Tag Archives: Project Syndicate

The Catalonia crisis is a strong hint from history that Europe needs to develop a new type of sovereignty, one that strengthens cities and regions, dissolves national particularism, and upholds democratic norms. Imagining a pan-European democracy is the prerequisite for imagining a Europe worth saving. ATHENS – To revive the ailing European project, the ugly conflict between Catalonia’s regional government and...

[embedded content] [embedded content] Yanis Varoufakis  discusses how to negotiate with the EU and his proposal to introduce fiscal money with Anatole Kaletsky, Co-Chairman of Gavekal Draganomics, David Alandete, Managing Editor of El Pais, and Torsten Riecke, Handelsblatt’s international correspondent.

ATHENS – Western capitalism has few sacred cows left. It is time to question one of them: the independence of central banks from elected governments. The rationale for entrusting monetary policy fully to central banks is well understood: politicians, overly tempted during the electoral cycle to create more money, pose a threat to economic stability. While progressives have always protested that central banks can...

ATHENS – Europe is at the mercy of a common currency that not only was unnecessary for European integration, but that is actually undermining the European Union itself. So what should be done about a currency without a state to back it – or about the 19 European states without a currency that they control? The logical answer is either to dismantle the euro or to provide it with the federal state it needs. The...

[Αναδημοσίευση από το ThePressProject άρθρου που αρχικά δημοσιεύτηκε στα αγγλικά στο Project Syndicate] Mήπως γιόρταζαν την αποσύνθεση της Ευρώπης, την οποία τώρα αποκαλούν Ευρώπη «πολλών ταχυτήτων» ή «μεταβλητή γεωμετρία»; Ή μήπως βρίσκονταν εκεί για να επικροτήσουν την «business as usual» προσέγγιση τους σε κάθε κρίση – μία προσέγγιση που έχει πυροδοτήσει τις φλόγες του ξενοφοβικού εθνικισμού σε όλη την...

ATHENS – On March 25, Europe’s leaders convened in the birthplace of the “European project” to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. But what exactly was there to celebrate? Were they reveling in Europe’s disintegration, which they now call “multi-speed” or “variable geometry” Europe? Or were they there to applaud their business-as-usual approach to every crisis – an approach that has fanned the...

Click here for my Project Syndicate op-ed in which I reply to Bill Gates’ proposal for a tax on robots, counter-proposing the idea first canvassed here of a universal basic dividend from a public share trust fund. See also this commentary in The Guardian.

ATHENS – Since the summer of 2015, Greece has (mostly) dropped out of the news, but not because its economic condition has stabilized. A prison is not newsworthy as long as the inmates suffer quietly. It is only when they stage a rebellion, and the authorities crack down, that the satellite trucks appear. The last rebellion occurred in the first half of 2015, when Greek voters rejected piling new loans upon...

LONDON – “I don’t care about what it will cost. We took our country back!” This is the proud message heard throughout England since the Brexit referendum last June. And it is a demand that is resonating across the continent. Until recently, any proposal to “save” Europe was regarded sympathetically, albeit with skepticism about its feasibility. Today, the skepticism is about whether Europe is worth saving. The...

LONDON – “I don’t care about what it will cost. We took our country back!” This is the proud message heard throughout England since the Brexit referendum last June. And it is a demand that is resonating across the continent. Until recently, any proposal to “save” Europe was regarded sympathetically, albeit with skepticism about its feasibility. Today, the skepticism is about whether Europe is worth saving. [To continue reading click here.]