Tag Archives: European Crisis

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Every so often humanity manages genuinely to surprise itself. Events to which we had previously assigned zero probability push us into what the ancient Greeks referred to as aporia: a state of intense bafflement urgently demanding a new model of the world we live in. The Crash of 2008 was such a moment. Suddenly, the world ceased to make sense in terms of what, a few weeks before, passed as conventional wisdom –...

This year, the good people behind the Edinburgh Festival have 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 my purpose will be to explore the ways in...

[embedded content] [embedded content]  “I wanted a Germany that was hegemonic and efficient, not authoritarian and caught up in a European Ponzi scheme. That was in 2013.” Excerpt from the Munich Seminar. This CESifo group Munich seminar took place on June 11, 2018 in Ludwig-Maximilian University, in Munich, in the Grosse Aula of the Ludwig-Maximilian University. The euro crisis has...

ATHENS – Europe’s establishment is luxuriating in two recent announcements that would have been momentous even if they were only partly accurate: The end of Greece’s debt crisis, and a Franco-German accord to redesign the eurozone. Unfortunately, both reports offer fresh proof of the European Union establishment’s remarkable talent for never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The two announcements...

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Vanity Fair’s interviewed me on the new Italian government (see here). The complete, original Q&A follows below: So, Italy has finally a government. New Premier is Giuseppe Conte, a technician who was never elected. Do you think this is acceptable?  The new government has the consent of the majority of parliament. So, it is legitimate. My regret is that the Left has failed to garner enough electoral support...

Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano interviewed me (see here) regarding the latest developments in Italy, Europe and Greece. The original Q&A (in English) follows: Greece is about to exit from the notorious memorandum, the austerity plan signed with the troika. Public finance has improved at a high price for the population as we all know. I fear you have been misinformed. The only thing that runs out this year...

Italy should be doing well. Unlike Britain, it exports considerably more to the rest of the world than it imports, while its government spends less(excluding interest payments) than the taxes it receives. And yet Italy is stagnating, its population in a state of revolt following two lost decades. While it is true that Italy is in serious need of reforms, those who blame the stagnation on domestic inefficiencies...

Corriere Della Sera, the Italian daily, published today an interview that I gave to Aldo Cazzullo. For the published version (in Italian of course), you can visit the paper’s site here. However, the published text is a heavily reduced version of the exchange between Mr Cazzullo and myself. For those interested in the full exchange, see below. (Nb. the exchange took place in English) Dear Professor let us start...