ESSEX University graduates are set become influential members of the new, far left Greek Government.

Economist Yanis Varoufakis, who completed a BSc and PhD in economics at Essex, has been appointed Greece’s new finance minister, while fellow Essex University graduate Rena Dourou is another high profile member of Syriza.

Ms Dourou, who completed an Masters in Ideology and Discourse Analysis in 2001, is already an elected governor of Attica, the region which surrounds Athens.

A third graduate, Fotini Vaki, has been elected as a Syriza MP, to represent the island of Corfu in the new parliament.

Mr Varoufakis, who works as an economics lecturer in Athens, was taught by Roy Bailey, an honorary senior lecturer in economics at Essex University. The finance minister went on to get a 2:2, in 1981.

In an interview with a national newspaper, Mr Bailey remembered Mr Varoufakis as a “very sound student”, adding: “I wouldn’t say he was always scoring top marks.

“You wouldn’t say ‘this is a stellar individual we should send to Harvard’, but he shone when it came to independent thinking.”

Mr Varoufakis, who has called the European Union’s austerity programme “fiscal waterboarding”, will now campaign for the Greeks’ €240 billion debt to be written off.

He told the Today Programme: “We will take to the Eurozone a plan for minimising this Greek debacle, we are going to put three or four things on the table: genuine reforms and creating a rational plan for debt restructure.

“We want to bind our repayments to our growth.”

There are about 4,000 Greeks in Essex University alumni and a spokesman said economics had traditionally been one of the most popular subjects for Greeks studying in Essex.