Tag Archives: English

Schon als Minister legte er Wert auf große Gesten. Yanis Varoufakis bleibt sich auch in diesem Buch treu. Νein, die ganze Geschichte der Auseinandersetzung um die Griechenland-Hilfe im ersten Halbjahr 2015 ist das nicht, was Yanis Varoufakis, der erste Finanzminister der Regierung von Alexis Tsipras in diesem umfangreichen Memoirenwerk bietet. Es ist eine Abfolge von Gesprächen, zum Teil mit Wortlaut-Zitaten aus...

[embedded content] For two years now, DiEM25 has been preserving the spirit of the Greek Spring of 2015 across Europe. Now, as we are preparing to present our progressive program to Europeans across the Union, via the ballot box, the time has come to found the Greek DiEM25 affiliate political party that will return the spirit of the Greek Spring to the country that gave birth to it. On March...

[embedded content] This is an extract from a speech at the ‘Alternative Investment Forum’ on 9th February 2018.

Those who try to understand the Brexit vote in terms of bean counting (or cost-benefit analysis) are missing the point. Yes, there was a strong underlying economic reason for the manner in which the majority adopted Brexit. But it had nothing to do with a calculation of what the result of the referendum would do to people’s hip pocket. Voters did not behave like homo economicus. (This is where the official...

Besides the gross disrespect to those who voted in favour of Brexit (instructing them to go back to the polling stations to deliver what we think is the ‘right’ verdict), the call for a second referendum is fraught with logical incoherence. Any referendum, courtesy of being a binary Yes or No choice, must be clear on what the default is (which will obtain or hold in case the people vote No). Suppose now that,...

The main argument against my Norway Plus proposal is that such an agreement would jeopardise the capacity of the UK government to strike out into the world to bring home a variety of tailor-made trade deals with the US, China etc. At the same time, hard Brexiteers continue with their disingenuous promises of daily millions that will flow to the NHS, money saved from the UK’s contribution to the EU budget. Now,...

Britain used to have wage councils that set the minimum wage per sector. Mrs Thatcher saw to it that they were abolished, together (effectively) with trades unions and council houses – thus yielding the present Precariat-Proletariat whose palpable anger and frustration is evident across the land. There is no doubt that we need to bring back a modernised for of wage councils. Not just in the UK but across Europe!...

Courtesy of opendemocracy.net, here is the transcript of my speech of 29th January at the House of Commons. The theme? How should Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party secure a progressive Brexit consistent with a socialist agenda for the UK but also with DiEM25’s campaign to democratise Europe. The main reason I am here, I believe – I’m going to add back into Chuka’s account a few wrinkles that he omitted out of...

[embedded content] Delivered in front of an audience of Labour MP and staffers, at the kind invitation of Chuka Ummuna MP.

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