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Friday, January 30, 2015

Greece’s finance minister vows to shun officials from ‘troika’

Yanis Varoufakis says new government will refuse to engage with auditors from the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary FundThe battle lines between Greece and its creditors were drawn in Athens as the Greek finance minister announced that the new government would refuse to engage with representatives of the country’s hated “troika” of lenders.Standing his ground after talks in the capital with Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the Eurogroup of EU finance ministers, Yanis Varoufakis said Greece would not pursue further negotiations with the body of technocrats that has regularly descended on the country to monitor its economy. Nor would it be rowing back on election-winning pledges by asking for an extension to its €240bn (£180bn) bailout programme. “This platform enabled us to win the confidence of the Greek people,” Varoufakis said, insisting that the logic of austerity had been repudiated by voters when the far-left Syriza party stormed to victory in Sunday’s election. Continue reading...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com