Op-ed
Trump, the Dragon, and the Minotaur – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 28/11/2016
ATHENS – If Donald Trump understands anything, it is the value of bankruptcy and financial recycling. He knows all about success via strategic defaults, followed by massive debt write-offs and the creation of assets from liabilities. But does he grasp the profound difference between a developer’s debt and the debt of a large economy? […]
New Statesman interview: The Left’s duty after Trump’s awful victory
, 15/11/2016
I had no doubt Donald Trump would win, just like I had no doubt Brexit would happen, so maybe I’m not as shell-shocked as you,” says Yanis Varoufakis. The former Greek finance minister is speaking to me several days after the Republican candidate’s historic victory. He doesn’t sound smug about being so prescient, more resigned, deflated, […]
PSOE’s Penchant for Repeating PASOK’s Disappearing Act – El Diario (English & Spanish texts)
, 02/11/2016
el PASOK mordió el polvo por participar en el derrocamiento de su líder y, curiosamente, el PSOE ha tomado el mismo camino. EFE [For the El Diario site click here] History may repeat itself but never as quickly or as mindlessly as it does within Europe’s social democratic family. Spain’s socialists jettisoned Pedro Sánchez […]
The Universal Right to Capital Income – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 31/10/2016
ATHENS – The right to laziness has traditionally been only for the propertied rich, whereas the poor have had to struggle for decent wages and working conditions, unemployment and disability insurance, universal health care, and other accoutrements of a dignified life. The idea that the poor should be granted an unconditional income sufficient to […]
What the United States needs: Investment & Progressive Internationalism – CNN op-ed
, 15/10/2016
Click here for the CNN site. (Note that the title was chosen by CNN’s editor.) Arthur Miller once said that “an era can be considered over when its basic illusions have been exhausted.”
Radical internationalism: What Europe & the Left need – The New Statesman
, 29/09/2016
Yanis Varoufakis: The left never recovered from the fall of the Soviet Union — yet there is hope
Apple, Brussels, and Ireland’s Bruised Sovereignty – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 29/09/2016
ATHENS – Despite their unequivocal Europeanism, the Irish have been serially mistreated by the European Union. When Irish voters rejected the Treaty of Lisbon in 2008, the EU forced them to vote again until they delivered the “right” outcome. A year later, when private Irish banks imploded, threatening their (mainly) German private creditors with […]
Democratising Europe – a transnational project? A debate with openDemocracy
, 13/09/2016
YANIS VAROUFAKIS, ROSEMARY BECHLER, ALEX SAKALIS, and ANTHONY BARNETT 13 September 2016 (Click here for the openDemocracy site) What role does national self-determination and ‘self-government’ play in European and human emancipation today? Yanis Varoufakis replies for DiEM25. Yanis Varoufakis has recently been engaged in debating this key question for our times with the left. (See more.) […]
The Politics of Negative Interest Rates – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 23/08/2016
ATHENS – Objects of desire come at a cost. Only bad things, like toxic waste, have a negative price, the equivalent of a fee payable to anyone willing to make them disappear. Does this mean that negative interest rates embody a new perspective on money – that it has gone “bad”? [To read on, click […]
Building a Progressive International – op-ed Project Syndicate
, 31/07/2016
ATHENS – Politics in the advanced economies of the West is in the throes of a political shakeup unseen since the 1930s. The Great Deflation now gripping both sides of the Atlantic is reviving political forces that had lain dormant since the end of World War II. Passion is returning to politics, but not in […]
The Eurozone After Brexit – Die Zeit (in English and German)
, 20/07/2016
For the German language version, as published in Die Zeit on 18 July 2016, click here. For the English version (as I wrote it originally)…
On the anniversary of the Greeks’ OXI, we say NO to a retreat to leftist nationalism – op-ed in La Repubblica
, 11/07/2016
by Yanis Varoufakis and Lorenzo Marsili. Click here for the la Repubblica site. For the English language version…
ONLY EUROPE’S RADICALS CAN SAVE THE EU – Newsweek op-ed on the Spanish election outcome
, 08/07/2016
Podemos suffered in the Spanish elections because it lacked a defining European agenda. BY YANIS VAROUFAKIS ON 7/8/16 AT 4:19 PM – click here for the Newsweek site or…
Mantener la unidad de la izquierda de manera progresista y eficaz -Público.es
, 26/06/2016
Lecciones desde Grecia y España Yanis Varoufakis Economista y exministro de Finanzas de Grecia La experiencia de Syriza pesa en la conciencia colectiva de la izquierda europea. Es importante que aprendamos de esta experiencia y resurjamos más unidos, progresistas y eficaces en la tan apremiante como necesaria consecución de una agenda paneuropea humanista.
