Bretton Woods Conference Participating Nations Flag Display Case located within the Gold Room at the Mount Washington Hotel. Wikicommons/Barry Livingstone. Some rights reserved.Good evening everyone. Thank you so much to the Oxford Guild for inviting me. Allow me to begin with something that I could have written, but didn’t. I’ll just read it out:
“I am such a passionate believer in Europe that I accept the accusation of being a troublemaker. But I’m not awkward. I just want Europe to work!”
I didn’t say that: Margaret Thatcher said that in 1990. But I am very happy to endorse her sentiments. And the reason why I came up with this quotation is because walking into the building I was told “ This is the Margaret Thatcher Annexe. It won’t please you very much Mr.Varoufakis. But what can we do about it? ” My response was, “ The state of politics in this country and in Europe has deteriorated to such an extent that even though I spent my youth never missing a demonstration against Mrs. Thatcher, I have to say that I miss her!” Make what you wish of this.
