Greece's ex-finance minister Varoufakis 'made plan to bring back drachma'

Greece's former finance minister has admitted he had begun planning to leave the euro and reintroduce the drachma.

Yanis Varoufakis said he had planned a series of government IOUs which would be officially worth €1 each, but which would be converted to Greek currency later.

He also claimed he only offered to step down as finance minister when he was officially told that the plan would not be going ahead.

Mr Varoufakis resigned as finance minister the morning after Greece voted No in its referendum on a round of austerity proposals last month.

At that time, he said: "Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted ‘partners’, for my… ‘absence’ from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement. For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance.

"I consider it my duty to help (Prime Minister) Alexis Tsipras exploit, as he sees fit, the capital that the Greek people granted us through yesterday’s referendum.

"And I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride."

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Greek finance minister quits; 'wears creditors’ loathing with pride'