By saying that he wanted Greece to default and issue IOUs, Yanis Varoufakis has provoked an unusually harsh reaction from many opposition MPs.
Pasok MP Andreas Loverdos demanded Varoufakis to be called to the parliamentary commission of inquiry to explain himself. He was joined by two more voices: New Democracy MP Dora Bakoyannis and Potami MP Harris Theocharis, who both accused Varoufakis of having a secret agenda.
In a wide-ranging interview this weekend with the British magazine New Statesman, Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister who resigned at the beginning of last week, said that he had a plan for Greece after the referendum but he did not find support for it.
He said he spent the past month warning the Greek cabinet that the ECB would close Greece’s banks to force a deal. When they did, he was prepared to do three things: issue euro-denominated IOUs; apply a “haircut” to the bonds Greek issued to the ECB in 2012, reducing Greece’s debt; and seize control of the Bank of Greece from the ECB. None of the moves would constitute a Grexit but they would have threatened it.
Jurists claim that legal proceedings might be conducted against Varoufakis as under the provisions of Article 151 of the Criminal Code an elected politician who "conducts with another government affairs of his principal intents in a way that may cause harm to the originator [the Greek people, in this case] is punishable by imprisonment”.
Meanwhile Greeks took to Facebook to react to the news by creating a page which already numbers 4,000 likes demanding the former minister of finance to be brought to justice.