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 finance minister, game theorist and “erratic Marxist” has divided his time since...
Read More »“The European Union Is Determined to Continue Making the Same Errors It Made After 2008” – JACOBIN interview
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 to controversy. Since stepping down as Greece’s finance minister in 2015,...
Read More »For a global movement with a radical agenda – long interview in THE HINDU (its FRONTLINE magazine)
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 for the world? What were the...
Read More »With Phillip Adams on ABC RN’s Late Night Live – On Assange, Greece, Europe, Trump and the state of our democracies
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Read More »DiEM25: Resisting the militarisation of the Greek-Turkish border under a Paneuropean cloud of xenophobic hysteria
DiEM25 condemns the militarisation of the Greek-Turkish border, the European Union’s violation of every principle of Humanism, the instrumentalisation of refugees both by the Turkish regime and Brussels, the abandonment of Greek islanders to their own devices – the list goes on and on. DiEM25 calls for an immediate opening of all borders. The Greek-Turkish one and, more importantly, all borders within the EU. It...
Read More »Euroleaks: Why release? And why now?
During 2015’s first half, as Greece’s finance minister, I participated in thirteen crucial Eurogroup meetings – before the SYRIZA government (disrespecting the referendum result of 5th July) capitulated. The result of that capitulation was my immediate resignation and a permanent austerity program (until… 2060). From the beginning, the first Eurogroup, it was clear that the troika leaders dominating those...
Read More »I just pulled out of a conference in Turkey in protest at the invasion of Northern Syria’s Kurdish region
It is with profound regret, and after much reflection, that I am pulling out as a speaker at an interesting and worthy international conference organised by TRT World in Istanbul on 21st October. I do so in protest of the Turkish armed forces’ invasion of Northern Syria. The ongoing invasion is not only an assault on Syria’s Kurdish forces that almost single-handedly, and heroically, defeated ISIS on the ground...
Read More »My first speech as MeRA25 leader in Parliament – with English subtitles
[embedded content] MeRA25’s entry into Greece’s Parliament marks the return of anti-austerity, anti-troika, radical europeanism. In this first speech I outlined our campaign to oppose the new parasitic oligarchy that New Democracy will be building on the 4th Bailout deal with the troika that SYRIZA left behind
Read More »What the Labour Party-DiEM25 collaboration is all about – speech by Yanis Varoufakis, now with video
[embedded content] On Sunday 14th July, the Labour Party and DiEM25 leadership teams agreed to embark upon a common agenda for Europe and beyond. Later that day, the collaboration was announced at the closing plenary of the International Social Forum convened by the Labour Party at SOAS, London and opened by Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party. Introduced by John McDonnell, Labour’s...
Read More »Against extractive practices (social & environmental). Interviewed by Kate Aronoff for DISSENT
“We have to talk to people in a way that combines addressing these [economic] anxieties with the issues of the environment. Unless we manage to do that, we will fail.” Kate Aronoff Summer 2019Yanis Varoufakis celebrating the anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 2018 (Pedro Ribeiro Simões/Flickr)The last few years have been a bit of a rollercoaster for the European left. Riding up front has...
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