Greece clips Varoufakis' wings as it reorganises bailout-negotiating team

Athens

GREECE reshuffled its bailout-negotiating team, clipping Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis' wings, after three months of talks with creditors failed to unlock aid and a meeting with his euro-area counterparts ended in acrimony.

The coordination of day-to-day efforts to strike a deal with creditors was handed to Deputy Foreign Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, a Greek government official told reporters on Monday. Mr Varoufakis' role will be limited to supervising the political negotiations with euro-area member states and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Eurogroup meeting in Riga, Latvia on Friday descended into name-calling as the currency bloc's finance ministers hurled abuse at Mr Varoufakis, accusing him of being a time-waster, a gambler and an amateur, according to a person familiar with the discussions behind clo…