Yanis Varoufakis's Blog, page 131

Greece’s Perpetual Crisis

 

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 mountains of already-unsustainable debt, a move that would extend Greece’s bankruptcy into the future by pretending to have overcome it. And it was at this point that the European Union and the International Monetary Fund – with their “extend and pretend” approach in jeopardy – crushed the “Greek Spring” and forced yet another unpayable loan on a bankrupted country. So it was only a matter of time before the problem resurfaced.

In the interim, the focus in Europe has shifted to Brexit, xenophobic right-wing populism in Austria and Germany, and Italy’s constitutional referendum, which brought down Matteo Renzi’s government. Soon, attention will shift again, this time to France’s crumbling political center. But, lest we forget, the inane management of Europe’s debt crisis began in Greece. A minor country in the grand scheme of things in Europe became a test case for a strategy that could be likened to rolling a snowball uphill. The resulting avalanches have been undermining the EU’s legitimacy ever since.

The problem with Greece is that everyone is lying. The European Commission and the European Central Bank are lying when they claim that the Greek “program” can work as long as Greece’s government does as it is told. Germany is lying when it insists that Greece can recover without substantial debt relief through more austerity and structural reforms. The current Syriza government is lying when it insists that it has never consented to impossible fiscal targets. And, last but not least, the IMF is lying when its functionaries pretend that they are not responsible for imposing those targets on Greece.

When so many lies – with so much political capital invested in their perpetuation – coalesce, disentangling them requires a swift coup, akin to Alexander cutting the Gordian knot. But who will wield the sword?

Tragically, the problem is both obvious and extremely simple to solve. The Greek state became insolvent a year or so after the eruption of the 2008 global financial crisis. Against all logic, the European establishment, including successive Greek governments, and the IMF extended the largest loan in history to Greece on conditions that guaranteed a reduction in national income unseen since the Great Depression. To mask the absurdity of that decision, new loans – conditioned on more income-sapping austerity – were added.

When one finds oneself in a hole, the simplest solution is to stop digging. Instead, Europe’s powers-that-be, the Greek government, and the IMF blame one another for driving Greece’s people into an abyss.

Recently, Poul Thomsen, the director of the IMF’s European Department, and Maurice Obstfeld, its chief economist, protested in a jointly authored blog post, that “it is not the IMF that is demanding more austerity.” The blame lay elsewhere. “[I]f Greece agrees with its European partners on ambitious fiscal targets,” they argued, “don’t criticize the IMF for being the ones insisting on austerity when we ask to see the measures required to make such targets credible.”

Thomsen and Obstfeld are partly right. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had no business agreeing to the crushing fiscal targets demanded by Germany and the EU when I was the finance minister. My successor’s claims that the government never accepted the targets are disingenuous. As he well knows, I resigned chiefly because in April 2015 Tsipras agreed to them behind my back. My former colleagues are shooting the messenger, the IMF in this case, for relaying the bad news that the targets they agreed to require even more austerity.

It is also true that the IMF consistently, and correctly, criticized the targets. But what Thomsen neglects to mention is that, without his and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde’s personal connivance, the European Commission would not have been able to impose those targets. And I should know: I represented Greece in the meetings of the Eurogroup (comprising the eurozone countries’ finance ministers) where it happened.

Thomsen seems to be aware of his responsibility to stop legitimizing the German-led asphyxiation of Greece’s economy. In a telephone conversation in March with Delia Velculescu, the IMF’s Greek mission chief, Thomsen explained what should happen if Germany insisted on crushing Greece by not granting debt relief. According to the transcript of the call (released by WikiLeaks), Thomsen thought European leaders would leave the issue until after the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum.

According to Thomsen: “[W]e at that time say, ‘Look, you Mrs. Merkel you face a question, you have to think about what is more costly: to go ahead without the IMF, would the Bundestag say ‘The IMF is not on board?’ Or to pick the debt relief that we think that Greece needs in order to keep us on board?” Right? That is really the issue.”

Velculescu responded that, “for the sake of the Greeks and everyone else, I would like it to happen sooner rather than later.” But it did not happen, because Thomsen and Lagarde never dared to put Merkel on the spot. Instead, the IMF continues to blame others while providing Germany with political cover to maintain its chokehold on Greece.

But, as Velculescu astutely pointed out, the repercussions affect “everyone else.” The troubling developments in Italy, France, and even Germany are a direct consequence of the Greek debacle. But Greece is the immediate victim, and it is therefore the Greek government’s responsibility to cut the Gordian knot, by declaring a unilateral moratorium on all repayments until substantial debt restructuring and reasonable fiscal targets are agreed.

Greece’s voters twice gave their leaders a mandate to do just that: once when they elected the Syriza government in January 2015, and again that July in a referendum. For the sake of Greece – and of Europe – the authorities need to call a spade a spade.

A New Deal to Save Europe

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 European idea is being driven into retreat by the combined force of a denial, an insurgency, and a fallacy. The EU establishment’s denial that the Union’s economic architecture was never designed to sustain the banking crisis of 2008 has resulted in deflationary forces that delegitimize the European project. The predictable reaction to deflation has been the insurgency of anti-European parties across the continent. And, most worrying of all, the establishment has responded with the fallacy that “federation-lite” can stem the nationalist tide.

It can’t. In the wake of the euro crisis, Europeans shudder at the thought of giving the EU more power over their lives and communities. A eurozone political union, with a small federal budget and some mutualization of gains, losses, and debt, would have been useful in 1999, when the common currency was born. But now, under the weight of massive banking losses and legacy debts caused by the euro’s faulty architecture, federation-lite (as proposed by French presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron) is too little too late. It would become the permanent Austerity Union that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has sought for years. There could be no better gift to today’s “Nationalist International.”

Simply put, progressives need to ask a straightforward question: Why is the European idea dying? The answers are clear: involuntary unemployment and involuntary intra-EU migration.

Involuntary unemployment is the price of inadequate investment across Europe, owing to austerity, and of the oligopolistic forces that have concentrated jobs in Europe’s surplus economies during the resulting deflationary era. Involuntary migration is the price of economic necessity in Europe’s periphery. The vast majority of Greeks, Bulgarians, and Spaniards do not move to Britain or Germany for the climate; they move because they must.

Life for Britons and Germans will improve not by building electrified border fences and withdrawing into the bosom of the nation-state, but by creating decent conditions in every European country. And that is precisely what is needed to revive the idea of a democratic, open Europe. No European nation can prosper sustainably if other Europeans are in the grip of depression. That is why Europe needs a New Deal well before it begins to think of federation.

In February, the DiEM25 movement will unveil such a European New Deal, which it will launch the next month, on the anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. That New Deal will be based on a simple guiding principle: All Europeans should enjoy in their home country the right to a job paying a living wage, decent housing, high-quality health care and education, and a clean environment.

Unlike Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s original New Deal in the 1930s, a European New Deal must be realized without the tools of a functioning federation, relying instead on the EU’s existing institutions. Otherwise, Europe’s disintegration will accelerate, leaving nothing in its wake to federate.

