 Why EuroLeaks? Why are we releasing the audio recordings from the Eurogroup meetings in which I participated representing Greece as its finance minister in 2015? Because there's no transparency the European Union the European Union doesn't seem to appreciate how crucial transparency is for democracy in our indirect democracies. We vote for representatives to represent us in crucial meetings that make decisions that determine our lives now in the present and in the future and of course our children's lives. If we do not know what our representatives say while representing us it is utterly impossible to pass judgment on them and to decide whether we will vote for them again or not. The failure to keep minutes in the Eurogroups is highly motivated. It is certainly not an oversight. By not keeping minutes, by not recording those meetings in any way they are imposing the right of the powerful to dismiss the less powerful. Because if you represent a country that is hugely indebted, a country that is small, a country that does not carry the leverage of a Germany or France, the absence of minutes means two things. Firstly, it means that if you clash with the powerful within the Eurogroup immediately they are going to be leaks that distort what you said and there will be no recourse to any minutes to prove otherwise. Secondly and even more importantly, even if you manage to strike an agreement within the Eurogroup that is contributing somehow to the welfare of your people indeed of the people of Europe against the oligarchy. There is no way you can prove that that decision was actually reached. That was my experience in 2015 and it occasioned the audio recordings that you now have access to. What will you be able to discern through Euroleaks? You will be able to ascertain for yourself the quality of the proposals that outside my ministry was tabling with the creditors with the Troika. Now why is this important? Because for years now you've been told through the systemic media that there were no such proposals, that whatever proposals were being put to the Eurogroup by myself were just blaster, theoretical, ideological treatises. Judge for yourself. You will hear the president of the Eurogroup and other ministers warn me that if I dare table written proposals within the Eurogroup meetings, that would be the end of the negotiations. That they would have to take the proposals, not any agreement, to the parliament effectively annulling any bargaining significance that they have. At the very same time they were leaking to the press that I was arriving at the Eurogroup meetings without any proposals. You will be able to judge for yourself just by listening to the discussions. Who was the true Europeanist in there? Who was diplomatic, polite, courteous? Who was entering those discussions in the spirit of cooperation with an iron will to bring out a mutually advantageous agreement? And who, on the other hand, and in juxtaposition, walked in there with immense cynicism, with a rude disposition, who it was that did not want an agreement and all they cared for was the immediate capitulation of a freshly elected, democratically elected government. You will actually hear with your own ears the then German Finance Minister, Mr. Wolfgang Scheuble, say explicitly that he wanted to keep the European Central Bank's profits, the profits that the European Central Bank made by buying and selling Greek government bonds that Mr. Scheuble wanted to keep that money for his own federal German budget. You will also have access to the remarkable recordings from the 25th of June Eurogroup meeting. That was the first Eurogroup meeting when I was presented with anything tangible, anything on paper. It was the ultimatum by the Troika. Take it or leave it was what Jeroen Deiserblum, the president of the Eurogroup, said to me. Interestingly, you will also hear within that Eurogroup. Wolfgang Scheuble took his credit, challenging that ultimatum, finding flaws in it which our side had exposed. Flaws, when it came to the financing of the deal that was being put to us as an ultimatum, flaws in particular regarding the legal and institutional framing of that ultimatum. Despite Wolfgang Scheuble's veto of the ultimatum being put to me by the Eurogroup and despite the fact that other ministers sided with Wolfgang Scheuble, the president of the Eurogroup clearly pushed along that way by the Troika that was pulling the strings from some other room, insisted, Janis, you can take it or leave it. This will become abundantly clear to you so that you gain a feel for how these awful decisions are being reached. Why now? Why are we making Euroleaks available to you five years later? This has to do with the domestic scene in Greece. In the last few weeks, few months, we realized that the powers that be here in Greece are weaponizing the fake news that were emanating from the Eurogroup meetings of 2015. They're weaponizing them in order to explain new austerity measures, a new spate of foreclosures and evictions, new legislation for labor that casualizes what is left of our collective bargaining, new austerity and colonial policies that speed up here in Greece and deepen the crisis of our society of the many, while at the very same time the European Union in Brussels, together with the French and German governments that are very significant in mapping out the future of Europe, are failing spectacularly to improve the manner in which important decisions are being made. The Eurogroup still does not keep minutes. The European Union Council is still shrouded in total opacity. It is about time we change this. If Euroleaks being released now helps push the powers that be in Brussels towards more transparency, at least towards keeping minutes in these meetings, that will be a small victory for democracy. I'm often asked whether releasing audio recordings of private conversations is the moral thing to do. Not only is it the moral thing to do, but it is my citizen's duty, my national duty as a Greek and my European duty as a European is to release them to the extent that it exposes how awful decisions are being made behind a veil of opacity on behalf of people who are unaware of the decisions being made on their behalf. Euroleaks is sending a very simple message to the powers that be at the heart of the European Union. We're not going to rest until minutes are taken, until full transparency, until light is let into those closed-door meetings so that citizens know what is being decided on their behalf. And our message to the citizens of Europe, to the citizens of Greece, of Germany, of Portugal, of Spain, join your voices with our voice so that we can bring down the wall that keeps the demos away from democracy.