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Germany resents an obscene gesture by Varoufakis

16 March 2015 / 16:03:08  GRReporter
4043 reads

A video shown last night during an interview of Yanis Varoufakis for an ARD broadcast aroused the spirits in Germany. The video shows the Greek Minister of Finance speaking about the Germans during a speech in Croatia in 2013 and making an obscene gesture with his hand.

Varoufakis denies making such a gesture and defines the video as edited, "I have never given the finger. It is a fake video just like another one which shows me giving my hand to a foreign politician and pulling it back at the last moment," the Greek Minister of Finance said, referring to his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble whom he has never insulted, just the opposite, as he had stated.

During the interview for the German television, Varoufakis also notes that he believes in the continued unification of Europe with a view to overcoming the purely national interests and for the European Union citizens to start to speak as "one nation."

"I think it is a tragic fact that they have put one proud nation against another one, instead of uniting us against the common problem called euro crisis. It is time that we in Europe start to speak as one people, as Europeans, as the Americans do. Europe is our homeland. We must break the stereotypes that talk about "those Greeks" or "those Germans," said the Greek Minister of Finance.

As to the issue of war reparations, Yanis Varoufakis specifies that he is not a lawyer and the opinion expressed by him is his personal opinion, not that of a minister. He would be happy if the issue was not at the negotiating table at present and if it could ever finally be solved.

"It is not about the money, the issue is a moral one and I do not think it is quite reasonable to say that it has finally been settled. The average Greek does not realize it in this way", Varoufakis notes, arguing that there should be a difference between the debt issue and the moral issue that turns back to the 1940s.

Furthermore, Yanis Varoufakis assures that the Greek government is doing everything possible to "allow for all creditors to obtain their money and for our pensioners and employees to receive their money on time as well," appealing to the conclusion of "reasonable agreements" that would enable Greece to develop and pay its debts.

Meanwhile, the German newspaper Bild has published a report about the obscene gesture by Varoufakis, which claims that the video is authentic. The title of the article is "Did Varoufakis lie on Jauch?" and the subtitle, "The Greek Minister of Finance claims it is a fake video, experts doubt." The newspaper publication explains that during the broadcast of the German ARD television channel, journalist Günther Jauch showed the Greek Minister of Finance the video with the obscene gesture and asked him whether the video was authentic and Varoufakis firmly denied it.

According to the site Conflict Reporter, which deals with the authenticity of video materials of war conflicts and which has caught many fake videos from Ukraine and Syria, there is no evidence of the video with Varoufakis being edited. "The shadows, articulation, and especially the movement of his shirt when Varoufakis is raising his hand to show the middle finger, everything matches," says an expert of the site who has watched and studied the video in parts about 40 times.

Kostas Nomikos, a cinema and video expert, is also confident that the video is authentic, "There is absolutely no doubt that the video is authentic and has not been additionally processed, either by adding effects to it, or by cutting. The picture and sound completely coincide, there is no interruption. It is not necessary to be an expert to establish this, it is apparent to everyone," he said.

"If the video has not been edited, then Varoufakis has been exposed as a liar in front of an audience of millions", concludes the German newspaper Bild.

And how far do you think the odd game between Greece and Germany will go? We await your opinion in our poll.

Tags: Yanis VaroufakisMinister of FinanceObscene gestureARD TV
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