ATHENS — In the first days after the election victory of the leftist party Syriza in Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, the new finance minister, has lobbed some rhetorical grenades, referring to his country’s foreign-imposed austerity budgets as “fiscal waterboarding” and calling Greece’s international bailout deals “a toxic mistake.”
Now, needing to make good on promises to negotiate debt relief for his beleaguered nation, he seems eager to send a more moderate message.
During an interview on Thursday morning in his office, Mr. Varoufakis, 53, poured a cup of coffee and took a large swallow. It had been a late night. On Wednesday, the day after he was sworn in, the Athens Stock Exchange had plunged on concerns that the Syriza-led government might wage a battle with Greece’s international creditors, and he had stayed up to monitor developments.
In his view, the markets, as well as leaders in some national capitals, overreacted to the perceived threat from Syriza. The party swept to power Sunday on promises to reject the belt-tightening policies — a condition of 240 billion euros, or about $272 billion in international bailout loans — that have stifled the Greek economy.
“People have described this as a Wild West showdown,” he said, sighing in frustration, “but it is not a ‘yes or no, take it or leave it’ situation.”
Settling onto a couch, Mr. Varoufakis — a self-described “accidental economist” and “erratic Marxist” — sketched out what he said was the heart of the problem: Greece’s debt is unsustainable and austerity constituted “fiscal waterboarding, where we are constantly having our head held under water.”
He said Greece wanted to negotiate with its creditors. But he insisted that Greece was not seeking a confrontation with creditors, whether in Frankfurt, Brussels or on Wall Street.
“All we’re asking is for,” he said, “is an opportunity to put together a proposal that will minimize the costs of Greece’s loan agreement and give this country a chance to breathe again after policies that created massive social depravity.”
Time is short. Even if the new government does not want to abide by the terms of Greece’s bailout agreements, the Treasury would seem in need of a remaining €7 billion loan disbursement from that program if Greece is to pay off foreign debts coming due by August.
But, Mr. Varoufakis said, “we don’t want the €7 billion.”
“We want to sit down and rethink the whole program,” he added. “Our task is not to get the next loan tranche,” which he said would be merely “kicking the can down the road.”
Instead, the task “is to restructure the debt and the economy to get the money we need.”
To Syriza’s detractors, such remarks might signal that the new government does not understand the magnitude of Greece’s financial challenges. But Mr. Varoufakis suggested that the government could finance its obligations by reducing the target for the so-called primary surplus, the amount of cash in Greece’s coffers after expenses and interest payments.
Creditors are demanding that Greece run a primary surplus of 4.5 percent of gross domestic product. Mr. Varoufakis, however, said Athens would propose to hold the level to 1 percent to 1.5 percent of G.D.P.
Greece is also counting on creditors to provide some form of debt relief, which would also free up funds. Much of the rest of Greece’s total debt of €318 billion is in the form of loans from other European Union governments, which do not want write-downs that would cost their taxpayers. Mr. Varoufakis wants to begin discussions with other finance ministers to find ways to reduce that burden and said the government would soon issue proposals.
Tall and magnetic, with a square jaw and a buzz-cut head, Mr. Varoufakis tends to speak in thoughtful and theatrical tones that can prompt strong reactions. He does not wear neckties, something avoided by the rest of the Syriza leadership. On Thursday, he was dressed in jeans, a black felt jacket with the collar upturned and a maroon T-shirt, along with motorcycle boots that he said were essential to wear on the powerful Yamaha that he rides everywhere.
Born in Athens, Mr. Varoufakis studied mathematical economics and statistics at Essex, England, where he obtained his doctoral degree in economics. His academic appointments included teaching economic theory and policy, political economics and philosophy and econometrics at the University of East Anglia, Cambridge, Glasgow and Sydney.
He is also the author of a widely followed blog, “Thoughts for the Post-2008 World,” which he plans to continue as finance minister. Hours after he was appointed on Tuesday, he wrote: “The time to put up or shut up has, I have been told, arrived. My plan is to defy such advice.”
Mr. Varoufakis has warned about the dangers of austerity since the 1980s. He served as an economic adviser to George Papandreou when he was prime minister in the mid-2000s, but quickly became a staunch critic when Mr. Papandreou embraced austerity after Greece’s debt crisis hit in 2009.
In a 2013 paper titled “Confessions of an Erratic Marxist in the Midst of a Repugnant European Crisis,” {http://bit.ly/1uI6Rev<Go>} Mr. Varoufakis argued that Europe’s economic malaise was not just another cyclical slump but largely a structural problem based on a European Union that was “a fundamentally anti-democratic, irrational cartel that has put Europe’s peoples on a path to misanthropy, conflict and permanent recession.”
Mr. Varoufakis wrote a book with James K. Galbraith, “A Modest Proposal,” which offered ideas for ending the euro crisis.
“There’s no one in officialdom in Europe that’s remotely like him in terms of intellectual reach and depth,” Mr. Galbraith, an economist and professor at the University of Texas, said in a telephone interview.
On Thursday, Mr. Varoufakis vowed that Greece would not have a financial “accident” or be forced to exit the euro currency union. Although Greece should probably never have entered the euro union, he said, he likened it to the Eagles’ song “Hotel California,” saying, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
As for whether Greece could grow its way out of debt, Mr. Varoufakis said growth needed to be addressed first at a Pan-European level.
He called for a “New Deal” type of investment-led recovery program around Europe. But he dismissed a plan proposed by the European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, to invest €300 billion to stimulate growth on the Continent without adding to debt, calling it “a public relations gimmick that has unfortunately occupied the minds of good people for too long — it will be a failure.”
Mr. Varoufakis played down concerns about the safety of Greek banks, despite reports that billions of euros in deposits have been fleeing the country.
“We expected that the first few days of our government, things would be turbulent,” he said. “Once the markets see that the proposals coming from this government are sensible, cooperative and therapeutic, we anticipate that share prices are going to” recover.
He also said Greece was not halting privatizations, despite remarks on Wednesday from another minister suggesting that this was the case.
“We want to ensure that this country becomes an attractive destination for foreign direct investment, but not interested in a fire sale or selling the family silver,” he said.
“I understand the fear in our partners’ minds that if Greece is given an opportunity to reboot, we may go back to our bad old ways and end up where we were in 2009,” he said. “It is important that we reassure them that we won’t do that, because we don’t want to do it ourselves.”