Op-ed
The EU coronavirus Recovery Fund will take Europe another step towards disintegration – The Guardian
, 25/07/2020
During the early years of the eurozone crisis, I remember gauging its depths by the rapidly diminishing half-life of the celebrations that followed every European Union summit. Premature proclamations that the crisis was over inspired hope, which caused the money markets to rebound. But then, at some point, gloom would unfailingly return. As the years of […]
While EU leaders squabble, the Elephant in the Room remains unnoticed
, 18/07/2020
While the media are reporting the news of the deadlocked EU Summit negotiations over the so-called ‘Recovery Fund’, an eerie silence prevails regarding the Elephant in the Room: The huge wave of austerity the Eurozone is sleepwalking towards. Let’s look at the facts. Even if the Dutch Prime Minister, Mr Rutte, and the rest of […]
The Eurozone’s grappling with crisis, class war & the North-South divide – Berliner Verlag interview
, 16/07/2020
What did you think when the Euro-group elected its new leader last week? At least this was not the outcome Frau Merkel had wished? My first thought was that it spelled the end of any possibility of harmonizing corporate tax rates across the Eurozone, an issue that I am on Mrs Merkel’s side. The second […]
The COVID Class War – THE IRISH EXAMINER & Project Syndicate
, 02/07/2020
“Strengthening the solidarity of Europe’s oligarchs is not a good strategy for empowering Europe’s majority. Quite the contrary. Any “recovery” based on such a formula will short-change almost all Europeans and push the majority into deeper despair.” ATHENS – The euro crisis that erupted a decade ago has long been portrayed as a clash between […]
Europe’s Recovery Fund: An instrument of class war against weaker Europeans everywhere
, 29/06/2020
Europe never was the battlefield on which the frugal North clashed with the profligate South. Instead, every European country has been the battlefield where a vicious class war is fought by a transnational oligarchy-without-frontiers training its armour against the weaker residents of every country, every region, every community. Covid-19, and the European Union’s response to […]
The Past, Present & Post-Pandemic Future of DEBT – El Pais
, 10/06/2020
Before capitalism, debt appeared at the very end of the economic cycle; a mere reflection of the power to accumulate already produced surpluses. Under feudalism, production came first with the peasants working the land to plant and harvest crops. Distribution followed the harvest, as the sheriff collected the lord’s share. Part of this share was […]
Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar, Yanis Varoufakis & Richard Durbin and 300 other lawmakers call for a cancellation of developing world’s’ debt – Washington Post
, 13/05/2020
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in a Wednesday letter addressed to Georgieva and David Malpass, president of the World Bank, called on international financial organizations to consider “extensive debt forgiveness” for more than 70 of the world’s poorest countries. The letter, which also called for significant fiscal stimulus to help stabilize […]
Covid-19 has “turbocharged” the EU’s failures – Interviewed by the NEW STATESMAN’s George Eaton
, 12/05/2020
For Yanis Varoufakis, lockdown has not been a time of contemplation. “I have more work now than I ever did. As you know, everything has shifted to Zoom meetings, which means zero separation between the private and the public,” he explained when we spoke recently, during one such video call. The 59-year-old economist, former Greek […]
In conversation with David McWilliams on the future after Covid-19 – The Guardian
, 08/05/2020
David McWilliams and I have had many conversations, often in front of large audiences in Ireland, on the economics and politics of Europe, Brexit, Ireland, Greece, the world. In this latest conversation we are discussing the impact of Covid-19 on capitalism. The extract below, published by The Guardian, comes from the last chapter of an […]
On the toxic impact of the Eurogroup agreement of 9th April 2020 – With CNN’s Richard Quest (AUDIO)
, 13/04/2020
Discussing the toxic impact of the Eurogroup agreement of 9th April 2020 on Italy and Europe at large. Interviewed by Richard Quest on CNN’s Quest’s World
The EU’s new coronavirus relief deal is a gift to Europe’s enemies – THE GUARDIAN
, 13/04/2020
Europe suffered a historic defeat on Thursday night. After weeks of impasse, the Eurogroup gathering of finance ministers, whose countries share the euro, reached a decision on their collective response to the coronavirus pandemic’s economic impact. Besides constituting an epic dereliction of duty, the Eurogroup’s decision dealt a decisive blow to the foundations of the European […]
“The European Union Is Determined to Continue Making the Same Errors It Made After 2008” – JACOBIN interview
, 12/04/2020
The lack of EU help for the states hardest hit by COVID-19 is the latest sign of the hollowness of “European solidarity.” As Yanis Varoufakis tells Jacobin, the European Union’s institutions are hardwired to ignore the needs of the social majority — preferring to allow mass suffering than to change their own rules. Yanis Varoufakis is used […]
