All in efforts to secure EU bail out for the troubled Greece economy, Oxford-educated Euclid Tsakalotos is been touted to take over as the national economy minister of the country from Yanis Varoufakis who resigned yesterday.
Greece’s outspoken finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, resigned on Monday under pressure from his government and his country’s creditors, who both identified him as an obstacle to productive talks about a new bailout deal.
Mr. Varoufakis said in a statement on his blog that other eurozone governments as well as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras viewed his resignation as conducive to finding a way forward for the failing Greeks bail out talks.
Euclid Tsakalotos , who took over from Mr Varoufakis as Greece’s lead negotiator in April currently occupies the office of Greece international economy minister leading the Greece’s bail-out negotiations since April.
Greece’s finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who resigned monday morning, achieved the previously unthinkable during his short time in office: uniting the eurozone.
During a tumultuous five months in office, all 18 of Yanis Varoufakis’s counterparts managed to round on the rookie politician, accusing him of being a “gambler” who had withered away the trust of his partners.
But time is now up for the iconoclastic Mr Varoufakis, who has been accused of everything from sticking his middle finger up at Berlin , to nearly coming to blows with eurozone chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem in a Brussels corridor even with a historic political victory in his pocket after seeing his nation vote overwhelmingly against the imposition of further austerity in exchange for a new loan package from foreign creditors on Sunday.
After falling on his sword, he wrote on his blog: “Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted ‘partners’, for my… ‘absence’ from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement. For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today.”
“I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride.”But who is the man replacing him?
Here’s what we know about the man who has been touted as the acceptable face of the hard Left Syriza government.
An Oxford-educated economist, Mr Tsakalotos has much in common with the political elite of Westminster, having attended St Paul’s school, before going on to read politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) as an undergraduate. He later completed his PhD in economics from Oxford in 1989.
The 55-year-old, who was born in Rotterdam, has served as the chief economic spokesman and effective shadow finance minister for the Syriza-led government.
Unlike Mr Varoufakis, Mr Tsakalotos is no party outsider. He has been a member of Syriza for nearly a decade, serving as an MP in the Greek parliament since 2012.
New Greek Finance Minister Mr. Tsakalotos is a Brilliant man more hardline than Yanis Varoufakis who is a passionate pro-European
Like many of his fellow Leftist parliamentarians, Mr Tsakalotos’s background is as a jobbing Western academic rather than a career politician, having taught at the universities of Kent and Athens.
Meanwhile Eurozone leaders prepare to meet to discuss sending humanitarian aid to the stricken country.
