Topic: Costas Mitropoulos

The "Troika"—the IMF, ECB, and European Commission—is forcing Greece to sell off 50 billion euros in state assets as a condition for its bailout. A new privatization agency led by banker Costas Mitropoulos has been tasked with selling the gas company DEPA and the refiner Hellenic Petroleum. The hosts compare this process to the post-Soviet Russian model of creating billionaires through the sale of public assets to well-connected oligarchs.

Costas Mitropoulos, a former banking executive, is named to lead the Greek privatization agency. The hosts argue that the appointment of bankers to sell off state assets mirrors the Russian oligarch model of the 1990s.