The European New Deal should include five precise goals and the means to achieve them under existing EU treaties, without any centralization of power in Brussels or further loss of sovereignty:

· Large-scale green investment will be funded by a partnership between Europe’s public investment banks (the European Investment Bank, KfW, and others) and central banks (on the basis of directing quantitative easing to investment project bonds) to channel up to 5% of European total income into investments in green energy and sustainable technologies.

· An employment guarantee scheme to provide living-wage jobs in the public and non-profit sectors for every European in their home country, available on demand for all who want them. On condition that the scheme does not replace civil-service jobs, carry tenure, or replace existing benefits, it would establish an alternative to choosing between misery and emigration.

· An anti-poverty fund that provides for basic needs across Europe, which would also serve as the foundation of an eventual benefits union.

· A universal basic dividend to socialize a greater share of growing returns to capital.

· Immediate anti-eviction protection, in the form of a right-to-rent rule that permits homeowners facing foreclosure to remain in their homes at a fair rent set by local community boards. In the longer term, Europe must fund and guarantee decent housing for every European in their home country, restoring the model of social housing that has been dismantled across the continent.

Both the employment scheme and the anti-poverty program should be based on a modern version of an old practice: public banking for public purpose, funded by a pragmatic but radical currency reform within the eurozone and the EU, as well as in non-EU European countries. Specifically, all seigniorage profits of central banks would be used for these purposes.

In addition, an electronic public clearing mechanism for deposits and payments (outside the banking system) would be established in each country. Tax accounts would serve to accept deposits, receive payments, and facilitate transfers through web banking, payment apps, and publicly issued debit cards. The working balances could then be lent to the fund supporting the employment and anti-poverty programs, and would be insured by a European deposit insurance scheme and deficits covered by central bank bonds, serviced at low rates by national governments.

Only such a European New Deal can stem the EU’s disintegration. Each and every European country must be stabilized and made to prosper. Europe can survive neither as a free-for-all nor as an Austerity Union in which some countries, behind a fig leaf of federalism, are condemned to permanent depression, and debtors are denied democratic rights. To “take back our country,” we need to reclaim common decency and restore common sense across Europe.

Μία Νέα Συμφωνία για τη σωτηρία της Ευρώπης

Άρθρο του Γιάνη Βαρουφάκη για το ThePressProject.gr

«Δεν με νοιάζει τι θα κοστίσει. Πήραμε τη χώρα μας πίσω!» Αυτό είναι το περήφανο μήνυμα που ακούγεται σε όλη την Αγγλία μετά το δημοψήφισμα για το Brexit τον περασμένο Ιούνιο. Πρόκειται για ένα αίτημα που αναπτύσσεται σε όλη την ήπειρο. Μέχρι πρόσφατα, κάθε πρόταση για τη «σωτηρία» της Ευρώπης αντιμετωπιζόταν συμπαθητικά, παρά τον σκεπτικισμό για την εφαρμοσιμότητα της. Σήμερα, ο σκεπτικισμός αφορά το εάν η Ευρώπη αξίζει να σωθεί.

Η ευρωπαϊκή ιδέα οδηγείται σε υποχώρηση λόγω των συνδυαζόμενων δυνάμεων της άρνησης, της εξέγερσης και της πλάνης. Η άρνηση του ευρωπαϊκού κατεστημένου να παραδεχθεί ότι η οικονομική αρχιτεκτονική της Ε.Ε. δεν ήταν σχεδιασμένη για να αντέξει την τραπεζική κρίση του 2008 είχε ως αποτέλεσμα αποπληθωριστικές δυνάμεις που απονομιμοποιούν το ευρωπαϊκό οικοδόμημα. Η προβλέψιμη αντίδραση στον αποπληθωρισμό ήταν η εξέγερση αντιευρωπαϊκών κομμάτων σε όλη την ήπειρο.

Και, το πιο ανησυχητικό απ’όλα, το κατεστημένο απάντησε ότι η «μικρή ομοσπονδιοποίηση» μπορεί να αποκρούσει το εθνικιστικό κύμα.

Δεν μπορεί. Από το ξεκίνημα της ευρωπαϊκής κρίσης, οι Ευρωπαίοι ανατριχιάζουν στη σκέψη να δώσουν στην Ε.Ε. περισσότερη εξουσία στις ζωές και τις κοινότητές τους. Μία πολιτική ένωση της Ευρωζώνης, με μικρό ομοσπονδιακό προϋπολογισμό και κάποιο διαμοιρασμό των κερδών, εξόδων και χρέους θα ήταν χρήσιμη το 1999, όταν γεννήθηκε το κοινό νόμισμα. Αλλά τώρα, υπό το βάρος τεράστιων τραπεζικών εξόδων και χρεών που προκλήθηκαν από τη λανθασμένη αρχιτεκτονική του ευρώ, η μικρή ομοσπονδιοποίηση (όπως προτάθηκε από τον υποψήφιο για τη γαλλική προεδρία Εμανουέλ Μακρόν) είναι πολύ λίγη, πολύ αργά. Θα είχε ως αποτέλεσμα τη μόνιμη Ένωση Λιτότητας, την οποία ο Γερμανός υπουργός Οικονομικών, Βόλφγκανγκ Σόιμπλε επιθυμεί εδώ και χρόνια. Δεν θα μπορούσε να υπάρξει καλύτερο δώρο στη σημερινή «Εθνικιστική Διεθνή».

Για να το θέσω απλά, οι προοδευτικοί πρέπει να θέσουν ένα ευθύ ερώτημα: Γιατί η ευρωπαϊκή ιδέα πεθαίνει; Οι απαντήσεις είναι ξεκάθαρες: ακούσια ανεργία και ακούσια μετανάστευση εντός της Ε.Ε.

Η ακούσια ανεργία είναι το αποτέλεσμα των ανεπαρκών επενδύσεων στην Ευρώπη, λόγω της λιτότητας, και των ολιγοπωλιακών δυνάμεων που έχουν συγκεντρώσει τις θέσεις εργασίας στις πλεονασματικές οικονομίες της Ευρώπης κατά τη διάρκεια της αποπληθωριστικής εποχής. Η ακούσια μετανάστευση είναι το αποτέλεσμα των οικονομικών αναγκών στην ευρωπαϊκή περιφέρεια. Η συντριπτική πλειοψηφία των Ελλήνων, Βουλγάρων και Ισπανών δε μετακομίζουν στη Βρετανία ή τη Γερμανία για το κλίμα. Μετακομίζουν γιατί πρέπει.

Οι ζωές των Βρετανών και των Γερμανών δε θα βελτιωθούν με το χτίσιμο ηλεκτρικών φραχτών και με την υποχώρηση στο δόγμα του έθνους – κράτους, αλλά με τη δημιουργία αξιοπρεπών συνθηκών σε κάθε ευρωπαϊκή χώρα. Και αυτό ακριβώς είναι που χρειάζεται για να αναγεννηθεί η ιδέα της δημοκρατικής, ανοιχτής Ευρώπης. Κανένα ευρωπαϊκό έθνος δεν μπορεί να αναπτυχθεί βιώσιμα αν οι υπόλοιποι Ευρωπαίοι υποφέρουν από ύφεση. Για το λόγο αυτό, η Ευρώπη χρειάζεται μία Νέα Συμφωνία πολύ πριν αρχίσει να σκέφτεται την ομοσπονδιοποίηση.

