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Greece's finance minister
希腊财政部长
Absent professor
心不在焉的教授
The immovable Yanis Varoufakis
毫不动摇的雅尼斯·瓦鲁法克斯
ALMOST every recent Greek finance minister has been an Athens university economics professor moonlighting as a politician. Yanis Varoufakis is no exception. But unlike his predecessors, Mr Varoufakis has become a global celebrity, to the annoyance of many in Syriza, the leftist party in power. To his critics, Mr Varoufakis's lifestyle—riding a powerful motorbike, spending evenings in chic bars and weekends at a smart island villa belonging to his wife—is embarrassingly close to that of the rich Greeks he castigates for avoiding taxes by stashing cash abroad.
希腊近几任财政部长皆为希腊大学的经济学教授，业余职业是政治家。雅尼斯·瓦鲁法克斯也不例外。但与前几任部长不同的是，他已是全球瞩目的热门人物，惹来执政党激进左翼联盟中诸多人士的不满。瓦鲁法克斯财长经常骑着飙劲十足的摩托车，夜晚沉浸在时尚酒吧，周末在妻子的智能沙滩别墅度过。在其批评家看来，这差不多是希腊富豪阶级的生活方式，而瓦鲁法克斯财长也严惩海外存钱避税的富豪阶级，这种矛盾的表现令人哭笑不得。
The leather-jacketed Mr Varoufakis is not much liked by his euro-zone colleagues either. He lectures them and shows little interest in the details of reforms demanded by Greece's creditors. The pace of negotiations has picked up as Greece's cash crunch gets more acute. But Mr Varoufakis continues to raise obstacles, say officials in Brussels and Frankfurt. He is deeply reluctant to cross any of Syriza's “red lines”: no more cuts in pensions, no more labour reforms, no increases in value-added tax and no privatisations beyond the handful that are already under way.
身着皮夹克的瓦鲁法克斯财长亦不招欧元区同僚的喜欢。他训斥他们，对希腊债权人发起的改革详情几乎毫无兴趣。随着希腊现金危机的不断加剧，谈判进程才恢复正常。但是，据布鲁塞尔与法兰克福两市的官员称，瓦鲁法克斯还是不断加以为难。他极其不愿越激进左翼联盟的“雷池”一步，即禁止再度削减养老金，禁止劳力改革，禁止提高增值税，禁止少数人以外的私有化扩大。
Divisions within Syriza's economic team do not help. Amazingly, Mr Varoufakis is often away on the international conference circuit. In his absence Yannis Dragasakis, the deputy prime minister, who is close to Mr Tsipras but not to Mr Varoufakis, takes over. His messages to the “institutions”, as the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission are now known (in place of the hated “troika”), are more conciliatory than those of Mr Varoufakis. But their senior officials are still banned by Mr Varoufakis from holding discussions in the finance ministry inAthens.
激进左翼联盟经济团队的内部分化也于事无补。而国际电话会议上常常不见瓦鲁法克斯其人，让人不可思议。在其缺席期间，亲齐普拉斯的Yannis Dragasakis副总理代其参会。他在会议上向如今熟知的国际货币基金组织、欧洲中央银行以及欧盟委员会“三方集团”（取代“三巨头”这一令人厌恶的称呼）传达的信息相较于瓦鲁法克斯的而言，调解性强。但瓦鲁法克斯财长仍然禁止三方机构的高级官员在雅典财政部举行洽谈会。
Greeceis unlikely to reach a deal this month with its creditors. Mr Varoufakis is trying to buy more time. The latest wheeze was to get local authorities and other public agencies to transfer their cash reserves to the central bank. But without a deal,Greece seems certain to run out of money to repay its debts to the IMF and ECB. Some fret that Mr Varoufakis's half-hearted negotiating tactics show a lack of commitment to keeping Greece in the euro. As a fellow economics professor puts it: “Unlike his predecessors, Yanis isn't interested in managing the economy. What he really enjoys is brinkmanship.”
希腊本月与其债权人达成协议看来无望。瓦鲁法克斯财长设法周旋，以拖延时间。最新的举动即让地方政府等机构将其现金储备转移到中央银行。如果双方还未达成协议，希腊很可能为偿还国际货币基金组织与欧洲央行的债务而落得倾家荡产。有些人士万分焦灼，表示瓦鲁法克斯财长在谈判中不太认真，并未表现出希腊留在欧元区的承诺和决心。正如一位经济学教授同仁所言：“真正让瓦鲁法克斯上心的不是管理经济，而是实行边缘政策。” 翻译：石海霞 校对：毛慧
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