Yanis Varoufakis was accused of exacerbating the economic crisis during his time as finance minister

A controversial former finance minister has called on Greece to be ready to ditch the euro as it emerges from eight years of austerity dictated by Brussels and international creditors.

Yanis Varoufakis, the radical economist who once described the strictures of three loan programmes imposed on Greece as “fiscal waterboarding”, said yesterday that the government should make contingency plans for bringing back the drachma.

Since the debt crisis hit in late 2009, successive Greek governments have fought to stave off economic collapse and expulsion from the eurozone. The European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund committed more than €320 billion in rescue loans in exchange for the most wrenching austerity cuts in modern times.

Those loans have not been repaid but at midnight last