Το Φεβρουάριο, το κίνημα DiEM 25 θα καταθέσει μία τέτοια Ευρωπαϊκή Νέα Συμφωνία, την επέτειο της Συνθήκης της Ρώμης. Αυτή η Νέα Συμφωνία θα βασίζεται σε έναν απλό οδικό κανόνα: Όλοι οι Ευρωπαίοι θα πρέπει να απολαμβάνουν στη χώρα τους το δικαίωμα σε εργασία με βιώσιμο μισθό, αξιοπρεπή στέγαση, υψηλής ποιότητας υπηρεσίες υγείας και εκπαίδευσης και καθαρό περιβάλλον.

Αντίθετα με την πρωτότυπη Νέα Συμφωνία του Φραγκλίνου Ρούζβελτ τη δεκαετία του 1930, η Ευρωπαϊκή Νέα Συμφωνία θα πρέπει να γίνει πραγματικότητα χωρίς τα εργαλεία μίας λειτουργικής ομοσπονδίας, αλλά βασιζόμενη στους υπάρχοντες θεσμούς της Ε.Ε. Αλλιώς, η αποσύνθεση της Ευρώπης θα επιταχυνθεί, μην αφήνοντας στο πέρασμα της τίποτα για να ομοσπονδιοποιηθεί.

Η Ευρωπαϊκή Νέα Συμφωνία θα πρέπει να περιλαμβάνει πέντε συγκεκριμένους στόχους και τους τρόπους για να επιτευχθούν αυτοί, στο πλαίσιο των ήδη υπαρχόντων ευρωπαϊκών θεσμών, χωρίς κανένα συγκεντρωτισμό εξουσιών στις Βρυξέλλες ή άλλες απώλειες εθνικής κυριαρχίας:

Οι πράσινες επενδύσεις μεγάλης κλίμακας θα χρηματοδοτηθούν από μία συνεργασία μεταξύ των τραπεζών δημοσίων επενδύσεων της Ευρώπης (Ευρωπαϊκή Τράπεζα Επενδύσεων, KfW και άλλες) και κεντρικές τράπεζες (στη βάση της ποσοτικής χαλάρωσης για επενδυτικά ομόλογα) για να μετατραπεί το 5% του συνολικού ευρωπαϊκού εισοδήματος σε επενδύσεις πράσινης ενέργειας και βιώσιμων τεχνολογιών.
Ένα σύστημα εγγύησης της εργασίας που θα παρέχει θέσεις εργασίας με βιώσιμους μισθούς σε δημόσιους και μη κερδοσκοπικούς τομείς για κάθε Ευρωπαίο, στη χώρα γέννησης του, διαθέσιμες για όλους όσοι τις επιθυμούν. Με την προϋπόθεση ότι το σύστημα δε θα αντικαταστήσει θέσεις εργασίας δημοσίων υπαλλήλων ή υπάρχουσες παροχές, θα δημιουργήσει μία εναλλακτική στην επιλογή μεταξύ μιζέριας και μετανάστευσης.
Ένα ταμείο κατά της φτώχειας που θα ικανοποιεί τις βασικές ανάγκες σε όλη την Ευρώπη και θα λειτουργεί επίσης ως βάση για μία επόμενη ένωση επιδομάτων.
Ένα καθολικό βασικό μέρισμα για την κοινωνικοποίηση μεγαλύτερου μέρους των αυξανόμενων εσόδων που επιστρέφουν στο κεφάλαιο
Άμεση προστασία από τις εξώσεις, με τρόπο που θα επιτρέπει στους ιδιοκτήτες που αντιμετωπίζουν έξωση να παραμείνουν στα σπίτια τους σε ένα δίκαιο ενοίκιο που θα αποφασίζεται από τις τοπικές κοινότητες. Μακροπρόθεσμα, η Ευρώπη θα πρέπει να χρηματοδοτεί και να εγγυείται για αξιοπρεπή στέγαση για κάθε Ευρωπαίο στη χώρα γέννησής του, αποκαθιστώντας το μοντέλο της κοινωνικής στέγασης που έχει αποσυναρμολογηθεί σε όλη την ήπειρο.

Και το σύστημα εργασίας και το πρόγραμμα κατά της φτώχειας θα πρέπει να βασίζονται σε μία σύγχρονη έκδοση μίας παλιάς πρακτικής. Δημόσιο τραπεζικό σύστημα για δημόσιο συμφέρον, χρηματοδοτούμενο από μία ρεαλιστική αλλά ριζοσπαστική νομισματική μεταρρύθμιση εντός της Ευρωζώνης και της Ε.Ε., όπως επίσης και σε χώρες εκτός της Ε.Ε. Ειδικότερα, όλα τα κυριαρχικά έσοδα των κεντρικών τραπεζών θα χρησιμοποιούνται γι αυτούς τους σκοπούς.

Επιπλέον, σε κάθε χώρα θα πρέπει να θεσπιστεί ένας ηλεκτρονικός δημόσιος μηχανισμός για καταθέσεις και πληρωμές (εκτός του τραπεζικού συστήματος). Οι φορολογικοί λογαριασμοί θα λειτουργούν για να δέχονται καταθέσεις, να αποδέχονται πληρωμές και να διευκολύνουν μεταφορές μέσω web banking, εφαρμογών για πληρωμές και χρεωστικών καρτών. Τα έσοδα που θα δημιουργηθούν, θα χρησιμοποιηθούν για τη χρηματοδότηση του ταμείου που θα υποστηρίζει την εργασία και τα προγράμματα κατά της φτώχειας και θα ασφαλίζονται από ένα ευρωπαϊκό σύστημα προστασίας των καταθέσεων, ενώ τα ελλείμματα θα καλύπτονται από ομόλογα κεντρικών τραπεζών, εκδιδόμενα με χαμηλό επιτόκιο από τις εθνικές κυβερνήσεις.

Μόνο μία Ευρωπαϊκή Νέα Συμφωνία μπορεί να σταματήσει την αποσύνθεση της Ε.Ε. Κάθε ευρωπαϊκή χώρα θα πρέπει να σταθεροποιηθεί και να ευημερήσει. Η Ευρώπη δεν μπορεί να επιβιώσει ούτε ως ελεύθερη για όλους ούτε ως Ένωση Λιτότητας, στην οποία κάποιες χώρες, πίσω από ένα φύλλο συκής για ομοσπονδιοποίηση, καταδικάζονται σε μόνιμη ύφεση και οι χρεωμένοι στερούνται δημοκρατικών δικαιωμάτων. Για «να πάρουμε πίσω τη χώρα μας» πρέπει να ξανακερδίσουμε κοινή αξιοπρέπεια και να επαναφέρουμε την κοινή λογική σε όλη την Ευρώπη.

