DiEM25
Austerity Ruined Europe, and Now It’s Back – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 17/07/2023
The United States is experiencing an investment boom, owing to industrial policies that grant enormous subsidies – including to European firms – for investing in America, largely in green tech. Europe, meanwhile, is responding with a return to the austerity policies that caused it to fall behind the US in the first place. ATHENS – […]
La Stampa interview (English version) on Greek gvt refugee policy, Greece’s economy, MeRA25′ electoral setback, the euro, Italy’s PD and… Angela Merkel
, 29/05/2023
In this post you will find my original answers (in English) to La Stampa‘s varied questions (27/5/2023); from the Greek government’s shameful policy on refugees and MeRA25’s electoral setback, to the future of the Eurozone, my friend Elly Schlein’s leadership of Italy’s main opposition party, the PD and, yes, Angela Merkel! Almost all parties, on […]
Our defeat in context: Greece’s Erdogan-isation is almost complete
, 22/05/2023
The people spoke. Unlike in 2019, when MeRA25 won nine seats in Greece’s Parliament, in yesterday’s election we failed to clear the 3% hurdle, thus, electing no MPs. However, this freshly minted Parliament was condemned before it got a chance to convene. Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the conservative party leader, who won handsomely, is about to dissolve […]
What to do about the Parthenon Marbles – interviewed by Michael Portillo
, 25/04/2023
Following my article in Unherd about the Parthenon Marbles, Michael Portillo interviewed me on the subject for GB News.
Europe’s latest illiberal democracy: Greece! – New Statesman
, 24/03/2023
“Like lambs to the slaughter” was how an elderly neighbour described the deaths of youngsters travelling on Intercity 62 which, on the night of 28 February, crashed head-on with a freight train in Greece killing 57 people. Many of the dead were students returning after a long weekend from Athens to their universities in Thessaloniki. […]
On the shameful deal Osborne-Mitsotakis are hammering out over the Parthenon antiquities – UNHERD
, 24/03/2023
From the very beginning, Elgin’s removal of the Parthenon’s statues and friezes caused something of a discursive British civil war. On one side were humanists, like Lord Byron; on the other were Empire apologists, who defend Elgin’s actions and support the British Museum’s inalienable property rights to the artefacts it, eventually, purchased from him. Over […]
Exposing the scam that is an electricity ‘market’ – ANY electricity ‘market’
, 26/02/2023
So used are we to the idea of an ‘electricity market’ that the next sentence may jar in your mind: There is no such thing as an electricity market! In this video I explain why those who talk to us about electricity markets as something natural, clever and necessary are either deluded or in the […]
What’s behind the Great Volatility? Audio of SSGA Zurich Address
, 26/02/2023
From the Great Moderation to the Great Crash, the Great Recession, the Great Stagnation, the Great Inflation and, finally, to the Great Volatility. What are the forces driving this 50yr dynamic? Plus an answer to: “What did the euro crisis teach us about the EU’s various debt instruments?” A lecture delivered on 24th January 2023 […]
Will China Dump Its Dark Deal with America? – Project Syndicate
, 20/02/2023
A new cold war is upon us, but only China is in a position to push it beyond the point of no return. That moment will come when China’s policymakers cross the Rubicon and decide to wean Chinese economic growth off the US trade deficit. ATHENS – True hegemons prevail not by force but by […]
Is Europe Deindustrialising? – Project Syndicate
, 23/01/2023
The real problem confronting European manufacturing is not the threat of factory closures. It is that, compared to the United States and China, Europe has fallen far behind in the race to accumulate, and benefit from, the cloud capital that represents the future of profit in industries like electric cars and green energy. ATHENS – […]
After an eventful 2022, what can we expect from 2023? DiEM25 New Year’s message
, 01/01/2023
On behalf of DiEM25, greetings and Happy New Year. 2022 brought us a hideous War and crippling price hikes. 2022 brought environmental disaster closer to home and varieties of neofascism at our door. 2022 was the year our dire predictions about Europe’s failures and the world’s slide into a New Cold War were confirmed. But, […]
Greece’s Varoufakis brings his anti-establishment party to Italy – POLITICO
, 06/12/2022
