Greek Finance Minister said there’s a “100 per cent chance” Athens will reach an agreement with its international creditors after a bailout referendum due on Sunday.

“An agreement will be reached whether a ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ comes up through the ballot box,” Yanis Varoufakis told BBC News in an interview on Thursday.
“If it’s a ‘YES’ it will be a bad agreement, the banks will open with a bad agreement … If a ‘NO’ wins we are going to have another agreement which will be viable. Along the lines of the proposals made to us in the last few days.”

Varoufakis urged Greeks to vote against accepting the terms of the latest bailout proposal when they vote in Sunday’s referendum, which could decide the future of the country in the eurozone.

Both the prime minister and finance minister remain convinced Athens can negotiate better terms, including debt relief, if voters reject the conditions on offer. But both have signalled they will quit if voters choose the bailout. If voters back a bailout plan that he has scorned, the SYRIZA-ANEL government is likely to fall, leading to new elections by September.

Varoufakis also sharply criticised the policy of austerity enacted in Greece over the last five years and the extended negotiations with international creditors.

“We have a very bad system of governance in Europe. This is not the way to run a monetary union. This is a travesty. It’s been a comedy of errors for five years now, Europe has been extending and pretending,” he said.

“The program that they imposed upon this country and which they want to continue imposing … is going to go down in economic history as the greatest cock-up ever.”

However, the International Monetary Fund delivered a stark warning on Thursday of the huge financial hole facing Greece as angry and uncertain voters prepare for a referendum that could decide their country’s future in Europe.

The assessment, in a preliminary draft of the fund’s latest debt sustainability report, underlines the scale of the problems facing Athens, whatever the result of Sunday’s referendum on the bailout offered by creditors last month.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ rejection of what he terms the “blackmail” of EU and IMF creditors demanding spending cuts and tax hikes has so angered Greece’s partners that there is no hope of reconciliation before Sunday.

With banks closed for a fourth day and capital controls in place, the future of the left-wing government hangs on the result, given the angry mood of voters in Greece, torn between resentment of the lenders and scorn for their own politicians.

Sources: AFP, Reuters