“We Were Elected to Say No to the Creditors”: Varoufakis on Resigning as Greek Finance Minister

- The International Monetary Fund is demanding additional austerity measures from Greece if it does not hit its budget targets. It’s the latest impasse in years of fierce political clashes between Greece and international creditors. We are joined by a man who had a front-row seat to these battles: the former Greek finance minister for the anti-austerity Syriza party, Yanis Varoufakis. In his new book, “And the Weak Suffer What They Must?: Europe’s Crisis and America’s Economic Future,“ he describes how he helped lead Greece’s battle against European Central bankers and a historic referendum in which Greeks resoundingly voted down austerity. But only days after the “no“ vote, he resigned. Varoufakis elaborates on the resignation statement he issued last July, when he wrote, “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