Yanis Varoufakis Greece's finance minister has been the focus of an extraordinary bawl out by Theodore Pangalos.
The Greek finance minister Yannis Varoufakis has said Financial Times that he believes the so-called Cyprus solution could not be imposed in Greece as unlike Cyprus Greece “is not an island with no land borders and a single airport”.
During the recent talks to resolve a five-month standoff between Greece and its EU-IMF creditors, the Greek government feared that the ECB will do what it did in Cyprus in 2013 when it threatened to pull the plug on the country’s financial system.
This threat alone forced Cyprus into a bailout where banks were shut down, depositors were given so-called haircuts and strict capital controls – rules on how much money can be withdrawn from the banks, or taken out of the country – were imposed as part of an emergency rescue deal.
In unsparing language, Theodore Pangalos, a veteran politician who served as foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Greece under the PASOK administration, lashed out at the finance minister for his comments about Cyprus thought his Twitter account.
"[Probably Vroufakis] has never heard that through the island's capital runs the Green Line, [the United Nations Buffer Zone] nor that 1/3 of the island is occupied by Turkey, Doesn't that count as a borderline for Varoufakis? He does not know that commercial activity at the Nicosia airport ceased following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974? He does not know that Cyprus has two airports in Larnaca and Paphos? He does not know that this island is an independent state, member of the UN, the EU and the Eurozone? "
"Who and when will finally say this guy to shut up," Pangalos railed.