The Right Left for Europe: In response to leftwing Brexiters, Grexiters etc. – Project Syndicate Op-Ed
, 25/06/2016
ATHENS – The United Kingdom’s referendum on whether to leave the European Union created odd bedfellows – and some odder adversaries. As Tory turned mercilessly against Tory, the schism in the Conservative establishment received much attention. But a parallel (thankfully more civilized) split afflicted my side: the left. Having campaigned against “Leave” for several months […]
Brexit won’t shield Britain from the horror of a disintegrating EU
, 25/06/2016
Bringing democrats together across borders is needed now to prevent a slide into a xenophobic, 1930s-like abyss Click here for The Guardian site or… Yanis Varoufakis
The ECB’s Illusory Independence – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 06/06/2016
ATHENS – A commitment to the independence of central banks is a vital part of the creed that “serious” policymakers are expected to uphold (privatization, labor-market “flexibility,” and so on). But what are central banks meant to be independent of? The answer seems obvious: governments. In this sense, the European Central Bank is the quintessentially independent […]
GREECE’S ENDLESS LOOP OF DOOM – full version of New York Times op-ed
, 03/06/2016
On 31st May 2016 the New York Times published the op-ed below (under a title that is unfortunate and not my choice). (For the NYT site, click here.) The version below is the original and contained graphs and data that could not be fitted in the printed version. (You can also download a pdf of the full article […]
On Spain’s general election & Podemos’ prospects – op-ed in Newsweek
, 12/05/2016
Click here for the Newsweek site. Or…
Imagining a New Bretton Woods – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 08/05/2016
The financial meltdown of 2008 prompted calls for a global financial system that curtails trade imbalances, moderates speculative capital flows, and prevents systemic contagion. That, of course, was the goal of the original Bretton Woods system. But such a system today would be both untenable and undesirable. So, what might an alternative look like?
Der Spiegel op-ed: Endgame for the IMF-EU Feud over Greece’s Debt
, 11/04/2016
For the Der Spiegel site click here. Otherwise… The feud between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European side of Greece’s troika of creditors is old news. However, Wikileaks’ publication of a dialogue between key IMF players suggests that we are approaching something of a hazardous endgame.
Guardian Long Read – Why we must save the EU
, 10/04/2016
5th April 2016. For The Guardian site, click here. Otherwise…
Lies, Damn Lies, and European Growth Statistics
, 15/03/2016
ATHENS – “Greece has at last returned to economic growth.” That was the official European Union storyline at the end of 2014. Alas, Greek voters, unimpressed by this rejoicing, ousted the incumbent government and, in January 2015, voted for a new administration in which I served as finance minister. Last week, similarly celebratory reports emanated […]
Democracy or Bust in Europe -Project Syndicate Op-Ed
, 24/02/2016
BERLIN – “Europe will be democratized or it will disintegrate!” That maxim is more than a catchphrase from the manifesto of the Democracy in Europe Movement – DiEM25, the group I just helped to launch in Berlin. It is a simple, if under-acknowledged fact. Read more at my Project Syndicate page