Greek state goes after Yannis Varoufakis for ‘enabling drug traffickers’. No, really.

The Greek state is opportunistically going after economist and former finance minister Yannis Varoufakis for comments in his podcast.

Yannis Varoufakis: sorry, what?

Varoufakis told listeners that he had experimented with recreational drugs in his youth, including once trying ecstasy. In remarks described as “delivered with humour and self-awareness”, he went on to discuss concerns about risks of addiction: it’s natural for young people to experiment, but this comes with the risk of dependency.

But the Greek police took this honest discussion as an opportunity to prosecute him and have asked prosecutors to approve. In an X post, Yannis Varoufakis informed followers that the Greek government is determined to follow the US into fascism:

The Greek Police has referred me to the State Prosecutor with a request that I be prosecuted as a drug traffic enabler. There seems to be no end to the European authorities’ efforts to emulate Trump’s project of returning us to a bleak, fascist past.

The right-wing Greek government has detested Varoufakis for years for his left-wing policies and willingness to condemn state terror, both literal and financial. His vocal and active opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza has only intensified this hatred.

Earlier this week, journalist Thomas Fazi neatly encapsulated a phenomenon that UK people are suffering even more than the Greeks as Starmer criminalises dissent on Palestine:

…the consequences of the West’s descent into utter lawlessness and savagery, epitomised by Trump’s aggression against Venezuela and kidnapping of president Maduro, will not be limited to geopolitics. As Western elites discard legal and moral restraints abroad, they will feel increasingly justified in doing so at home, accelerating the erosion of constitutional safeguards and civil liberties.

Featured image via the Canary