Η διαρκής κρίση της Ελλάδας

Άρθρο του Γιάνη Βαρουφάκη για το Project Syndicate – απόδοση στα ελληνικά ThePressProject.gr

Από το καλοκαίρι του 2015, η Ελλάδα δεν βρίσκεται (συνήθως) στη διεθνή ειδησεογραφία, αλλά όχι επειδή η οικονομική της κατάσταση έχει σταθεροποιηθεί. Μια φυλακή δεν είναι ενδιαφέρουσα εάν οι κρατούμενοι υποφέρουν σιωπηλά. Μόνο όταν οι κρατούμενοι οργανώσουν μια εξέγερση και οι αρχές προσπαθούν να την ελέγξουν, τότε εμφανίζονται τα ειδησεογραφικά συνεργεία.

Η τελευταία εξέγερση σημειώθηκε κατά το πρώτο εξάμηνο του 2015, όταν οι Έλληνες ψηφοφόροι απέρριψαν τη συσσώρευση νέων δανείων πάνω στον όγκο του ήδη μη βιώσιμου χρέους, μια κίνηση που θα παρέτεινε την πτώχευση της Ελλάδας και στο μέλλον, ενώ θα προσποιοόταν ότι αυτή έχει ξεπεραστεί. Και ήταν σε αυτό το σημείο που η Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση και το Διεθνές Νομισματικό Ταμείο- με την προσέγγιση «παράτασης και προσποίησης» τους να κινδυνεύει- διέλυσαν την «Ελληνική Άνοιξη» και επέβαλαν ακόμα ένα ανεξόφλητο δάνειο σε μια χρεοκοπημένη χώρα. Έτσι, ήταν μόνο θέμα χρόνου πριν επανέλθει το πρόβλημα.

Εν τω μεταξύ, η προσοχή στην Ευρώπη έχει μετατοπιστεί προς το Brexit, τον ξενοφοβικό δεξιό λαϊκισμό στην Αυστρία και τη Γερμανία και το συνταγματικό δημοψήφισμα της Ιταλίας, το οποίο έριξε την κυβέρνηση του Ματέο Ρέντσι. Σύντομα, η προσοχή θα μετατοπιστεί και πάλι, αυτή τη φορά προς το ετοιμόρροπο πολιτικό κέντρο της Γαλλίας. Αλλά, να μην ξεχνάμε ότι η βλακώδης διαχείριση της κρίσης χρέους της Ευρώπης ξεκίνησε στην Ελλάδα. Μια μικρή χώρα μπροστά στα μεγαλεπήβολα σχέδια στην Ευρώπη έγινε ένα πείραμα μιας στρατηγικής που θα μπορούσε να παρομοιαστεί με έναν έντονο χιονιά. Οι επακόλουθες χιονοστιβάδες υπονομεύουν από τότε τη νομιμότητα της ΕΕ.

Το πρόβλημα με την Ελλάδα είναι πως όλοι λένε ψέματα. Η Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή και η Ευρωπαϊκή Κεντρική Τράπεζα ψεύδονται όταν ισχυρίζονται ότι το «πρόγραμμα» για την Ελλάδα μπορεί να λειτουργήσει εφ’ όσον η ελληνική κυβέρνηση ακολουθήσει τις οδηγίες τους. Η Γερμανία ψεύδεται όταν επιμένει ότι η Ελλάδα μπορεί να ανακάμψει χωρίς ουσιαστική ελάφρυνση του χρέους, μέσω μεγαλύτερης λιτότητας και διαρθρωτικών μεταρρυθμίσεων. Η σημερινή κυβέρνηση ΣΥΡΙΖΑ λέει ψέματα όταν επιμένει ότι ουδέποτε συμφώνησε σε ανέφικτους δημοσιονομικούς στόχους. Και, τελευταίο αλλά όχι λιγότερο σημαντικό, το ΔΝΤ λέει ψέματα όταν οι αξιωματούχοι του προσποιούνται ότι δεν είναι υπεύθυνοι για την επιβολή των στόχων αυτών στην Ελλάδα.

Όταν τόσα πολλά ψέματα- με τόσο πολύ πολιτικό κεφάλαιο να επενδύεται στη διαιώνιση τους – ενώνονται, ο διαχωρισμός τους απαιτεί ένα άμεσο χτύπημα, παρόμοιο με αυτό του Αλεξάνδρου όταν  έκοψε τον γόρδιο δεσμό. Αλλά ποιος θα υψώσει το σπαθί;

Κατά τραγικό τρόπο, η λύση του προβλήματος είναι προφανής και εξαιρετικά απλή. Το ελληνικό κράτος έγινε αφερέγγυο περίπου έναν χρόνο μετά την έκρηξη της παγκόσμιας οικονομικής κρίσης του 2008. Ενάντια σε κάθε λογική, το ευρωπαϊκό κατεστημένο, περιλαμβανομένων των διαδοχικών ελληνικών κυβερνήσεων και του ΔΝΤ, επέκτεινε το μεγαλύτερο δάνειο στην ιστορία προς την Ελλάδα με τέτοιους όρους που εγγυώνται μια μείωση του εθνικού εισοδήματος σε τέτοιο επίπεδο που δεν έχει παρατηρηθεί από τη Μεγάλη Ύφεση. Για να συγκαλύψουν τον παραλογισμό αυτής της απόφασης, προστέθηκαν νέα δάνεια που βασίζονται σε ακόμα μεγαλύτερη λιτότητα μέσω της περικοπής των μισθών.

Όταν κάποιος βρίσκει τον εαυτό του σε έναν λάκκο, η απλούστερη λύση είναι να σταματήσει το σκάψιμο. Αντ’ αυτού όμως, οι δυνάμεις της Ευρώπης, η ελληνική κυβέρνηση και το ΔΝΤ κατηγορούν ο ένας τον άλλο για το ποιος οδήγησε τους Έλληνες σε μια άβυσσο.

Πρόσφατα, ο Πολ Τόμσεν, ο διευθυντής του Ευρωπαϊκού Τμήματος του ΔΝΤ και ο Μορίς Όμπστφελντ, επικεφαλής οικονομολόγος του, διαμαρτυρήθηκαν σε μια από κοινού γραμμένη δημοσίευση σε μπλογκ, λέγοντας ότι «δεν είναι το ΔΝΤ που απαιτεί περισσότερη λιτότητα». Το φταίξιμο βρίσκεται αλλού. «Αν η Ελλάδα συμφωνεί με τους Ευρωπαίους εταίρους της για φιλόδοξους δημοσιονομικούς στόχους», υποστήριξαν , «μην επικρίνετε το ΔΝΤ για το ότι επιμένει στη λιτότητα όταν ζητάμε να δούμε τα απαιτούμενα μέτρα για να γίνουν τέτοιοι στόχοι αξιόπιστοι».

Ο Τόμσεν και ο Όμπστφελντ έχουν εν μέρει δίκιο. Ο Έλληνας πρωθυπουργός, Αλέξης Τσίπρας, δεν είχε καμία δουλειά να συμφωνήσει στους καταστρεπτικούς δημοσιονομικούς στόχους που απαιτήθηκαν από τη Γερμανία και την ΕΕ όταν ήμουν υπουργός Οικονομικών. Οι ισχυρισμοί του διαδόχου μου ότι η κυβέρνηση ποτέ δεν δέχτηκε τους στόχους, είναι ανειλικρινείς. Όπως πολύ καλά γνωρίζει, παραιτήθηκα κυρίως επειδή τον Απρίλιο του 2015 ο Τσίπρας συμφώνησε σε αυτούς τους στόχους πίσω από την πλάτη μου. Οι πρώην συνεργάτες μου τα βάζουν με αυτόν που φέρνει τα κακά νέα, το ΔΝΤ σε αυτήν την περίπτωση,  για το ότι οι στόχοι στους οποίους συμφώνησαν απαιτούν ακόμα μεγαλύτερη λιτότητα.

