Tag Archives: European Crisis

Europe is disintegrating and this could come at great human cost, Greece’s fiery former finance minister warned on Tuesday. “The great fear is that the disintegration of the European Union — whatever you may think about the European Union — is going to come at a very, very large human cost,” Yanis Varoufakis told CNBC in London. “That kind of Europe is one that breeds monsters. It is not the kind of Europe that the world needs,” he later added. He spoke to CNBC at a time of heightened...

by Cristina Criddle 28 SEPTEMBER 2016 • 11:23AM Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s outspoken former finance minister, has said George Osborne will “go down in history as a particularly inept Chancellor.” Mr Varoufakis said that the former UK Chancellor made fiscal targetsthat “entrapped him” in a “vicious cycle”. Responding to a question about Mr Osborne’s replacement, Philip Hammond, on BBC Radio 4, he said: “I believe the new Chancellor is going to utilise this opportunity he is now getting...

https://varoufakis.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/bestoftoday-20160928-wednesdaysbusinesswithdominicoconnell.mp3 An interview on the Brexit paradox-cum-enigma and the future of the European Union – the interview was recorded in the context of the Institute of Directors conference on post-Brexit Britain, 27th September 2016

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Varoufakis’ speech last Michaelmas was thought to attract over a thousand students [The following is re-posted from the Cambridge Union’s The Tab] With the Autumn Statement of the new Government looming, the Cambridge Union takes over Inner Temple hall to question the dominance of austerity politics in the United Kingdom. Yanis Varoufakis, the ex-Greek Finance Minister, will be speaking in favour of the motion ‘This House has Lost Confidence in Austerity’. Joining him on the Proposition...

Stefano Fassina points out that in my article ‘Europe’s Left After Brexit’ I did not discuss his preferred option for Eurozone member-states: Stay in the EU but leave the euro. Of course the reason my article did not discuss that position is that it was focusing on Brexit and addressing Lexiteers like Tariq Ali and Stathis Kouvelakis who are arguing, from a left-wing position, for leaving the EU altogether – i.e. Brexit-like moves. But I am more than happy to comment on Stefano’s...

Stefano Fassina was kind enough to respond to my article entitled Europe’s Left After Brexit. His reply follows. On Sept 6, Yanis Varoufakis offered an interesting review here of the progressive positions addressing EU problems. The first one, he underlines with a clear cultural break, a “standard variety euro-reformism” — practised typically by social democrats — calls for “more democracy”, “more Europe”, and “reformed institutions”. But this option is founded on a fallacy: the European...

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.) Here, we try to open out the argument further. In his confrontation with the...

In reply to Tariq Ali, Stathis Kouvelakis, Vicente Navarro and Stefano Fassina on DiEM25’s plan for resisting within the European Union Preface: This article (published in edited form in Jacobin, Neues Deutschland, Il Manifesto,  Mediapart and elsewhere) addresses left-wing critics of DiEM25 claiming that DiEM25 is pursuing the wrong objective (to democratise the EU) by means of a faulty strategy (focusing at the European rather than at the national level). This response, while addressed...