Yanis Varoufakis tried to rescue Greece from the austerity imposed by the liberal establishment. Then he wanted to rescue the whole EU. Now the motorbike-riding, leather jacket-wearing former Greek finance minister has turned his attention to Italy. “If ever there was a moment it is now,” the economist told POLITICO in an interview to mark the […]
Rishi Sunak’s ‘grown-up’ austerity is designed to keep zombie capitalism alive
, 10/11/2022
The demise of Trussonomics was a welcome victory for decency and common sense in a minor battle within a broader class war. Sadly, the class that Liz Truss tried to bolster with copious tax and regulatory gifts will win this war by deploying an even nastier, blunter, dirtier weapon: austerity. Britain’s wealthy owe a debt […]
Should electricity markets be reformed or disbanded? My debate with Michael Liebreich on Cleaning Up
, 01/11/2022
The other day, Michael Liebreich and I had a lively discussion on his CleaningUp podcast provoked by my call “to blow up the electricity markets”. It was fun but, of course, fell short of a comprehensive analysis of the complex issues pertaining to the political economy of electricity generation and distribution. Following our debate, Michael […]
Comradely disagreements between progressives over Ukraine & the New Cold War – Reply to Anthony Barnett
, 12/10/2022
Anthony Burnett, a friend, comrade and collaborator, just published an article in openDemocracy, a splendid and much loved source of progressive ideas and material, to which he alerted me in a mail reading: “Dear Yanis, we disagree but in solidarity!” Since Anthony’s article mentions me, along with Jeremy Corbyn, in its subtitle, here I am, […]
My take on Georgia Melloni and her incoming government – LTIO clip
, 10/10/2022
Italy is about to have a new far-right government under the self-declared Mussolini groupie Ms Georgia Meloni. In this LTIO episode (entitled Fascism: The Radical Centre’s Last Resort), with comrades Roger Waters, Ece Temelcuran and Frank Barrat), I share my thoughts on Meloni and Co.
Trickle-down Truss is carrying on the dirty work of Thatcher, Blair and Osborne – THE GUARDIAN
, 01/10/2022
If Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget survives the storm it triggered, a banker on a million-pound annual salary stands to receive £50,000 of income tax relief – on top of the extra bonuses the bank can throw in, now that the Liz Truss government has removed the cap on them. Meanwhile, a Deliveroo rider gets a pep […]
Zombie capitalism is unravelling – THE NEW STATESMAN
, 29/09/2022
This is no sterling crisis. It is a crisis of British capitalism caused by 40 years of underinvestment and deindustrialisation, exacerbated by chronic reliance on speculative bubbles and triggered by Liz Truss’s extravagant kindness to Britain’s wealthy. While all eyes are on the fall of the pound, the real drama revolves around the Bank of England’s […]
Europe’s electricity market: the scam of the century? – Video
, 21/09/2022
Every fortnight, DiEM25’s coordinating team livestreams our internal discussions of topics central to Europe’s and the world’s current predicament. On 8th September 2022 we discussed the electricity price hikes that, like a wrecking ball, are destroying what is left of Europe’s sustainability as an economic and social entity. Here is a clip of my analysis […]
, 18/09/2022
Greeks and other southern Europeans could now be feeling schadenfreude as Germany faces the collapse of its economic model in the face of the Ukraine war and the new cold war with China. But with a democratic Europe in the balance, this is no time to gloat. ATHENS – It is never easy to wake […]
Tι θα έπρεπε να κάνει η ΕΚΤ, το οποίο αρνείται να κάνει – Σχόλιο της Les Echos σε συνέντευξή μου στην Le Temps
, 20/06/2022
Με άρθρο του στη γαλλική εφημερίδα «Les Echos» ο Pierre Demoux σχολίασε την κριτική που έκανε σε συνέντευξή του στην ελβετική εφημερίδα «Le Temps» ο «αντικομφορμιστής πρώην υπουργός Οικονομικών της Ελλάδος», όπως χαρακτηριστικά αναφέρει, Γραμματέας του ΜέΡΑ25, Γιάνης Βαρουφάκης, αναφορικά με την ανακοίνωση της Ευρωπαϊκής Κεντρικής Τράπεζας για σταδιακή αύξηση των επιτοκίων. Συγκεκριμένα, αναφέρει το άρθρο, […]
Chatting with Owen Jones on Rwanda, Brexit, Keir Starmer, Assange, Melenchon, Ukraine and Paul Mason – video
, 20/06/2022
We had a lot to talk about: Britain’s deporting of refugees to Rwanda, how Boris Johnson’s ‘oven-cooked’ Brexit deal is unravelling, Keir Starmer’s dishonest leadership of the Labour party, the political situation in Spain, the revival of the French left, how the horror of the Ukraine war can end, the extradition of Julian Assange, and […]