Yanis Varoufakis: What you need to know about straight-talking Greek finance minister, beyond his cool jacket

Famed for his honesty and love of art, Varoufakis is unlike any other chancellor in the world

(Getty)

Yanis Varoufakis has been in the headlines ever since being appointed Finance Minister by new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in the January elections.

Barely three weeks into his new role, and Varoufakis has already launched a Europe-wide charm offensive. He is determined to re-negotiate Greece's bailout deal with the EU, and is highly critical of the previous government's austerity programme, terming it "fiscal waterboarding".

Despite the sharp downturn in the banks in the days following Tsipras' victory, they rallied on Tuesday afternoon, with the National Bank of Greece up 25 per cent.

He may have dumbfounded the British media by showing up to meet George Osborne while dressed like a bouncer, but Varoufakis has more fiscal than physical muscle.

Novice politician

Varoufakis has a great deal more experience as a professor of economics than as a parliamentarian. He's not an insider of the political village, and goes for direct, blunt criticism of things that he believes to be ineffective. He has pledged to keep updating his blog, despite pressure to keep his genuine views under wraps.

Poetic

Varoufakis may have paraphrased Dylan Thomas on Radio 4 after Syriza swept to power in January, but his love of artistic phrasing hasn't gone over well with everybody. He criticised Emily Maitlis for her “considerable rudeness” when she interviewed him on Newsnight last week. During the tense interview the current affairs programme, Maitlis frequently interrupted his long analogies and pressed him for "super-simple" answers.

Family life

His partner is artist Danae Stratou, with whom he co-founded artistic project Vital Space. Stratou's family own a large textile factory in Greece and she lives in Austin, Texas.

Varoufakis has a daughter, Xenia, who lives in Australia with his ex-wife.

Writing frankly on his blog about the break-up of his young family, Varoufakis said: "Life took a nasty turn, personally, well before the global economic crisis of 2008 and Greece’s implosion in 2009. The year was 2005. In that August my extremely young daughter, Xenia, was taken away by… Australia.

"For reasons that I now recognise as legitimate, her mother decided to take Xenia to Sydney and make a home for her there, permanently. Xenia’s loss left me in a state of shock."

Artistic values

The project Vital Space which he co-founded with his partner Stratou is the perfect platform to showcase Varoufakis' artistic and environmental concerns. Vital Space was designed to examine the relationship between the economy and environement. "At a time of major confluence of economic and environmental crises, Vital Space intends to play a significant role in using the artist's perspective for dissolving the polarisation typifying the current dialogue on our relationship with Nature and with one another," the website states.

Essex boy

Athens-born Varoufakis left Greece during the military junta in 1972, and fled for the exotic climes of Colchester. Here, he studied mathematical economics at the University of Essex for which he was reportedly awarded a 2:2. Varoufakis also obtained a PhD from Essex and went on to teach at universities in Sydney, Athens and Austin, Texas.

"As I think the world has learned in the past few days, he's as quick and deft as they come," Varoufakis' Texas University colleague James Galbraith tells The Independent.

Articulate student

Senior economics lecturer Roy Bailey, who was Varoufakis' undergraduate tutor at the University of Essex, tells The Independent that the Greek Finance Minister was strong-minded and innovative - a valuable asset even if it doesn't always yield high grades.

"I recall Yanis as an undergraduate who was prepared to think for himself, prepared to challenge orthodoxy and capable of presenting his views in a forthright way," Bailey says. "He was the sort of student who excels in the independence of mind required for research, in proposing ideas, in analysing their implications and testing hypotheses, by contrast with students who shine in securing high marks in examinations reflecting narrowly the conventional wisdom they have been taught to deliver on such occasions."