Modest Proposal
German political economy’s two naughty sisters in action, once again – George Krimpas guest post
, 04/03/2019
The lean years are here again, to the apparent satisfaction of Germany’s Finance Minister, a Social Democrat. The rate of growth of the budgetary surplus was declining, therefore restraining expenditure was the prudent attitude, the public must rest assured that over the next few years 25 billion euros will be saved, the chance of a […]
DiEM25’s radical Europeanist political agenda – Interviewed by Jacobin’s David Broder
, 03/11/2018
Last Friday, Yanis Varoufakis was in Italy to promote European Spring, a list of candidates standing across the continent in next May’s European election. The former Greek finance minister visited Rome just days after the European Commission had struck down the Italian government’s budget, sparking further rows over Brussels’ authority to curb member states’ spending. […]
Europe’s Gradualist Fallacy – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 28/06/2017
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? […]
Η παρουσίαση της Νέας Ευρωπαϊκής Συμφωνίας του DiEM25 & η ανακοίνωση της εκλογικής έκφρασής της το 2019 – Συνέντευξη τύπου στην Ρώμη 24 Μαρτίου 2017
, 28/03/2017
Στις 25 Μαρτίου, την επέτειο των 60 ετών από την Συνθήκη της Ρώμης, το DiEM25 παρουσίασε την πανευρωπαϊκή του ατζέντα οικονομικής & κοινωνικής πολιτικής στην Ρώμη. Την προηγούμενη μέρα, σε συνέντευξη τύπου στο Κέντρο Ξένων Ανταποκριτών της Ρώμης, οι Γιάνης Βαρουφάκης και Lorenzo Marsili μίλησαν στα μέσα για την ατζέντα αυτή, που το DiEM25 αποκαλεί ΝΕΑ […]
Markets vs States in today’s Europe: An Alpbach Keynote Debate
, 03/09/2016
In October 2015, I had the opportunity to debate, in Munich, Professor Hans Werner Sinn on the European Monetary Union and, more broadly, Europe’s economy . On 30 August 2016, at the Alpbach European Forum, I debated Professor Sinn’s successor as President of IFO, Professor Clemens Fuest. [Click here, or the image above, for video of […]
In memoriam: Michel Rocard & the Modest Proposal for Resolving the Euro Crisis
, 03/07/2016
It was with great sorrow that I learned of Michel Rocard’s passing. Since 2013, when he wrote the Preface to our Modest Proposal for Resolving the Euro Crisis, Michel has been a valued interlocutor and supporter. Only a few weeks ago, we were planning to meet up in Paris in the Fall to discuss his […]
An Agenda for a Democratic, Recovering Europe: At the European House of Ambrosetti, 9th April 2016
, 13/04/2016
This panel, organised by the House of Ambrosetti (Cernobbio), included: Martin Wolf (Chair), Jyrki Katainejn (Vice President of the European Commission), Yves Mersch (ECB Executive Board Member), Yanis Varoufakis (DiEM25), Jens Spahn (State Minister, Finance Ministry, Germany)
A New Approach to Eurozone Sovereign Debt – op-ed in Project Syndicate
, 17/08/2015
My latest column for Project Syndicate is now out. Click here for the Project Syndicate page or read on:
Greece, Germany and the Eurozone – Keynote at the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Berlin 8th June 2015
, 09/06/2015
CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the warm welcome. Above all thank you for the opportunity to build bridges, to pave common ground, to bring harmony in the face of blatant attempts to sow the seeds of discord between peoples whose historic duty […]
In conversation with Joseph Stiglitz on the Eurozone Crisis – at the INET-OECD conference, 9 April 2015
, 11/04/2015
GREEK GVT REFORM AGENDA – sent version
On the consequences of Mr Draghi’s impending QE announcement – in THE ECONOMIST
, 22/01/2015
Jan 20th 2015, 14:10 BY YANIS VAROUFAKIS | UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS Yanis Varoufakis is a professor of economic theory at the University of Athens and Syriza parliamentary candidate in the general election on 25th January. In November he outlined a plan to revive the euro-zone economy. Here he discusses quantitative easing in the euro zone.
