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The position of Yanis Varoufakis, who is disregarding his colleagues, stating in public that only Wolfgang Schauble is on his level and teaching all lessons in economy is not helping the negotiations between Greece and its European partners.

This is what experienced journalist and correspondent for the French newspaper Libération in Brussels Jean Quatremer thinks of the Greek Finance Minister.

In her article entitled "Greece’s kamikaze strategy" Barbara Wesel wrote on the website of Deutsche Welle, "Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has to date not provided one single sheet of paper with solid figures, data or the wishes of the Greek government. Varoufakis even implied that his European colleagues could check out the New York Times for an explanation of his imagined solution, if they wished to do so, providing only a few hasty explanations after the talks. Speaking to the press, he announced that Greece wanted to do everything possible to come to an agreement- and that such an agreement could be reached as soon as Wednesday, if he wasn’t mistaken.

The Greek Finance Minister has a propensity for impertinence. One shouldn’t treat one’s colleagues like this, especially not when asking for money. It’s unlikely that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and the rest will allow themselves to be pulled around by ring by Varoufakis and made to perform at will.

Even before Monday’s failed talks, the mood wasn’t exactly optimistic, with some speaking of a lack of confidence in Greece’s promises. And the attempt to play the European Commission and the Eurogroup off one another didn’t help matters. Athens has used up all the EU’s initial goodwill.

Maybe Varoufakis is looking for a new job as a columnist with an international newspaper. Why else would he first publish the wishes of his country for bridge financing without conditions in the US press, and then present this requirement in Brussels as the sole basis for negotiations? Did Varoufakis hope to convince US official to intervene once again, and ask the Europeans to unite? Or does he think he can look to the Americans for financing? Good luck with that."

At the same time, Varoufakis is enjoying great popularity in Greece, and it is no exaggeration to say people's love. For the demonstrators who support the Greek government, he is a hero, who, with his negotiating skills, "has cornered the Europeans who want him to be replaced with someone like Greece’s former finance ministers - subordinate and submissive."

Their admiration is expressed in posters like the one in the photo, which reads, "Bread, skewers and Yanis Varoufakis". It is worth noting that it paraphrases the popular slogan among the supporters of King Constantine I during the National Schism (1914-1917), "Bread, olives and Con as King," the meaning of which is that they would prefer to starve but have a king.

At the same time, the Greek Finance Minister’s former wife Margarite Poulos expressed her dissatisfaction to those who argue that he is using his specific knowledge of the "game theory" in the negotiations between Greece and its European partners. "I’ve not really enjoyed any of the journalism that has tried to make something of the game theoretical dimensions of the negotiations ... Things are much more complex; there’s far more common ground (between Greece and Germany) than any of these journalists are acknowledging. Quite clearly a compromise needs to be found," she said in an interview with the newspaper of the Greeks in Australia Neos Kosmos.

To those journalists who are saying they are in love with her ex-husband, Poulos said, "Even though he’s more than well equipped to enjoy it and deal with it, at the moment he’s actually oblivious to it. This is because the task at hand easily overrides the allure of celebrity and such."

According to the newspaper, Margarite Poulos and Yanis Varoufakis had met at a Greek restaurant in Sydney in 1990, when she had been teaching economics at the local university. They became a couple about a year after they started dating and married only in 2001 in Athens, where Poulos worked on her doctoral thesis on the Civil War in Greece. She returned to Australia in 2005 and indicated as a reason for the end of her marriage to Varoufakis the differences in their ambitions, both in professional and geographical terms.