Είναι επίσης αλήθεια ότι το ΔΝΤ συστηματικά και ορθώς, επέκρινε αυτούς τους στόχους. Αλλά αυτό που ο Τόμσεν αμελεί να αναφέρει είναι ότι, χωρίς τη δικιά του ανοχή και την ανοχή της Γενικής Διευθύντριας του ΔΝΤ Κριστίν Λαγκάρντ, η Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή δεν θα ήταν σε θέση να επιβάλει αυτούς τους στόχους. Και αυτό είμαι σε θέση να το ξέρω: εκπροσώπησα την Ελλάδα στις συνεδριάσεις του Eurogroup (το οποίο περιλαμβάνει τους υπουργούς Οικονομικών των χωρών της ευρωζώνης), όταν συνέβη αυτό.

Ο Τόμσεν φαίνεται να έχει τη συναίσθηση της ευθύνης του να σταματήσει τη νομιμοποίηση της ασφυξίας που γίνεται στην ελληνική οικονομία υπό γερμανικής καθοδήγησης. Σε μια τηλεφωνική συνομιλία τον Μάρτιο με την Ντέλια Βελκουλέσκου, επικεφαλής της ελληνικής αποστολής του ΔΝΤ, ο Τόμσεν εξήγησε τι πρέπει να συμβεί αν η Γερμανία επιμείνει στη διάλυση της Ελλάδας μέσω της μη χορήγησης μιας ελάφρυνσης του χρέους. Σύμφωνα με την απομαγνητοφώνηση της κλήσης (που κυκλοφόρησε από το WikiLeaks), ο Τόμσεν πίστευε ότι οι ευρωπαίοι ηγέτες δεν θα ασχοληθούν με το ζήτημα μέχρι την ολοκλήρωση του δημοψηφίσματος για το Brexit στη Μ. Βρετανία.

Σύμφωνα με τον Τόμσεν: «Εμείς τότε λέμε, “Κοιτάξτε κ. Μέρκελ, αντιμετωπίζετε ένα ερώτημα, πρέπει να σκεφτείτε τι έχει περισσότερο κόστος: να συνεχίσετε χωρίς το ΔΝΤ και η Ομοσπονδιακή Βουλή να πει ‘Το ΔΝΤ δεν συμμετέχει;’ ή να επιλέξετε την ελάφρυνση του χρέους που πιστεύουμε ότι χρειάζεται η Ελλάδα για να μας κρατήσει ενεργούς;” Σωστά; Αυτό είναι το πραγματικό ζήτημα».

Η Βελκουλέσκου απάντησε ότι «για το καλό των Ελλήνων και όλων των υπολοίπων, θα ήθελα αυτό να συμβεί νωρίτερα παρά αργότερα». Αλλά αυτό δεν συνέβη γιατί ο Τόμσεν και η Λαγκάρντ ποτέ δεν τόλμησαν να στριμώξουν την Μέρκελ. Αντιθέτως το ΔΝΤ συνεχίζει να κατηγορεί άλλους, παρέχοντας παράλληλα στη Γερμανία πολιτική κάλυψη για να συνεχίζει να πιέζει ασφυκτικά την Ελλάδα.

Αλλά, όπως επεσήμανε έξυπνα η Βελκουλέσκου, οι επιπτώσεις επηρεάζουν και «όλους τους υπόλοιπους». Οι ανησυχητικές εξελίξεις στην Ιταλία, τη Γαλλία και ακόμη και στη Γερμανία αποτελούν μια άμεση συνέπεια του ελληνικού φιάσκου. Η Ελλάδα όμως είναι το άμεσο θύμα και είναι επομένως ευθύνη της ελληνικής κυβέρνησης να κόψει το γόρδιο δεσμό, κηρύσσοντας μονομερώς μορατόριουμ για όλες τις αποπληρωμές μέχρι να συμφωνηθεί μια ουσιαστική αναδιάρθρωση του χρέους και λογικοί δημοσιονομικοί στόχοι.

Οι ψηφοφόροι της Ελλάδας έδωσαν δυο φορές στους ηγέτες τους την εντολή να κάνουν ακριβώς αυτό: μια φορά όταν εξέλεξαν την κυβέρνηση ΣΥΡΙΖΑ, τον Ιανουάριο του 2015, και πάλι εκείνον τον Ιούλιο σε δημοψήφισμα. Για χάρη της Ελλάδας- και της Ευρώπης- οι αρχές πρέπει να λένε τα πράγματα με το όνομά τους.

Open Letter to the editor of The Times: Your Athens correspondent has done it again!

Dear Sir,

A day after one of your able journalists interviewed me in London, with a view of composing a piece for your newspaper (which I suppose is forthcoming), my attention was drawn to a separate piece that I am sure slipped inadvertently into your newspaper through your various filters. Its defamatory and wholly made-up title tells the whole story: “Varoufakis ‘funnels thousands to offshore bank account’“.

This is not the first time your excellent newspaper has been led down the garden path by the same Athens correspondent. Back in October, Anthee Carassava reported that I was charging $60,000 per speech and that I was demanding payment through some Oman-based account. Nothing could be further from the truth. For the purposes of making that clear, and in the interests of full transparency, I did something that no politician has ever done: I published on my website the list of every talk I had given and the precise fee that I had received, demonstrating that the vast majority of my talks are free (indeed that, for some of them, I cover my own transport costs).

Today, the same TIMES correspondent, exhibiting an astonishing lack of journalistic ethics, attempted to exploit the furore over the Panama papers to submit to you exactly the same defamatory piece, without even mentioning that it was a re-print of her October tall tale, complete with the same fictitious figure and the same fictitious Oman-based account.

As I am sure that you are not aware of the above, I am addressing this open letter to you to protect you from defamatory pieces submitting by this particular Athens correspondent.

Finally, so that there is no smidgeon of doubt, let met state it for the record that:

I have never had an offshore bank account or used one such account, in Oman or anywhere else on the planet
No one (investigative reporter or authority) has ever claimed that I have had or used such an account
I have never used any method for reducing the tax I pay to the Greek authorities

Convinced that, after having read the above, I trust that you will take the necessary steps to reign in unscrupulous reporting from your Athens correspondent.

Regards

Yanis Varoufakis

 

 

DiEM25 unveils its ‘European New Deal: An economic agenda for European Recovery’

To mark its first anniversary DiEM25 has today published a summary of its White Paper entitled ‘European New Deal: An economic agenda for European Recovery’. The full White Paper will be launched on the 25th March 2017 in Rome, in the context of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. Click here for a pdf.