«La Grèce peut forcer l’Europe à changer» – La Tribune
, 21/01/2015
INTERVIEWYanis Varoufakis is a candidate for Syriza to the 25 January elections in Greece. (Credit: Reuters) Interview by Romaric Godin, Athens | 01/20/2015, 1:16 p.m. – 2597 words Yanis Varoufakis, economist and author of “Minotaur Planetary” is a candidate for the party of the radical left Syriza in the elections of January 25. He explains […]
SYRIZA intends to infuse a little rationality into Europe’s attitude toward itself – interviewed by PROFIL (Austria)
, 05/01/2015
A fresh interview offered to PROFIL (Austria) on why SYRIZA’ s proposals for Greece and for Europe are radical only to the extent that they are rational and therapeutic for the Eurozone as a whole. CLICK HERE (in German only I fear)
Greek and European prospects for 2015 – Interview in L’Antidiplomatico
, 01/01/2015
Interviewed by Alessandro Bianchi on Greece and Europe in the run up to the Greek general election of 25th January 2015 Click here for the L’Antidiplomatico site or, for the English original,…
Bloomberg’s Clive Crook on our proposal for ECB purchases of EIB bonds
, 05/12/2014
In an article entitled “ECB should fire up its helicopters“, Clive Crook comments positively on this proposal for QE by the ECB taking the form of massive purchases of EIB bonds. The article also surveys other important ideas that would, if the political will were to be found, be helpful in the fight against misanthropic, unnecessary, stagnation. […]
Revisiting the Juncker Recovery Proposals – guest post by Stuart Holland
, 01/12/2014
Regular readers need no introduction to Stuart Holland; co-author of The Modest Proposal, former British MP and aid to Jacques Delors, responsible for starting the conversation about the Eurozone’s need for eurobonds (in… 1993), creator of the European Investment Fund and a staunch advocate of the need to turn the European Investment Bank into the […]
How can we govern Europe? Florence, 21-23 November 2014
, 19/11/2014
Conference participants include (in order to presentation): Richard Koo (Chief economist, Nomura Research Institute), Vítor Constâncio (Vice President ECB), Bill Mitchell (Centre of Full Employment and Equity), Frances Coppola (Economist, former banker), Pierre Moscovici (Commissioner for Economic&Monetary Affairs), Yanis Varoufakis (Universities of Athens and Texas at Austin), Thomas Mayer (Senior Fellow at the Center of Financial Studies at Goethe Universität Frankfurt). For the complete program […]
Slovakia adopts our proposal of ECB-purchases of EIB bonds
, 11/11/2014
Our proposal for ECB purchases of EIB bonds has just been adopted by one Eurozone member-state: Slovakia. Here is Reuters’ report. Or read on…
A QE proposal for Europe’s crisis – OpEd in The Economist
, 10/11/2014
The Economist kindly invited me to contribute an op-ed to a ’roundtable’ on what form Quantitative Easing should take place in Europe. For The Economist’s site click here. Or read on…
Today’s Eurozone seen from an investor’s perspective – Keynote (audio)
, 01/11/2014
On 30th October I was invited to address a meeting of German, Austrian and Swiss pension fund managers on how they should make sense of the Eurozone’s current state of play. In this keynote (click below for the audio and the accompanying slides) I present an explanation of the causes underlying the impossible dilemmas pension fund […]
It is time for the ECB to purchase EIB bonds: Bruegel’s Guntram Wolff sides with our proposal
, 23/10/2014
The ECB’s recent dalliance with QE-light is macro-economically irrelevant. For a long while we have been arguing (see Policy 3 of the Modest Proposal) that it is high time that the ECB buys en masse EIB bonds, thus enabling the EIB to issue new bonds as part of a European Recovery Program; an investment drive […]
Centralisation-Without-Representation: A reply to Frances Coppola, Simon Wren-Lewis and Niall Ferguson
, 03/10/2014
[This post was later published by Open Democracy] Behind the European Union’s official ‘line’ that the worst of the Euro Crisis is behind us, a flurry of proposals for institutional changes reveal a deep-seated anxiety about the Eurozone. Indeed, in recent weeks, even the German finance minister, Mr Wolfgang Schäuble, went public with an op-ed […]
Frances Coppola and Simon Wren-Lewis on the ‘Modest Proposal vs Austerian Federalists’
, 26/09/2014
In Whither Europe? The Modest Camp vs the Federalist Austerians James Galbraith and I attempted to chart the evolution of various plans to save the Eurozone. In that survey, we juxtaposed a Modest Camp (that includes our own Modest Proposal), whose philosophy is to promote a minimalist agenda for stabilising the Eurozone and ending its socio-economic crisis before Europe’s future […]
Mr Juncker should look to an EIB-ECB alliance, not to the ESM
, 24/09/2014
Jean Claude Juncker had a good idea but looked in the wrong place for funding it. His good idea was to promote a sizeable investment program (€300 billion) that would help Europe end years of crisis, stem deflation and return the continent to growth. Unfortunately, Mr Juncker thought it a good idea to tap the […]