The clashes between the two men inspired a Dutch rap video, and although Mr. Varoufakis was replaced by Euclid Tsakalotos in July 2015, he remained critical in his references to Mr. Dijsselbloem, writing in April 2016<br />that they were never going to have “a beautiful friendship.”<br />Ultimately, the Eurogroup failed to reach a deal with Greece,<br />and it fell to national leaders like Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Mark Rutte of Holland to negotiate an agreement.<br />Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister and current president of the Eurogroup, has been one of the public faces of austerity in Europe.<br />At a joint news conference with Mr. Dijsselbloem in Athens, Mr. Varoufakis flatly rejected working with the so-called troika — the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund<br />and the European Central Bank — which had jointly demanded spending cuts and tax increases in exchange for loans.<br />With his Dutch Labor Party recording a poor showing at the polls, he will probably lose his post as finance<br />minister, meaning he will be replaced in the Eurogroup by the end of his term early next year.<br />Eurogroup meetings have also run far more smoothly than under his predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, the<br />current president of the European Commission, according to finance ministers and European officials.<br />Mr. Dijsselbloem had been his country’s finance minister for a matter of months when he<br />took over as head of the Eurogroup in early 2013, and his tenure had a rocky start.<br />And since the European Central Bank introduced an effective backstop in 2012, buying bonds from eurozone countries with<br />distressed economies, the Eurogroup has also allowed countries like France and Italy significant fiscal leeway.