DiEM25 unveils its ‘European New Deal: An economic agenda for European Recovery’

To mark its first anniversary DiEM25 has today published a summary of its White Paper entitled ‘European New Deal: An economic agenda for European Recovery’. The full White Paper will be launched on the 25th March 2017 in Rome, in the context … Continue reading →

DiEM25-UK: Organisational launch meeting at Conway Hall, London

 

by Andrew J. Brown

On Saturday morning, January 28, 2017, at Conway Hall in Central London, long an important place for radical religious, philosophical, social and political thinking in the UK, DiEM25 held its UK organisational launch.

Like all DiEM25 gatherings, more than half of the meeting was made up of conversations involving those attending. To set the scene and introduce some important initial ideas, the morning began with brief contributions from Brian Eno, Elif Şafak, Agnieszka Wiśniewska, Igor Stokfiszewski and, finally, Yanis Varoufakis.

The first speaker, the British musician and composer Brian Eno, began by noting that the venue, Conway Hall in London, was a place he knew personally because in the late 1960s he used to come here to hear avant-garde music concerts. This memory, in turn, reminded him of another time, like the present one, when everything was changing and when a great deal of radical rethinking was going on. He noted, however, that in the 1970s much of this kind of thinking was reversed by an Ayn Rand-inspired selfishness that developed into simplistic ideas of how societies should run themselves and which even begun to question, as Thatcher famously did, whether there was, in fact, any such thing as society. Eno pointed out that although the 70s were followed by a few decades of prosperity and a huge amount of wealth creation, this wealth was eventually concentrated in only the hands of a few and we simultaneously saw the stagnation of the wages of everybody else. For Eno this dangerous gulf finally became clear to everyone last year and marked the end of a forty year period of decline. Suddenly the idea of doing politics, which people of his generation often thought was “akin to masturbating in public and to be avoided at all costs”, was something once again worth engaging in.

Eno, a key figure in the development of electronic music, was also keen to note an important phenomenon concerning the interrelation of technology and democracy. He told the meeting that many of his high-tech friends in places like Silicone Valley had carefully avoided politics for a very long time because they expected that technology would “be the de facto solution to our problems”; for them politics unnecessarily “complicated the plot.” But recent events had helped us all understand that merely going along with “the drift of things” is not enough because “the technologies won’t make the choices for us, they need our guidance and our input as well.” The need to make conscious political choices was memorably summed up by Eno when he said that after the election of a serial liar in the form of Trump and, in England, of [Boris] Johnson, people had finally begun “to realise that that the laissez-faire doesn’t work — while we’re laissez-ing they’re still faire-ing — so suddenly we’re starting to think that politics might be worth doing again.” Ultimately, Eno felt that this was what DiEM25 is about: it is a movement to revive and reinvigorate this thinking that we must make choices.

The next speaker was Elif Şafak, the Turkish author, columnist and academic who brought to the meeting an important set of perspectives from the current Turkish context. She began by noting that if you come from a country where democracy is obviously and openly being seriously challenged “you simply did not have the luxury of being apolitical.” But, she reminded us, one of the important, wonderful things we could learn from feminism is a recognition that politics is not only about what goes on in parties and parliaments but also about “what goes on in our private spaces, in our bedrooms, in our kitchens, in our daily lives; politics is where ever there is power.” Şafak felt that the important thing to see here was that when approached in this broader sense it was, in fact, now impossible truly to be apolitical.

Şafak also noted that it was vital to ensure that politics ceases being merely a matter of “Left verses Right”. These old binaries led only to catastrophes and, for her, the question today is whether we are “pro tribalism and isolationism or in favour of a progressive constructive humanism?” She pointed strongly to the need to develop a real, deep sense that we are genuinely all in this together. She observed that we need more people who are acquainted with different cultures to become involved in the public space and to speak up — and we also certainly need more women’s voices and stories to be told and heard.

Şafak then raised a question about “popularism” and noted that one of its strategies is to undermine knowledge by speaking to gut feelings. This requires us to do two things. The first is to acknowledge that those on the liberal, left and progressive end of the political spectrum have not been at all good at connecting with people’s emotions . She reminded the meeting of the need to allow people to talk about their anxieties, angsts and angers, since this is “an age of anxiety.” The question is how do we create a language for those people (not in the room), who have been attracted by the kinds of “popularism” which have so successfully already picked up on these emotions? For Şafak, to address this properly it is vitally important that we develop our own emotional intelligence and find ways to make it possible for people to talk about immigrants, refugees, about losing one’s identity and culture but in a way that channels those feelings into better, more democratic and inclusive ways of being together. The second thing that the rise of popularism requires us to do is never to forget the vital importance of knowledge and facts but always to ensure that they are spoken about with emotional intelligence. A key overall point from Şafak was that writers have an important role to play because they are in positions to bring about this mix by adding good story telling to facts and knowledge.

The next two speakers were Agnieszka Wiśniewska and Igor Stokfiszewski from Krytyka Polityczna(krytykapolityczna.pl) and DiEM25’s Co-ordinating Committee.

Wiśniewska saw her work as chief editor of a political magazine as a matchmaker between grass roots movements, activists and academics so that, together, they can begin to fight for progressive change and real democracy. She told the meeting that her passion for DiEM25 was because it provides an ideal context to meet people from different backgrounds and skills but who still share the same ambitions.

Both Wiśniewska and Stokfiszewski noted that they were in the UK because they had many friends now working here and they remind us that theirs was a community that had been seriously shaken by the Brexit vote, the rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric and also the increase in violence which has, as we all know, included at least one horrific murder. Wiśniewska and Stokfiszewski were aiming, in the first instance, to work with DiEM25 in the UK to build a progressive force so that there is a chance for a fair and sustainable transition out of the EU for everyone— including the Polish community. But this UK-centred concern allowed Stokfiszewski to offer the meeting an additional wider, pan-European point. He did this by raising the rhetorical question of why the leftist project in Poland has, up until this point anyway, failed so badly? For him the answer was that in Poland they had been selfish, they had not understood that “it is not enough to work in one country alone to achieve progressive goals — it has to be wider project” and that they now knew they needed “to work pan-Europeanly and globally.”  For them, DiEM25 is the project which can help achieve this; DiEM25 is “a new choice and an opportunity to be seized.”

Wiśniewska concluded that soon Poland will be a major battleground for progress and liberty and she expressed a hope that they will be able to learn what do in order to “reverse the course of authoritarianism that Poland is currently taking.”

The first part of the meeting was then concluded by some remarks by Yanis Varoufakis.

Varoufakis reminded us that, in 2016, passion came back to politics, but in the wrong way for it was now fuelling not progressive polices but regressive ones. He rehearsed DiEM25’s “radical remain” position of being “in the EU against the EU” but reminded the meeting that we failed to convey to those sympathetic to DIEM25’s position of “constructive disobedience” that we could, in fact, change anything; our inability as a progressive movement to impress upon people that we could win government was why we lost the referendum.

