The immovable Yanis Varoufakis
Divisions within Syriza’s economic team do not help. Amazingly, Mr Varoufakis is often away on the international conference circuit. In his absence Yannis Dragasakis, the deputy prime minister, who is close to Mr Tsipras but not to Mr Varoufakis, takes over. His messages to the “institutions”, as the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission are now known (in place of the hated “troika”), are more conciliatory than those of Mr Varoufakis. But their senior officials are still banned by Mr Varoufakis from holding discussions in the finance ministry in Athens.
Greece is unlikely to reach a deal this month with its creditors. Mr Varoufakis is trying to buy more time. The latest wheeze was to get local authorities and other public agencies to transfer their cash reserves to the central bank. But without a deal, Greece seems certain to run out of money to repay its debts to the IMF and ECB. Some fret that Mr Varoufakis’s half-hearted negotiating tactics show a lack of commitment to keeping Greece in the euro. As a fellow economics professor puts it: “Unlike his predecessors, Yanis isn’t interested in managing the economy. What he really enjoys is brinkmanship.”