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 »Reflections on 2019 – my foreword in THE GUARDIAN BEDSIDE 2019
Every year for nearly 70 years, the Guardian has collected the best of its journalism into a book – the BEDSIDE GUARDIAN. This year, Bedside Guardian 2019 is edited by Aditya Chakrabortty with Paul Johnson, deputy editor, alongside Jonathan Freedland, Zoe Williams Emma Graham-Harrison. The editors were kind enough to ask me to write the Foreword. As it reflects my take on 2019, I thought posting it here might...
Read More »Capitalism, Democracy and Europe – Interviewed for the Great Transition Initiative
As harsh austerity and xenophobic nationalism fester in Europe, Yanis Varoufakis discusses his antidote with Tellus Senior Fellow Allen White. What inspired your career trajectory from academic economist to prominent supranational activist? I went into politics because of the financial crisis of 2008. Had financial capitalism not imploded, I would have happily continued my quite obscure academic work at some...
Read More »Tageszeitung-TAZ: DiEM25 as the best hope for overcoming Europe’s nationalist resurgence
Europe is in deep political crisis, and without renewal, the Union could soon fall apart. This is shown by Brexit, the strengthening of Euroscepticism in Italy, in Germany and many other countries. Many now rely on the French president as a renewal and saviour. But Emmanuel Macron is not the right person to stop the slow dying of the European Union. He represents that neo-liberal course that destroys the Union...
Read More »The Breugel-Financial Times Spitzenkandidaten series: A debate with Yanis Varoufakis
[embedded content] You can also hear the debate, if you prefer audio from video, click here
Read More »Why Norway plus gives Britain the time it needs to get out of its Brexit mess – op-ed in The Telegraph
Brexit is, undeniably, important. The Prime Minister’s faulty negotiations have now turned what the majority of the British people considered an opportunity into a national crisis. However, now is perhaps the moment to reflect that, in an era of trade wars, geopolitical realignment and existential threats to our nations’ democracies, Brexit is not as important as we have allowed ourselves to imagine....
Read More »Why the Deutsche Bank merger with Commerzbank must be stopped – HANDELSBLATT (English & German)
The official story is one of creating a national champion, a German bank large enough to compete with American investment banks. The truth is far less heroic and a lot more sordid than that. Here is why Demokratie in Europa is campaigning against this merger. Both banks are zombies. Commerzbank has gone through eight years of constant cost-cutting but still delivers profits of less than $1 per share at a time...
Read More »Pour un New Deal européen – Liberation
A l’approche des élections européennes, le Printemps européen, coalition transnationale de partis de gauche, présente un programme social et écologique pour dépasser le clivage entre populistes et libéraux. Avec des propositions concrètes : plan de transition écologique de 500 milliards d’euros annuels, Assemblée constituante, fonds citoyen financé par les Gafa… Yánis Varoufákis pour un New Deal européen...
Read More »“The EU declared war and Theresa May played along” – Interview in The NewStatesman
In 2016, shortly before the EU referendum, Yanis Varoufakis warned that the UK was destined for a “Hotel California Brexit”: it could check out but it could never leave. The former Greek finance minister spoke from experience. In 2015, his efforts to end austerity – “fiscal waterboarding” – were thwarted by the EU (a struggle recorded in his memoir Adults in the Room: My Battle With Europe’s Deep Establishment)....
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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