Varoufakis to launch pan-European movement to 'democratise EU'

(ATHENS) - Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said late Tuesday he would launch a pan-European movement next month in Berlin to "democratise the EU".

"We will begin with others, February 9, a utopian attempt to create a pan-European movement... with a simple slogan: 'Democratise the EU'," he said in an interview with Greek network Skai TV.

The challenge was to respond to the "European crisis, which has undone Europe".

The resulting Greek crisis, he said, "cannot be resolved" by negotiations between Greece and its creditors, "even if God himself was prime minister" of the country.

The group, called DiEM (Democracy in Europe Movement), will be launched in Berlin, according to Varoufakis' blog, a city that became a symbol of the struggle against the austerity represented by his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble.

The firebrand former star of Greece's first radical left government recently told Swiss television channel RTS that French ex-economy minister Arnaud Montebourg would participate.

The bane of the Eurogroup during six months of tough negotiations between Greece and its creditors, Varoufakis resigned from the government of Alexis Tsipras on July 6 last year, following Greeks' rejection of recovery plans dictated by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.