Yanis Varoufakis (1961 - )

Fri Mar 24, 1961

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Ioannis “Yanis” Varoufakis, born on this day in 1961, is a Greek economist and politician who served as Finance Minister during the Greek debt crisis and co-founded DiEM25, a left-wing European political party. He has served as DiEM25’s Secretary-General of DiEM25 since 2018.

In January 2015, Varoufakis was appointed Minister of Finance in Greece. He led tense negotiations with Greece’s creditors during the government-debt crisis, but failed to reach an agreement with the European troika (European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund), leading to the 2015 bailout referendum.

The referendum rejected the troika bailout terms, and the day afterwards Varoufakis resigned as Minister of Finance, being replaced by Euclid Tsakalotos. Varoufakis has since appeared in numerous debates, lectures and interviews, describing in detail what he sees as corruption and anti-democratic governance within the European Union.

In February 2016, Varoufakis launched the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25). In the 2019 legislative election, DiEM25 amassed nine parliamentary seats, with Varoufakis himself returning to the Hellenic Parliament.

Today, DiEM25 has 138,000 members around the world. In December 2018, Varoufakis also launched the “Progressive International” with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.

On March 10th, 2023, Varoufakis was physically attacked while dining in Athens with DiEM25 associates in what the party condemned as a “brazen fascist attack”.

“My reason for writing [this book] was the conviction that the economy is too important to leave to the economists.”

- Yanis Varoufakis, on writing "Talking to My Daughter About the Economy"