(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Former Greece finance minister Yanis Varoufakis confirmed yesterday he had made secret preparations to hack into citizens' tax codes to create a parallel payment system after the disclosure provoked shock and disbelief in Greece.
However, the self-proclaimed "erratic Marxist" academic, in office until July 6, sought to play down the initiative as a contingency plan that had never been implemented.
Greece was on the verge of tumbling out of the euro single currency before striking an 11th-hour deal on July 13 that imposes a new round of austerity measures in return for talks on a third international bailout.
Varoufakis' comments prompted the pro-European opposition to demand that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras disclose the extent of planning for "Grexit" - which his government has repeatedly said it refused to consider.
The furore piled new pressure on a premier struggling to contain a leftist party revolt.
In a conference call with the London-based OMFIF think-tank, recorded on July 16 but released on Monday, Varoufakis outlined his secret planning and also accused German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble of being "bent on effecting a Grexit" - forcing Athens to leave the currency area.
In the recording Varoufakis said Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had "given me the green light to come up with a Plan B" before coming to power in January and he had assembled a five-person team led by US economist James Galbraith to work covertly.
"We were planning to create, surreptitiously, reserve accounts attached to every tax file number, without telling anyone, just to have this system in a function under wraps," he said, adding that "of course this would be euro-denominated but at the drop of a hat it could be converted to a new drachma." Reuters
Greek creditors seek third wave of reforms before loan
BRUSSELS/ATHENS: International creditors want Greece to enact a third wave of politically sensitive reforms before they will release any money to keep the near bankrupt country afloat under a third bailout they began negotiating yesterday.
The government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has pushed two packages of measures through parliament this month as a condition for starting talks on a three-year loan worth up to ‚¬86bn to keep Greece in the eurozone.
A spokeswoman for the European Commission said teams of experts from the creditor institutions were now in Athens. "Work has started, meaning that the institutions are talking to the Greek authorities," she said.
"Negotiations on a Memorandum of Understanding should now progress as swiftly as possible," Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva told a news briefing.
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