The liberal order is under threat. Increasing inequality, the rise of far-right nationalism and the climate emergency pose unprecedented challenges. It’s time for some radical thinking. On November 4th Intelligence Squared is bringing to its stage two of the world’s great radicals – Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister known for his trademark leather jacket, motorbike and […]
Essays
Jeremy Corbyn’s finest hour? IRISH EXAMINER (Project Syndicate)
Jeremy Corbyn must expose Boris Johnson’s no-deal Brexit as a Trump-deal Brexit and put forward Labour’s plan to end the interminable Brexit ordeal immediately, suggests Yanis Varoufakis Boris Johnson is the first British prime minister in a long time who is free of dilemmas regarding his approach to the European Union. For better or worse, Johnson’s […]
Lagarde at the ECB – my take in The Guardian
Christine Lagarde was a key member of the infamous troika – Greece’s official creditors – who crushed our people’s resistance to perpetual debt bondage. The other key figure alongside the International Monetary Fund’s then managing director was Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, who played a central role in that drama by engineering the closure of […]
Against extractive practices (social & environmental). Interviewed by Kate Aronoff for DISSENT
“We have to talk to people in a way that combines addressing these [economic] anxieties with the issues of the environment. Unless we manage to do that, we will fail.” Kate Aronoff Summer 2019 Yanis Varoufakis celebrating the anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 2018 (Pedro Ribeiro Simões/Flickr) The last few years have been […]
A tiny incident at Paris airport that speaks volumes about our Europe – the whole story
Small incidents can pack hefty messages. Yesterday afternoon, a tiny drama unfolded at Paris airport, as I was disembarking the airplane that had brought me over from Athens. It speaks volumes about the state of our European Union and the drift toward inane authoritarianism. A French policeman, for no obvious reason, took it to himself […]
How Syriza’s capitulations allowed the Greek right to escape the dustbin of history – The New Statesman
The left-wing party’s embrace of austerity created the conditions for a parasitic and cruel oligarchy to return The Greek right is back: greedier, uglier and more focused than ever. The incoming New Democracy government is determined to reclaim full control of the state on behalf of the most parasitic segment of Greece’s oligarchy and, of course, of […]
MeRA25: Greek progressives’ chance to take the fight against austerity back into Parliament – JACOBIN
Amid the bad results for the Left in the European elections, the Greek outcome was particularly poignant. In the last such contest in 2014, Syriza rode the revolt against austerity to become the largest single party, in its final step toward national office. Five years later, in last month’s election, it finished ten points behind the […]
Since the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be re-negotiated before Brexit, only a stark General Election can clear the air – The Telegraph
Theresa May’s sequence of strategic errors has rendered impossible a soft Brexit. By adopting red lines consistent solely with a hard Brexit, while denying herself the option of walking out without a deal, the Prime Minister engineered the current stalemate. Now, Mrs May is about to bequeath a poisoned chalice to her successor. The next […]
Why we are running in this EU election – FORTUNE magazine’s report
Nothing has ever been subtle with Yanis Varoufakis, the leather-jacketed, motorbike-riding economist who was finance minister of Greece for six of the most tumultuous months in that country’s history. Plain-spoken (to say the least) and a self-professed radical, he is, at 58, not nearly done waging war on Europe’s major power players. This week, he […]
A Greek Canary in a Global Goldmine – Project Syndicate op-ed 17 May 2019
ATHENS – The eurozone country that has become synonymous with insolvency is today proving to be a treasure-trove for some. Traders who bought Greek assets a few years ago have good reason to celebrate, having banked returns that no other market could have provided. But, as is often the case, an opportunity that seems too […]
The European elections could be an opportunity for a transnational Green New Deal – Adler & Wargan in The New Statesman
Forget the People’s Vote: the upcoming elections for European Parliament have become the new second referendum. To one side, Nigel Farage hopes to gather the Leave vote behind his new Brexit Party. To the other, a splintered coalition of Greens, Changers, Lib Dems, and Labour candidates are campaigning for Remain. Both sides agree on the […]
Should Jeremy Corbyn commit to a second referendum? The Independent
Should Jeremy Corbyn adopt an unequivocal commitment to holding a second referendum? Under normal circumstances, it should be an easy question to answer: democrats who think of referendums as a useful injection of direct democracy into our system of representative government, should be in favour. And those who are sceptical of referendums should be against. […]
Tageszeitung-TAZ: DiEM25 as the best hope for overcoming Europe’s nationalist resurgence
Europe is in deep political crisis, and without renewal, the Union could soon fall apart. This is shown by Brexit, the strengthening of Euroscepticism in Italy, in Germany and many other countries. Many now rely on the French president as a renewal and saviour. But Emmanuel Macron is not the right person to stop the slow dying of the European […]
“DiEM25 is something I’m really pouring my heart into and I’m learning every day.” Pamela Anderson in FT Alphaville
Pamela Anderson explains to FT Alphaville’s Jemina Kelly her enthusiasm for DiEM25: “The fact that a Greek economist, Yanis Varoufakis, and a Croatian philosopher, Srećko Horvat, are running in Germany show that these elections are not about national politics but about the future of Europe as such. I am glad to see that Europe finally […]