Yanis Varoufakis resigns as Greek finance minister

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GREEK Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has resigned his position, despite Sunday’s overwhelming vote of confidence in his government’s handling of the Greek debt crisis. Varoufakis, who has huge support amongst ordinary Greeks, announced on Monday morning (July 6) that he felt it would be “helpful” to future negotiations if he stood down.
Writing on his blog, he said: “Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted ‘partners,’ for my… ‘absence’ from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement. For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today.”
He continued: “I consider it my duty to help Alexis Tsipras exploit, as he sees fit, the capital that the Greek people granted us through yesterday’s referendum.”
Echoing comments from his Sunday night speech as the scale of the Syriza ‘no’ vote victory was becoming clear, Varoufakis thanked the Greek people for their “splendid” no vote, and vowed to continue working to carry out their mandate, “with no care for the privileges of office.”

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