The fact that Italy’s public debt has a lower credit rating than private debt is a reflection not of public debt’s intrinsic inferiority but of a political choice made by European leaders. And, by bolstering an authoritarian politician, that choice is now blowing back on them. ATHENS – Italy is now the frontline in the battle of the euro. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini is being propelled by a political...
Read More »Our moment in history, and what must be done. Théâtre du Rond-Point, Paris, Monday 18/2, 20.00
Monday 18 February, 20.00, live from Théâtre du Rond-Point. A discussion between Aude Lancelin and Yanis Varoufakis on politics and philosophy. Follow on @LeMediaTV.
Read More »DiEM25 & the EUROPEAN SPRING event on austerity, xenophobia, the euro and the environment – Wed 24/1, Berlin
With xenophobic and authoritarian forces rising across the EU, societies in stagnation levels, and climate catastrophe on the horizon, it’s time to stop what we’re doing and rethink. The EUROPEAN SPRING, that will be contesting the May 2019 European elections in 11 countries, brings together politicians and activists to give a new, European perspective on these critical issues. Program: Introductory speech...
Read More »At the Edinburgh Festival, in conversation with Jeremy Corbyn on reviving socialism, with Maria Alyokhina (Pussy Riot) on despotism, and with Shami Chakrabarti on liberty
In 2018, the good people behind the Edinburgh Festival kindly invited me to host a series of discussions under the title KILLING DEMOCRACY? My remit was: Further to explore the question of whether the current form of financialised capitalism is devouring democracy, reflecting on my work with the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25). In a series of four events I tried to explore the ways in which the demos can be...
Read More »DiEM25’s European New Deal plan can succeed where Macron and Piketty failed – The Guardian
If Brexit demonstrates that leaving the EU is not the walk in the park that Eurosceptics promised, Emmanuel Macron’s current predicament proves that blind European loyalism is, similarly, untenable. The reason is that the EU’s architecture is equally difficult to deconstruct, sustain and reform. While Britain’s political class is, rightly, in the spotlight for having made a mess of Brexit, the EU’s establishment...
Read More »The rise of the racist Right and the DiEM25-Sanders Progressive International initiative to confront them – on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman
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Read More »On Europe’s austerity drive and DiEM25 – an OECD podcast
[embedded content] One country that symbolised the crisis of the last 10 years was Greece. Its insolvency embarked the country on a long regime of bail-outs and austerity. This August, Greece officially emerged from the crisis, with the OECD forecasting GDP growth again. So, did the austerity work? The former Greek finance minister and co-founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM)...
Read More »The 5S-Lega Italian government is continuing the failed Renzi strategy of demanding the right to bend the fiscal rules without demanding a re-assessment of the fiscal rules – interviewed for AGI by Arcangelo Rociola
This is the English language (original) interview with Arcangelo Rociola, published on the AGI site in Italian, on the Italian government’s clash with Brussels over its budget deficit, the plans for a flat tax (that is not flat) and a universal income (that will never be universal), the 5S Movement’s claim to the mantle of the Italian Left, and my pronouncement that Mr Salvini has brought a Fascist Moment into...
Read More »Why is the left failing in continental Europe while doing well in the UK, under Jeremy Corbyn? What is DiEM25 proposing for the May 2019 European Parliament elections across Europe? On BBC World’s HARDtalk
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Read More »Greece was never bailed out and remains in debtor’s prison – Bild Zeitung interview
BILD meets Yanis Varoufakis – the man who was THE symbol of the Greek left-wing government’s resistance against the targets set by the bailout troika for the broke state of Greece. We met the professor of economics – who co-founded left-wing movement DiEM25 – in his summer house in the mountains of the sunny island of Aegina. BILD: Mr. Varoufakis, Greece went broke ten years ago. Where does Greece stand now,...
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