Ministry of Finance

Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis may have denied that he is being disassociated from negotiations, but the international press states that the reshuffle of the Greek government’s economic team is Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras way of breaking the deadlock with Greece’s international creditors.

By Prokopis Hatzinikolaou

Undeclared deposits at banks in Greece and abroad can be legalized, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis announced on Tuesday after his meeting with Jacques de Watteville, state secretary in the Swiss Department of Finance, and Greek Minister of State for Combating Corruption Panayiotis Nikoloudis.

The fallout from Yanis Varoufakis’ apparent “reshuffling” over the weekend continued on Tuesday, with Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem, in fact, saying he told Greek PM Alexis Tsipras it would be “very helpful” for there to be a sole representative reporting directly to him (Tsipras).

BRUSSELS ? The European Union says that talks with creditors to keep Greece from going bankrupt ?are being made more productive and efficient? as the country faces a growing cash crunch.

Greece reshuffled its bailout-negotiation team in a political move aimed at easing negotiations with EU partners. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis was reined in after three months of talks with Greece’s creditors failed to unlock aid and resulted in acrimony at Friday’s Eurogroup meeting.

Reuters puts the chances of “Grexit” at 40 percent, citing its own (small sample) poll of money market traders, published on Monday. Just as interesting is the figure showing that more than half of those traders believe the country would also remain in the euro area even if it defaults on debt instalments.

A teleconference meeting with the Brussels Group on Monday hopes to restart negotiations on key issues of the Greek economy. Talks are a precursor to Wednesday's meetings in Brussels for negotiations until the start of May, after hopes for a solution for Greece until the end of April were dashed.

Yanis Varoufakis admittedly had a rough Eurogroup session in Riga, Latvia on Friday, with the media fallout painting an utterly negative impression of the Greek finance minister, at least as far as some his European colleagues are concerned.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed in a phone conversation on Sunday to maintain contact during talks between Athens and its lenders to reach a debt deal, a Greek government official said.