For a global movement with a radical agenda – long interview in THE HINDU (its FRONTLINE magazine)
, 08/04/2020
In this interview, the first to Indian media, Yanis speaks elaborately on the 2019 British election, Brexit, the E.U. crisis, the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the global financial crisis, rising ultra-national forces, the need for a progressive international movement, the DiEM25, rising inequality and the Greek crisis. How important is this year’s U.S. presidential election […]
Yanis Varoufakis: “Syriza Was a Bigger Blow to the Left Than Thatcher” – JACOBIN
, 11/03/2020
Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis told Jacobin why he’s publishing his secret recordings of the critical Eurogroup meetings of 2015 — and why the Left around Europe is struggling to overcome Syriza’s disastrous legacy. Yanis Varoufakis during his speech in Hellenic Parliament. Dimitrios Karvountzis / Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty INTERVIEW BY George […]
Climate change is capitalism’s Waterloo – IRISH EXAMINER
, 11/03/2020
Steven Mnuchin’s snide remark about teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg at this year’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos outraged liberal commentators. US treasury secretary Mnuchin, responding to Thunberg’s call for an immediate exit from fossil fuel investments, said that she should go to college “to study economics” before “she can come back and explain […]
Brexit: A rational choice for the wrong reasons? – Financial News & Project Syndicate
, 11/03/2020
The motives and thinking behind Brexit were even less worthy than those behind US President Richard Nixon’s move in 1971 to ditch the Bretton Woods system. But, as with the “Nixon shock,” there is a singular underlying historical factor that explains Brexit. ATHENS – At pivotal historical moments, rational political ruptures often are brought about […]
Coronavirus has sparked a perfect storm of nationalism and financial speculation – THE GUARDIAN
, 09/03/2020
Nationalism and speculation have seldom had a better opportunity to combine forces as the one riding today on the coattails of Covid-19, known as the coronavirus. When Covid-19 leapfrogged from China to Italy, even ardent Europeanists normally appreciative of open borders joined the deafening calls to end freedom of movement across Europe’s national borders – a […]
Oligarchy & Xenophobia: The only beneficiaries of Greece’s economic ‘recovery’ – The Guardian
, 04/03/2020
Spring is already in the air across Greece. Even in the bleakest of times, nature’s renaissance renders hope irrepressible. But this one is proving a cruel spring for a people caught up in a decade-old crisis yielding one ritual humiliation after another. Costas runs a small bookshop in my central Athens neighbourhood. Although jovial by […]
The EU’s green deal is a colossal exercise in greenwashing – The Guardian
, 09/02/2020
Ursula von der Leyen’s signature proposal co-opts the slogans of climate activism, but has none of the substance Emergencies tend to reveal our true priorities. When our house is burning down or the storm waters are flooding in, we hold on to what we value most, and leave the rest behind. A decade ago, the […]
Imagining a world without capitalism – Financial News
, 09/01/2020
Anti-capitalists had a miserable year. But so did capitalism. While the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party in the UK this month threatened the radical left’s momentum, particularly in the US, where the presidential primaries loom, capitalism found itself under fire from some unexpected quarters. Billionaires, CEOs, and even the financial press have joined intellectuals […]
Should liberal capitalism be saved? Martin Wolf & Yanis Varoufakis debating live
, 09/01/2020
Is capitalism past its due date? Can we even imagine a world without it? On 14th November 2019 Martin Wolf and Yanis Varoufakis debated the question ‘Should liberal capitalism be saved?’. Hosted on November 14, 2019 by the Financial Times to celebrate the Wincott Foundation’s 50th Anniversary, this special live event took the place of […]
Reflections on 2019 – my foreword in THE GUARDIAN BEDSIDE 2019
, 25/12/2019
Every year for nearly 70 years, the Guardian has collected the best of its journalism into a book – the BEDSIDE GUARDIAN. This year, Bedside Guardian 2019 is edited by Aditya Chakrabortty with Paul Johnson, deputy editor, alongside Jonathan Freedland, Zoe Williams Emma Graham-Harrison. The editors were kind enough to ask me to write the Foreword. As it reflects my […]
Labour’s Manifesto is fit for purpose. So, why are the middle classes so hostile to it? THE NEW STATESMAN
, 08/12/2019
What are we to make of a political class that proclaims its ethical commitments but that cannot bring itself to endorse the only concrete actions that would honour them? This general election is unique in ways that transcend Brexit. Over the decades that I have been observing British politics, never before have I witnessed a […]