Greece’s new government’s top finance man is a former University of Sydney lecturer and an Australian citizen.
Yanis Varoufakis is Greece’s new finance minister.
The outspoken Greek Australian economist made a name for himself as a colourful critic of Greece’s €245 billion post-global financial crisis bailout from the outside through books, media interviews and countless blog posts.
Varoufakis is well known to many Greek Australians. While teaching at Sydney University for twelve years he also had his own segment on the Greek radio program of SBS.
He last visited Australia two years ago when he spoke at the Greek Community of Melbourne about the financial crisis in Greece.
Varoufakis’ new role means he is now firmly part of the political process, with arguably one of the toughest challenges in Europe.
SYRIZA swept into power by rejecting the austerity measures imposed by the troika of the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund as part of the 2010 bailout.
Varoufakis has the job of renegotiating the bailout conditions while somehow avoiding an outright default that would result in his country ‘Grexiting’ the euro zone.
These negotiations will be closely watched by other populist anti-austerity movements in Europe such as the leftist Podemos party in Spain.
How Greece’s opinionated first-time finance minister performs will play no small role in deciding whether the currency union has a viable future.
Varoufakis has mostly worked in academia. He was born in Athens but moved to the UK to study economics and maths after high school because his parents worried he could become a victim of the paramilitary forces in early 1980s Greece who often targeted students.
Varoufakis moved to the University of Sydney in 1988, where he was “out of the blue” offered a chance to lecture and study economics.
He seems to have enjoyed his time in Australia until 2000, when politics intervened again.
“A combination of nostalgia and abhorrence of the conservative turn of the land Down Under (under the government of that awful little man, John Howard) led me to return to Greece,” he said according to The Australian Financial Review.
University of Sydney economics professor Tony Aspromourgos, who worked with Varoufakis for several years, told AFW Varoufakis was a “gifted and
popular” teacher. “He was also a deeply thoughtful and very productive researcher,” Aspromourgos recalls.
It was Varoufakis’s later research into political economy and the evolution of capitalism as a global system which led him towards commentating and policy advocacy in relation to the euro crisis over the past five years.
“It is the vacuum created by the failure of the mainstream parties of the centre-left and centre-right that calls forth this participation,” Aspromourgos said.
Aspromourgos said reference to the new Greek government as “radical left” was “intellectually lazy”.
“In truth, the position of Syriza is not so way out, Syriza is merely leftwing, whereas the mainstream European parties supposedly of the centre-left are no longer leftwing at all.”
One of Varoufakis’s undergraduate students in the 1990s, Helen Goritsas, says her former teacher gave economics, which could be dry and theoretical, dynamism.
“He was a very charismatic and inspiring teacher, with a lot of presence. He made economics accessible, particularly to young people.
“While other academics were more introverted, he was engaged in world issues and media and vocal about it, he was quite humanitarian.”
AUSTERITY ‘UNTENABLE’ IN GREECE
Goritsas described herself as “apolitical” but said that worsening unemployment and poverty in Greece made continued austerity untenable.
“It’s great that someone who contributed to the educational system here and in many other countries can use that experience to help Europe.
“You need to stimulate the economy, you can’t just be regressive. People lose jobs, don’t spend, it’s a formula for destruction, that’s what’s been happening.”
Varoufakis’s connection with Australia did not end with academia.
He was taking great professional pride from setting up an international doctoral program at the University of Athens when he says his life took a “nasty turn” in August, 2005.
“My extremely young daughter, Xenia, was taken away by . . . Australia,” he wrote. “For reasons that I now recognise as legitimate, her mother decided to take Xenia to Sydney and make a home for her there, permanently.
“Xenia’s loss left me in a state of shock (she has been living since then in Sydney, thus guaranteeing the longevity of my relationship with Sydney).”
Varoufakis rebuilt his private life through a relationship with the artist and photographer Danae Stratou. He says now that, as Xenia “grows into an autonomous person, the pieces of my life that were so violently separated” are coming together.
But like most Greeks, Varoufakis was deeply affected by the GFC which caused the national economy to contract by almost 30 per cent and the unemployment rate to hit 25 per cent.
His doctoral program was disbanded while it became harder to provide financial support for Xenia at time when his salary was cut and the Australian dollar was on the rise. He decided to “come out” in the media against the bailout.
Varoufakis says his criticism of Greek banking scandals led to death threats against his family.
He moved to the United States to work at the University of Texas. And then Tsipras convinced him to return home once again.
Greece’s national debt stands at 175 per cent of GDP – the highest of any developed economy.
Varoufakis says the cost is unsustainable and wants to have “a rational deliberation” with the Mediterranean nation’s creditors.
Many observers are predicting months of tortuous discussions which will likely lead to lower interest rates or an extension of Greece’s repayment schedule.
Source: The Australian Financial Review