen Dijsselbloem dismissively remarked during the now-infamous Eurogroup meetings that the Greek broadside “didn’t adjacent cognize however the strategy works.”

The “Party”

It is striking that Alexis Tsipras, successful his effort to reinvent himself arsenic an unshaken “Reaper,” has chosen implicit silence. On Twitter, the hashtag connected to the SKAI programme reflects a question of dozens — adjacent hundreds — of reposts questioning whether today’s “Reaper” has the courageousness to reply the testimonies of his ain associates astir “scraping the bottommost of the barrel” and “Marxist dances” supra the abyss.

The Reaper whitethorn harvest the present, but past has already harvested the illusions of 2015.