Key to understanding the current situation is the need to see that the clash between the so-called “liberal establishment and the popularist xenophobic insurgency” is not what it seems. He admitted that to some extent can be seen as a clash but, in truth, it is more accurate to see the two blocs as accomplices, to realise that they need and empower each other as much as, in France, Marine Le Pen helps empower François Fillon and vice versa. This fake opposition is, Varoufakis notes, “the cause of great suffering” and the only the genuine opposition or antidote to this is a group like DiEM25 — a progressive internationalist movement.

But, as Varoufakis observed, it is vitally important to realise that we are very far away from being efficient, we need to be honest and “look ourselves in the mirror as progressives and realise that we are dismal failures. The Labour Party, the Scottish National Party, the Green Party, Independent Progressives, are all in disarray. Corbynite Labour is too scared to talk to Caroline Lucas of the Green Party in case the Blairites attack them even more harshly. Nobody talks to the SNP in case Scottish Labour gets upset and the net result is that the Tories have complete and utter dominance of the political scene. This is why DiEM is here.”

At this point, Varoufakis offered his view on what he hoped this meeting will be able to begin to bring about:

“At the moment, we have this image of being a nice collection of people who have interesting things to say about Europe. But who cares about Europe we’re now out of Europe and we have serious problems now to consider in this country!? So DiEM is irrelevant. And they are right! And they are also right to think that we’re useless and irrelevant as long as we fail to convince them that we have something pertinent to say about daily life in this country. And [this is also true] as long as we fail to project the essential respect that we must have for people’s emotions, as Elif said, for the genuine spirit of discontent amongst those who voted for Brexit. Now DiEM came out of resistance, throughout Europe, to the scapegoating of the weakest citizens for the failures of the establishment. I think that it is essential to understand that the majority of those who voted for Brexit are our people. If we don’t see that, we might as well just go home and watch television. It is essential that poor whites in Leeds, in Wales, in the suburbs of London, in the inner city, get a feeling from us that we understand their plight and that we respect their concerns, their worries, their fears, their angst, just as much as we do that of the Polish immigrants, of LGBT people, of the minorities, of the Greeks, the Turks and so on and so forth. If we fail to do that in a British context we’re irrelevant. We’re just another irrelevance that speaks good prose.

Remember what we’re trying to do today. We’re going to transform DiEM25 into a British organisation. Maybe we should have a different name for it — to signify that it is now addressing British concerns and it is putting  forward proposals for dealing with the real sources of discontent. And there are two of them:

Involuntary under-employment, which is the bitter fruit of austerity and involuntary immigration, which is the bitter price we have to pay for an economic model which concentrates all decent jobs in very small areas forcing people from the north of this country to migrate to London, from Poland and Bulgaria to migrate to Britain, to Germany or to France.

If we don’t manage to put forward, as a British organisation, a proposal for a New Deal for the United Kingdom and then, once we do that, to explain and to convince the people in the north of England in particular, that this must go hand in hand with a New Deal for Europe, we will have failed. Thank you.”

Srećko Horvat then opened the meeting to the floor and the following questions and points were raised. In what follows, the individual points of the discussion are summarized in short paragraphs.

Responses from the panel:

Elif Şafak noted that Turkey experienced how politics could all too easily divide family and friends and the biggest mistake would be to go back to identity politics. Dualities are unhelpful and we repeat them at our peril because the only the popularists will benefit from such a politics. She added that we shouldn’t leave patriotism to the nationalists or faith to the religious. In the end this is all about solidarity; it’s about the knowledge that history can go backwards and that it’s OK to love one’s country but only insofar as we always remember we are more than that. She also emphasised that popularists have a big problem with pluralism. Therefore, it is important to emphasise multiplicity and to refrain from binary oppositions and polarisations etc., to remember we live in a liquid world and need to reach out to people outside our own echo chambers.

Şafak responded to the earlier question about the role of literature from the floor and noted that this is a question which has been asked throughout history. Her feeling was that we must continue to write our poetry etc. and that it’s not just a luxury to continue to write. Popularists aim to dehumanise the other but, she reminded us, story tellers can re-humanise the other and combat this. As such, engaging in literature is a vitally important thing to be doing.

Brian Eno pointed out that societies cohere either around hope — the idea that we can build a better future together — or around fear — the idea that the future is dangerous so we must stick together to fight it off. He felt that over the past twenty years fear had dominated. He observed that governments like fearful populations because they’re easier to control. On the other hand, populations that aren’t fearful but hopeful are creative and chaotic; it’s not easy to keep creative populations in line. He remarked that what we need is a creative population and that all of us were in one way or another present for that reason.

Eno also thought it was important to address precarity in general and for us to move beyond the idea that human beings are merely units to be plugged into any job that happens to be going. He thought we were being turned into third-world sweat shop workers (or at least he felt that this was what working people feel) — people no longer respected as humans. His hope was that in DiEM25 we could begin to build a future that is hopeful and that revolves around the idea that we could make something, not just as good as the old days, but something better than has existed before.

Yanis Varoufakis concluded by picking up on this point of Eno’s that for hope to flourish it needs a vision of a creative population that is not kept in line by fear. Indeed, he thought that this should also be our vision. However, he was insistent that none of this is going to happen if we have these meetings, feel fantastic and then do nothing afterwards. Therefore, he said, it is important that this meeting produces teams of people that make it their business, not only to spread the word, but to create a narrative that speaks to people’s needs out there and which doesn’t just speak to great universal principles. For Varoufakis the three basic needs to which we must speak are as follows:

1) The need for job creation — without investment he noted there is no job creation. Investment in physical, wealth producing stuff (machines and people) is the lowest in Britain today since 1945.

2) The need for basic social housing to reverse the Thatcherite malaise of council house sales. There has to be a programme to restore to people the ability to live in a decent home in their own communities without the need to leave to live and work elsewhere. he observed that if we don’t do this all our emotional intelligence and poetry will be wasted.

3) The need for a Universal Basic Dividend. Varoufakis pointed out that one of the greatest fallacies of capitalism and of free market ideology is that wealth is created individually and then appropriated through the tax system by the state. The reality is, he noted, exactly the opposite — wealth is created collectively and then privatised. Since capital is produced socially it should be enjoyed socially. In the light of this Varoufakis told the meeting that DiEM25 has been developing a policy, not of a Universal Basic Income, but of a Universal Basic Dividend. This would not be funded by taxation but through a Trust Fund into which a percentage of the shares of every corporation is to go, where the dividends amass, and which are then distributed to all as a Universal Basic Dividend. In Varoufakis’ opinion this is the only way to share the returns of automation across society.

Varoufakis was concerned to point out that these ideas were just some of that need to be taken out into the real world where real people discuss their real needs. What’s needed, in his mind, is a New Deal. He asked the meeting to remember that Roosevelt’s New Deal was designed to address fear and the fear of fear. Consequently, he felt we must come out of this meeting with a determination to get together to put forward very realistic, moderate proposals for what can be done tomorrow to fund a Universal Basic Dividend, social housing and a jobs programme.

