Greece’s new finance minister has wrapped up his inaugural tour of Europe following the Syriza party’s historic election victory last month. Yanis Varoufakis visited European countries as part of his government’s push to roll back austerity and renegotiate Greece’s international bailout. On Thursday, Varoufakis was met with a chilly reception in Germany, Greece’s biggest creditor and the leading European backer of its austerity. At a news conference with German counterparts, Varoufakis made a direct appeal to German taxpayers.

Yanis Varoufakis: “My message to the average German hard-working taxpayer is that you have given us too much money in the last five years, not too little. Unfortunately, this was not an act of solidarity, although it was portrayed as one, to the Greek people. Ninety percent of that money never came to Greece. It was a cynical transfer of banking losses, initially onto the shoulders of the Greeks. Everybody knew that the shoulders of the Greeks were not strong enough to sustain that weight and that it will spill over to you. … We are coming here to begin for the first time a dialogue about how to minimize the cost of the Greek crisis to the average not only Greek, but also German, Slovak, Finn, Spaniard, Portuguese and so on and so forth, so as not to mention every member state of the eurozone.”

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel countered Varoufakis by saying that Greece must be held responsible for its previous commitments.

Sigmar Gabriel: “Every country has the right to democratically elect a new government, and of course every government has the right to determine a new policy course, certainly if it has a clear mandate. But it must also be clear that the consequences, particularly the financial consequences, of a new direction in Greek policy cannot be transferred to other countries and financed by the taxpayers in these countries.”

Germany says it has offered Greece a contingent of 500 German tax collectors to help Athens recover taxes from wealthy citizens. The two sides say they have “agreed to disagree.”