Why Varoufakis Infuriated Negotiating Rivals

Yanis Varoufakis, the departing finance minister of Greece, would occasionally joke that there was one big difference between himself and the great British economist John Maynard Keynes: "Keynes failed - he died!"

Like Mr Varoufakis, Keynes was an academic economist who one day found himself in government, attempting to rescue his country from the wreckage of a mangled monetary system.

Like Mr Varoufakis, Keynes infuriated his rivals at the negotiating table and spent most of his time lecturing them.

Like Mr Varoufakis, Keynes was addicted to publicity and often preferred flashbulbs and lenses to deciding policy.

As Mr Varoufakis pointed out, Keynes's ordeal attempting to negotiate the creation of the Bretton Woods system (a replacement for the euro of the 19th century, the gold standard) and then to negotiate Britain's post-war bailout from the US pretty much killed him.

It weakened his heart which eventually gave out some months later.

Of course, there are a fair few differences: Keynes was already regarded as a celebrity and economic legend when he took on the role of negotiator in his latter years.

Mr Varoufakis enjoyed some fame as an economist and commentator, but has produced nothing to rival even the footnotes in Keynes’s General Theory.

And though Keynes eventually died, he did at least stay the course: he completed the negotiations with his counterparts; he compromised occasionally; he succeeded in agreeing both Bretton Woods and the Anglo-American loan (though he didn't do a great job in the latter).

But the comparison is worth dwelling on for another reason.

In both cases, personalities made a big difference.

It's tempting to believe that when it comes to economic conferences, those involved take the right decisions based on the best evidence they have on hand.

In fact, they often take perverse decisions because of how much they do or don't get on, or alternatively because of their mood at the time.

Consider the fact that Keynes messed up one of his 1945 negotiations while he was on a drug which acted as a truth serum.

In much the same way, there is plentiful evidence that Mr Varoufakis's personality so enraged the Brussels negotiators that it diminished Greece's chances of getting a good deal.

In February, the finance minister had to be pulled off negotiation duty at one eurogroup meeting because he spent most of the session lecturing his counterparts, and then abruptly leaked a confidential draft communique to the press room after he sensed the meeting was going against him.

In the following months he was barred from doing the negotiations on Greece's bailout and the eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem instead spoke directly to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Things gradually started improving.

Only in the final week or so of the negotiation did Mr Varoufakis return to the table.

The talks broke down soon afterwards.

Perhaps this was always part of the plan.

Thanks to the referendum the Greek government now has a pretty clear mandate either to get better terms from their creditors or to leave the single currency.

But the truth is that Greece remains desperately close to economic chaos.

If the ECB does not step in to support its banks the economy could well implode in the coming week.

The government has barely any time to decide whether to accept whatever deal comes their way in Brussels or to walk out.

Again, that will come down to personalities - in this case not Mr Varoufakis but his successor, Euclid Tsakalotos.

He is a far quieter, less combative character than his predecessor.

Whether this helps or hinders the talks of the next few days in Brussels remains to be seen.

But it is worth remembering that in many senses he is more hardline and anti-euro than Mr Varoufakis.