I've noticed Greek politicians making excessively bold, emotional statements in public since the election, where perhaps some pragmatism and diplomacy would have moved things along better. It gives the impression that there is some intention to exit whilst avoiding blame with their own electorate (who I read are majority pro-EU by polling, contrary to the impression giving in media). Extremely uncooperative negotiating followed by throwing it to the people is one such tactic, claiming that you are forced to allow a banking collapse because of EU philosophy is another.
They want to be in the EU because they remember the drachma, and whilst germans will remember a strong deustchmark that was never the position of the drachma.
Well, announcing them before imposing them is even worse (everybody panics, chaos ensues).
The ECB let them keep their current lifeline for a few more days, but it looks like it's still not sure yet whether the banks will open. (which means they probably wont - see above).
Well, by first saying "capital controls" and then "no capital controls", Varoufakis just kept in line with the diplomatic strategy of Greece, which has been to promptly deny everything it has just said.
It's his actual job - to represent and follow the opinion of the people. It's called democracy. And if the opinion of the majority is wrong, then, in this case, so be it.
He's not a representative, he's an administrator. Representing the people is the job of parliament, his job is to lead. He cannot just switch sides whenever it suits him.
We have all of these safeguards in place to ensure our leaders neither go off the rails completely, nor simply follow the popular opinion du jour with the predictable disastrous consequences.
If we would do that in the rest of Europe, aid to Greece would have stopped a long time ago.
Well, it should have stopped a long time ago... Or to be more accurate, financial help should never happen in the first place. But that's another long story.
To be fair his mandate on election was to reduce the impact of austerity. He has pushed for that but now the choice is austerity cuts or exit the Euro, neither of which he has an elected mandate for. Many other leaders would make the decision regardless but he had put it to the Greek people because ultimately it will be them that have to live with the decision and he knows that most don't want to leave he EU. So now they have to decide what is more important EU membership or no more austerity cuts.
However in reality it is no decision because without EU membership there is no money anyway so austerity is happening to Greece one way or another.
He has an impossible job - when taxes are not paid, people retire at forty, government jobs pay people even higher salaries because they actually turn up, then any chance of balancing the books is looking like a Greek tragedy.
Please stop repeating things you don't actually know are true. Greeks work hard and don't retire at 40. Their work ethic is not the problem. Not paying taxes is a problem. The amount of pensions paid is also a problem. Individual Greek people are the victim as much as the lenders whose loans are defaulted on (iincluding me, via my country's contributions)