Varoufakis offered this as a small example of what could be done now. He reminded us that the Bank of England has been printing money now for many years in order to refloat the financial sector, buying, in other words the debt of the financiers. Now, if instead of that, he asked us to imagine what would happen if we had a Public Investment Bank, like the Post Office used to have (the Post Office Savings Bank) issuing bonds? The Bank of England could buy them and then that money could go directly into research and development into, for example, green energy. This he said was one simple practical proposal that could be part of a New Deal for Britain which could address the syndrome of TINA (There Is No Alternative). He pointed out that we don’t need a socialist revolution before we can offer an alternative, in fact, the Bank of England could do it almost immediately in conjunction with a Public Investment Bank that could be created within six months. So, he asked, “Why are we not doing it?” In his mind the rage of people must be directed at the question of “why are we not doing that which we could do today within the capitalism we have? Not to create socialism but in order to stabilise the society we have and address basic human needs.”

Varoufakis felt that if the discussion is about what can be done in Britain today — forget Brexit, forget what we want the European Union to be — in order to address these basic needs then he trusts that it will be very, very simple to bring Europe back into the conversation. Because, when you start thinking about the three basic needs in Britain suddenly it becomes automatic to link this to the importance of a similar deal for France, for Germany and for Europe. It becomes clear — as the Greens realise in connection with climate change — that you cannot properly deal with important matters on your own; there has to be an alliance between all these countries implementing similar policies.

Varoukais said that the proposal he is putting on the table of this meeting is for a New Deal for the UK based on four or five areas where we can develop simple, moderate common-sense policies that will appeal to all people, without any mention of Brexit, the EU, Europe or even DiEM25. He felt that once we start such a conversation then we will create the political infrastructure for people from Labour, for people who are progressive Conservatives, for people from the Greens, for independents who are disillusioned, for those who are not currently politically involved. His hope is that when we are no longer just in Conway Hall but everywhere, then the discussion about Europe will return in a civilised way which allows people to avoid the false binary opposition that exists between official remain and Brexit.

Varoufakis began to conclude with a point about popularism. He did not believe it was possible to be both a democrat and a popularist; democratic popularism is for him a contradiction in terms. In his definition “popularism is the tactic of promising all things to all people without meaning any of them in order to usurp popular consent and then turn it against the people.” Varoukakis emphasised that this was why he was a democrat and insisted that we in DiEM25 should be in the business of putting the demos back into democracy. He acknowledged that to do this we needed to become popular but not at the expense of embracing popularism. He added that the UK manifesto must, therefore, include very simple ideas about how to put the demos back into British democracy.

Lastly, he reminded the meeting that Burkean Tories talk about restoring sovereignty to the British Parliamentary system and he thought “we needed to adopt that, to steal it from them because it’s a fantastic idea. But they will not do it, only we can do it because they don’t want to do it. They are really popularists, using the language of democracy in order to deny it to anyone except themselves. They want democracy for the rich, for those who are in surplus, and deny democracy to those they considered discarded, morally defective and therefore poor. It is essential that we restore that and we introduce constitutional proposals in the UK Manifesto of DiEM.”

The meeting then broke up into four small working groups with the following themes:

The drafting of the UK Manifesto and to consider a name for DiEM25 in the UK.


Media/Communications


Barebones organisation including fundraising


DiEM25 Voice — the artistic core.

Reports of progress from these groups will be forthcoming in the coming weeks.

Yanis Varoufakis began to draw the meeting to a close by announcing that there were to be two more groups which people could join and sign-up to at the close of the meeting. The first was one to discuss a UK economic policy that would parallel the Green New Deal for Europe which will be formally launched in Rome on 25th March (the sixtieth anniversary of the EU).

The second group was one which would focus on the alliance building that DiEM25 in the UK needs to develop.

Varoufakis finished by making it clear to the meeting that

“DiEM25 wants to be as inclusive and anti-sectarian as possible. The intention is not to create a party that goes against Labour, the Greens, the SNP. Rather the objective is to become the movement that energises them at long last to get their act together. So we need alliances, with Labour with the SNP, with progressive Conservatives, with anyone with sense and sensibility who is willing to participate in the attempt to create a progressive international insurgency against the insurgency of the neoliberals and against the insurgency of UKIP.”

The meeting concluded with a few further points from the floor.

The movement’s Volunteers Coordinator, Judith Meyer, reminded people that they could be in touch with DiEM25 by emailing info@uk.diem25.org

A question was asked about the Labour Party’s decision to force MPs to vote for the triggering of article 50. Varoufakis replied by outlining the current DiEM25 position that was recently decided by referendum within DiEM25’s membership. This can be found on the DiEM25 website.

The final comment came from a woman who came to the meeting with her daughter because both her children had felt so hopeless about their future after the Brexit vote. She wanted to thank the meeting for giving her, and her daughter, things to do and hope for the future.

There can have been no one present who didn’t agree with Yanis Varoufakis when he said he could think of no better way to end this meeting.

Do you want to be informed of DiEM25’s actions? Sign up here.

Ireland may end up as collateral damage in Brexit talks – in The Journal

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FORMER GREEK MINISTER for Finance Yanis Varoufakis has said that fears that Ireland may end up as “collateral damage” in negotiations between London and Brussels are “well-founded”.

Speaking to RTÉ’s This Week, the economist said if Britain chooses to leave the capital union, Ireland would not be negotiating with London over the status of the border: ”there will be negotiations between London and Brussels on this”.

This comes as Gerry Adams said that Brexit could destroy the Good Friday Agreement, and that Brexit was a ”hostile act against this island”, because it could mean taking the North out of the European Union.

Other concerns

The main challenges that Brexit poses for Ireland include higher taxes on imported and exported products, and the future for the border between the Republic of Ireland and the North.

When Britain leave the European Union, higher taxes on goods exported from Ireland are likely; but how much higher they are will signify just how tough Brexit will be for small Irish businesses here.

Because the UK voted to leave the EU on a mandate of limiting the free movement of people, the worry is that a physical border of some sorts will return, seriously impacting relations in the North – especially at a time of political uncertainty.

“I think that it’s imperative for the Irish government to ensure that it’s not sidelined,” Varoufakis said today.

You have to use your special geographical place and the historical links between the Republic and the United Kingdom to knock some sense into both London and Brussels.

Varoufakis was made Greek Finance minister after his far-left party Syriza rose to power in the 2014 general elections.

He and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised to get a better – or less austere – deal from the European Union, but failed in negotiations to achieve that.

Varoufakis then resigned, he says because Tsipras was told he would get a better deal for the Greek people if Varoufakis stepped aside. Since his resignation in 2015, Varoufakis has been a vocal critic of the EU – often expressing his disillusionment with the way the European Union functions.

“My great fear having experienced negotiations [like these] is that negotiations are not rational – indeed they are often fake negotiations. Often there is a power-play that leaves behind the common interest for both sides,” he said today.

The PM’s Speech

Earlier this week Theresa May outlined her ‘wish-list’ for Brexit negotiations. Included on that list was her desire to acknowledge the unique relationship they have in the North.

She also said that if they didn’t get a good deal, that they would get competitive on trade by lowering corporate tax rates.

Various opposition politicians, including Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, expressed concern about Theresa May’s speech, saying that it doesn’t include much detail about how negotiations will proceed.

Trump, Turkey & Labour’s Brexit policy – Press review, BBC1, 29 January 2017

Press review on the Andrew Marr show, BBC1 tv 29th January 2017