Will Yanis Varoufakis Find a New Role on the World Stage?

    Yanis Varoufakis, former anti-austerity finance minister of Greece, has described his short term in the post as “like being involved in a Shakespearean drama — with futuristic elements.” (Geert Vanden Wijngaert / AP)

Together with “a variety of good folks across Europe,” the former Greek finance minister — whose effort to protect his country from the depredations of European central bankers failed earlier this year — is working to build “a pan-European democratic movement, call it a party, call it what you will,” that transcends national political parties.

The Guardian reports:

The lesson of Greece and elsewhere, he says, is that the old system based on national parties doesn’t work. This might mean standing candidates eventually, he says, but the first ambition is to “establish a conversation” between leftwing and progressive centre-right parties that grapples on a Europe-wide basis with issues like the refugee crisis, the financial crisis, migration and the rise of the far right.

They are hardly small problems. Having come up against an immovable object in the form of the troika, and been defeated in his attempt to reshape Greece according to his vision, what makes Varoufakis think he could be any more successful tackling that shopping list?

“Ummm … something mysterious, innate and resisting analysis deep inside me.” He laughs: “It’s faith!”

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— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.