CHRIS BICKERTON
Apparent consensus: Eurogroup finance ministers in Brussels are little more than a rubber stamp
© SANDER DE WILDE/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
On 24th April 2015, the Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, attended a meeting of his Eurozone counterparts in the Latvian capital, Riga. Believing the gathering to be largely ceremonial, a sop to the Latvian government which held the rotating presidency of the European Union at the time, Varoufakis was expecting a short session on uncontroversial matters. Instead, the EU’s big hitters—in particular the Eurogroup’s Dutch president Jeroen Dijsselbloem and the German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble—ambushed him. They threatened him with “plan B,” the vague term used to refer to Greece’s exit from the euro.