Christine Lagarde will have to confront Berlin if she’s to save the euro | Yanis Varoufakis

The incoming European Central Bank chief must call for an end to the eurozone's suicidal fiscal rules, which have now run out of road

Christine Lagarde was a key member of the infamous troika - Greece's official creditors - who crushed our people's resistance to perpetual debt bondage. The other key figure alongside the International Monetary Fund's then managing director was Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, who played a central role in that drama by engineering the closure of Greece's banks. Now, four years later, Lagarde has been anointed to succeed Draghi at the helm of the ECB.

Despite her role, and the dealings we had when I was Greece's finance minister, not once did I feel animosity towards her. I found her intelligent, cordial, respectful. She even acknowledged, in private at least, that Greece had been given a raw deal and that my campaign to cut our public debt was right and proper. Lagarde's priority was holding the troika's line and minimising any challenge to its collective authority.

Forced to choose between Berlin's favouritism and the interests of her institution, she unfailingly opted for the former

Related: Easy money won't solve Christine Lagarde's economic problems | Phillip Inman