Varoufakis: Dijsselbloem a “puppet”, Troika wants to “humiliate” Greece

Eurogroup President and Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem is an insignificant "puppet" hanging on the strings of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, according to former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis in an interview with the Volkskrant on Thursday. According to Varoufakis, the Eurogroup systematically increased the budget cuts demands in Greece in order to take over power during the negotiations on the third rescue package for the financially troubled country earlier this year. He called it "one big coup" that succeeded. He believes that Dijsselbloem and his colleagues were not at all interested in the reforms Athens offered and that the troika only wanted to "drag the Greek government through the mud, completely humiliate it with a bank closure." he said. "If you're a psycopath and you feast on conflict, then the Eurogroup is the place to be." According to the former Greek Minister, all he ever wanted is to get Greece back on its own feet, but the Eurogroup repeatedly mangled his government. "An agreement with us would have been disasterous. Because it would prove resistance to the troika worth while. That glimmer of hope was not allowed to the citizens because there were elections in Spain, Portugal and Ireland, countries that drank the cutbacks cup to the bottom", he said to the newspaper.