DiEM25’s Covid-19 Policy Response
The causes of inflation and what to do about it – Keynote at Banking Conference, Sofia 2 DEC 2021
, 26/01/2022
Invited by the Bulgarian Central Bank’s Deputy Governor, here is a keynote I delivered in Sofia, on 2nd December 2021, in which I offer a historical explanation of the nature and causes of our current inflation – as well as a proposed policy response that would help (but which vested interests are impeding).
What Europe Must Now Do – DiEM25’s Progressive European Policy Agenda for the 2020s
, 01/04/2021
Covid-19 has unveiled the EU’s lack of institutions that can address a public health crisis. It has also confirmed that the EU continues to lack the institutions necessary to reduce the economic imbalances which undermine the Union, suppress investment and cause preventable economic failures that undercut the life prospects of the majority of Europeans. Lastly, […]
Draghi’s outrageous deployment of McKinsey, Europe’s predicament, DiEM25’s proposals – La Stampa
, 15/03/2021
Last week, upon hearing that Mario Draghi, as Italy’s new PM, employed McKinsey to advise the government on how to spend the billions of the EU Recovery Fund, I tweeted, in anger and frustration: So predictable, so sad: Mario Draghi hired McKinsey to ‘organise’ Italy’s distribution of the Recovery Fund monies. What next? Get the […]
Is the EU Recovery Fund a step toward integration or further fragmentation? Moderated by Kevin Featherstone, organised by the German & the Hellenic Societies at the LSE
, 23/02/2021
The EU’s multiple failures are due to its immunity to democracy – The New Statesman
, 14/02/2021
From denial, to grudging acceptance, to substantial intervention, to debacle: that was the European Union’s trajectory once the storm that nearly consumed Wall Street in 2008 had crossed the Atlantic, starting the euro crisis. Twelve years later, the EU’s reaction to Covid-19’s arrival is following an ominously comparable trajectory. Eurosceptics take aim at the EU’s […]
Designing a postcapitalist future in the midst of the pandemic – The Saturday Paper
, 10/12/2020
Doubts that our world is morally indefensible become unforgiveable when even the bankers of the ultra-rich, along with the bailiffs working diligently on their behalf, are panicking about excessive inequality. UBS recently reported that, between April and July 2020, as the pandemic’s first wave was surging, the collective stash of the world’s billionaires grew by […]
A free Central Bank account for all would be a good start for a revamped monetary system – WIRED
, 27/11/2020
Imagine that the Bank of England were to create a free bank account for everyone. Overnight, it would be far better placed to regulate the money supply in the public interest. Moreover, to stay in business, commercial banks would have to seriously raise their game. In times of trouble, such as the current pandemic, the […]
Discussing ANOTHER NOW and Europe’s post-pandemic future with Pat Kenny on Dublin’s Newstalk radio
, 24/10/2020
You may listen to this interview from Newstalk’s site or on Spotify below https://open.spotify.com/episode/7kbDKWIRXD25TezBQEV3CP?si=D-Mt5suWRlixuGw5g9uRSQ
LOWY INSTITUDE: Interviewed by Alexandre Dayanton on EUROPE & THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM
, 28/09/2020
In this episode of COVIDcast, Lowy Institute Research Fellow Alexandre Dayant sat down with Professor Yanis Varoufakis to discuss Europe and the future of capitalism. Yanis is currently a member of the Hellenic Parliament and served as Greece’s minister of finance during the government debt crisis. ALEXANDRE DAYANT COVIDcast is a Lowy Institute pop-up podcast […]
Something remarkable just happened this August: How the pandemic has sped up the passage to postcapitalism – Lannan Foundation virtual talk
, 21/08/2020
Two days ago, something extraordinary happened. Something that has never happened before in the history of capitalism. In Britain, the news came out that the economy had suffered its greatest slump ever – more than 22% down during the first 7 months of 2020. Remarkably, on the same day, the London Stock Exchange, the FTSE100 […]
The EU coronavirus Recovery Fund will take Europe another step towards disintegration – The Guardian
, 25/07/2020
During the early years of the eurozone crisis, I remember gauging its depths by the rapidly diminishing half-life of the celebrations that followed every European Union summit. Premature proclamations that the crisis was over inspired hope, which caused the money markets to rebound. But then, at some point, gloom would unfailingly return. As the years of […]
While EU leaders squabble, the Elephant in the Room remains unnoticed
, 18/07/2020
While the media are reporting the news of the deadlocked EU Summit negotiations over the so-called ‘Recovery Fund’, an eerie silence prevails regarding the Elephant in the Room: The huge wave of austerity the Eurozone is sleepwalking towards. Let’s look at the facts. Even if the Dutch Prime Minister, Mr Rutte, and the rest of […]
The Eurozone’s grappling with crisis, class war & the North-South divide – Berliner Verlag interview
, 16/07/2020
What did you think when the Euro-group elected its new leader last week? At least this was not the outcome Frau Merkel had wished? My first thought was that it spelled the end of any possibility of harmonizing corporate tax rates across the Eurozone, an issue that I am on Mrs Merkel’s side. The second […]
The COVID Class War – THE IRISH EXAMINER & Project Syndicate
, 02/07/2020
“Strengthening the solidarity of Europe’s oligarchs is not a good strategy for empowering Europe’s majority. Quite the contrary. Any “recovery” based on such a formula will short-change almost all Europeans and push the majority into deeper despair.” ATHENS – The euro crisis that erupted a decade ago has long been portrayed as a clash between […]
Europe’s Recovery Fund: An instrument of class war against weaker Europeans everywhere
, 29/06/2020
Europe never was the battlefield on which the frugal North clashed with the profligate South. Instead, every European country has been the battlefield where a vicious class war is fought by a transnational oligarchy-without-frontiers training its armour against the weaker residents of every country, every region, every community. Covid-19, and the European Union’s response to […]
A chronicle of our BLEAK TWENTIES – Cambridge Union Online
, 24/05/2020
The good folk at Cambridge Union invited me to deliver a talk over the internet during our lockdown days. I chose to deliver a speech, or text, reciting what I fear might prove an accurate assessment of our BLEAK TWENTIES from the perspective of, say, December 2030. My great hope is that it is proven […]
DiEM25’s Vision of Europe for the post-Pandemic Era: Some personal thoughts
, 23/04/2020
DiEM25 was created in February 2016 because Europe was disintegrating as a result of a pseudo-technocratic takeover of the EU that was imposing austerity everywhere in response to the financial crisis caused by the EU pseudo-technocracy’s controllers. Today, now that a mindless virus has placed European capitalism in suspended animation, it is time to re-assess […]
DiEM25 on tonight’s European Union Council decision (Yes, we know what, & how terrible, it will be!)
, 22/04/2020
Later today, Thursday 23rd April, the EU Council will meet to discuss the common European response to the Great New Recession caused by the pandemic. Their agenda should comprise one, and only one, item: How to ensure that the necessary increase in public deficits will not show up in the fiscally stressed member-states’ national budgets, […]
What should the EU do NOW: DiEM25’s 3-Point Plan for averting a Covid-19 Depression
, 27/03/2020
With Lives, Livelihoods and the Union on the brink, the COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest test of the European project in the history of the Union — and we are failing. Solidarity was meant to be a foundational principle of the EU. But solidarity is missing at the moment it is most needed. COVID-19 has revealed a fundamental truth: […]