Syriza is finally moving beyond lofty rhetoric, and beginning to engage creatively with the pressing need to negotiate. The rest of Europe must listen, and reciprocateRocking up to No 11 on Monday in a black leather jacket, a bold blue shirt and no tie at all, Yanis Varoufakis looked like a visitor from another planet, beside a buttoned-up George Osborne. Indeed, Greece’s new finance minister hails from another intellectual universe from the man with the “long-term plan” for austerity. But as Europe anxiously eyes developments in Athens, it can be reassured that Mr Varoufakis was, while still buried away in university departments, doing some long-term planning of his own.He has penned books on “game theory”, the science of bargaining – useful training for the gruelling months of negotiations with Berlin, Frankfurt and Brussels which lie ahead. But during Syriza’s electric first few days – in which privatisations were halted, rhetoric ramped up and dubious coalition partners embraced – mastery of abstract models was never going to reassure a continent which fears for its currency’s future. What should reassure Mr Varoufakis’s counterparts in other capitals, as well as the markets, is that he has spent the last few years to trying to chart a practical path out of the debt trap, publishing several versions of what he calls A Modest Proposal. Continue reading...
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