No? Grabbing your central bank's reserves without any involvement of parliament and preparing to arrest its chief without any legal justification sounds fine to you?

It would have been the ultimate power grab by Syriza, going against all laws and democracy.

Just because Syriza got a majority in the elections doesn't mean the rule of law has been suspended.

People should stop downvoting this comment. He's not making this up. Hugo Dixon has been covering this drama, and his summary is much better than Telegram's:

http://hugo-dixon.com/2015/07/26/wild-plan-b/

This is so batshit crazy my jaw is hanging open.

The scheme to arrest the Bank of Greece governor & raiding national mint was separate to the Varoufakis' plan, and to try to combine the two is a huge mistake. That plan was just dumb, while the Varoufakis plan was crazy and or subtle.

I view Varoufakis's plan as a trump card to play against the Troika. The Troika believe that - in the end - the Greeks would always roll over and give in to their proposals.

Varoufakis plan was to be able to say "you didn't count on this crazy plan* and be able to present something that was undoubtedly crazy, but just credible enough to make the Troika think that the Greeks might try it.

Sometimes acting crazy is the best strategy. To quote:

it turns out that the best strategy if you get to play the game only once is to make the most credible attempt possible in pretending to be a Hawk while actually being a Dove. When you are in one of the cars heading for each other, growl, scream, throw bottles out he window, swerve and then come back onto the road again. In short give the impression that you are mad and unpredictable, and definitely capable of doing mad things like not swerving under any circumstances. Do not signal that you may compromise, even though you know you will.

[1] http://karlstrobl.com/2015/05/28/varoufakis-and-game-theory/

I don't see that as crazy. The national bank is still led by a member of the old cast, who is hostile to Syriza.

Besides the fact the Troika controlling the data of the finance ministry, the tax files, with no access to the current legal authority, you should also consider the likely possibility of a military coup to get rid of Syriza.

The trumped up language by the germans and their press made it very likely to prepare such a step. This didn't come forward yet. But given the history I call it very likely. Until the referendum backed them up.

And of course the Troika also had their plan B developed in secret, a similar group of 5, getting rid of Greece in the eurozone, despite it was against the EU rules. This was in the news last month. But they never offered Greece assistance to leave the Eurozone. Schaeuble at least talked publicly about it, and was punished for it.

In the grexit scenario raiding their assets is the best thing to do. But the more interesting question is if the military (with support by the Troika) would have taken over. Exciting times.

Varoufakis didn't care about his crazy plans destroying the economy, because he only intended to use them as a threat. "Give us what we want or we will crash out of the Euro!"

And then the people on the other side of the table said: "Excellent, go on!"

Not only did the Troika believe that in the end the Greek government would "roll over and give in to their proposals": many EU governments and officials actually preferred the alternative.

The negotiations of the past weeks have shown that not only Greece was bluffing about leaving the Euro, but that other countries would be more than happy to let them leave.

> preparing to arrest its chief without any legal justification

Where did you see that? I didn't see that talked about anywhere. I literally did a ctrl-f in the article for "arrest" and it didn't show up anywhere.

> Grabbing your central bank's reserves without any involvement of parliament

Yeah that might be weirder. Was Varoufakis supposed to turn the prime minister in the second he suggested it? Start proceedings to impeach him?

I get that there are lawful orders and unlawful orders. How do you tell which is which? Especially given that Greece's creditors are talking about some serious financial consequences.

If the US had only UK owned banks, and the UK government was pressuring the banks to all be closed so as to choke the US via the banking system there's an argument to be made that the US government has not only the right but the duty to take things over.

I'm not saying it would be popular, and it might not be strictly legal. But I'm not sure that the UN authorizes financial terrorism either. The whole thing is pretty crazy to think about. It shouldn't be surprising that people were contemplating crazy solutions to crazy problems.

"Financial terrorism"... I guess there's nothing more to discuss.

Syriza didn't get a majority, they got just over a third of the votes. Even with the 50 bonus seats for the biggest party, they don't have a parliamentary majority and depend on the support of the radical nationalist party ANEL.

I'm shocked by the downvotes.

> Just because Syriza got a majority in the elections doesn't mean the rule of law has been suspended.

This is excactly the problem. And it's not a little problem.

None of that's in the linked article.

It's been in all the other papers' reports, including the original reporting in Kathimerini. You're right, the telegraph story doesn't mention it.

Even though he was finance minister he was/wouldn't have beeen not authorized performing some of the actions done (e.g. "A secret cell at the Greek finance ministry hacked into the government computers") or planned. Even the prime minister has not the authority for such decicsions. As in other democracies the parliament has to vote. Calling it treason depends on the point of view. We'll never know wether it would have been for the country's advantage. I highly doubt it. However, Varoufakis actions were illegal and dictatorial. They were an act against democracy and therefore I guess, yes, they were treasonous.