Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis says that Greek reforms are going to fail
Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has said that the economic reforms Greece has signed up to are "going to fail" ahead of talks on a third bailout for the cash-strapped country.
He told the BBC that the medicine administered to the Greek economy by its so-called "troika" of creditors – the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF – will "go down in history as the greatest disaster of macroeconomic management ever".
"This programme is going to fail whoever undertakes its implementation," he said.
Varoufakis was dubbed "the rock star finance minister' by the media as took the world by storm during the Greek debt negotiations. He's been pictured wearing a leather jacket to meetings with important officials and he rides a motor bike.
However he resigned from his role despite a "no" vote in the Greek referendum saying that Eurozone officials would prefer his "absence from its meetings".
Greece has agreed to undertake more reforms and austerity in return for cash, despite the country rejecting such a deal in a national referendum earlier this month.
The package means that the Greek government has had to concede on areas previously considered to be "red lines" such as pensions.
It comes as the German parliament gave the go-ahead for the Eurozone to negotiate a third bailout with Greece last night. There were 439 votes to 119, however nearly a fifth of Merkel's conservatives voted 'No'.
Germany is looking increasingly isolated on the international stage because it vehemently opposes any writedowns to Greece's debt. German officials argue that debt relief is illegal because EU treaties prohibits the sharing of debt burdens among Eurozone countries.
And yet the IMF, as well as European Central Bank boss Mario Draghi, have publicly called for debt relief for Greece.