Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Saturday that European action toward his country was “terrorism”. His statement comes just one day before a crucial referendum in Greece, which could determine the country’s future within the euro zone.
In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Varoufakis, who believes there is too much at stake for Europe to cast Greece adrift, said a trillion euros (the equivalent of Spain’s GDP) would be lost if Greece was allowed to crash.
“What they’re doing with Greece has a name: terrorism…Why have they forced us to close the banks? To frighten people. And when it’s about spreading terror, that is known as terrorism.” Varoufakis said in the interview.
In 24 hours Greeks will vote either ‘yes’ to more austerity, and effectively secure their position in the euro zone, or ‘no’, risking a potential exit.
Update, July 5, 7:02 a.m. PT: Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said Friday that no matter what the result of Sunday’s referendum, an agreement is “in the offing”. If Greeks vote “yes”, the government will accept the proposal put forward by Greece’s international creditors last week, Varoufakis said to RTE’s “Morning Ireland” radio show on Friday.
“If it’s a ‘no’ [which he has been campaigning for], I can assure you that on this week of impasse, we’ve had some very interesting proposals coming from official Europe confidentially, and a deal is more or less done,” Varoufakis added, the report said.
A couple of hours ago CNBC spoke to the Greek Finance Minister. When asked how confident he was ahead of the referendum’s result, he said:
“I don’t need to be confident, this is a beautiful democracy. We only have to wait a few hours for the verdict to come through.”
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10:09 a.m. PT: First results in Greece vote expected within hour but Greek media indicates the ‘no’ vote has slight lead.
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The first results from the Greek Ministry of Interior are coming in now. Early tallies seem to indicate ‘no’ vote has lead. Meanwhile, CNBC quotes Greek interior minister as saying, ‘No’ will win with more than 61% of vote.
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Latest poll results:
05-07-2015
23:43 p.m. local time/Athens, Greece
Registered 8.479.978
Reporting 87,43 %
Voted 61,98 %
Invalid/Blank 5,78 %
NO: 61.43 %
YES: 38.57 %
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