Yanis Varoufakis's Blog, page 42

Το ιδεολογικοπολιτικό πλαίσιο των πολιτικών μας: Η εισήγησή μου στην 6η Συνεδρίαση της ΚΕ του ΜέΡΑ25, 17 ΑΠΡ 2021

Την 17η Απριλίου 2021 η Κεντρική Επιτροπή του ΜέΡΑ25 συζήτησε τις θέσεις του κόμματος, και του DiEM25, για τις πολιτικές αντιμετώπισης της Κρίσης που ενέτεινε η πανδημία – και για τις οποίες αυτές τις μέρες διαβουλευόμαστε πανευρωπαϊκά. (Διάβασε και πρότεινε τροποποιήσεις εδώ στο ελληνικό κείμενο). Στην εισαγωγική μου εισήγηση, ως Γραμματέας, αναφέρθηκα όχι τόσο στο υπό διαβούλευση κείμενο αλλά στο γενικότερο ιδεολογικοπολιτικό πλαίσιο εντός του οποίου σκεφτόμαστε και πράττουμε ως κίνημα κι ως κόμμα. Ακολουθούν τα μέρη της τοποθέτησής μου:Το πρόβλημα με τον Πράσινο Κεϋνσιανισμό (24”-4’05”)Γιατί οι ισχυροί λατρεύουν την λιτότητα; (4’05”-11’52”)Τεχνοφεουδαρχία (11’52”-14’55”)Μην γενικεύουμε! Η Κρίση ωφελεί το 20% με 30% του πληθυσμού (14’55”-16’34”)Το αυξανόμενο Πρεκαριάτο δεν αυτοπροσδιορίζονται ως θύματα – και απαιτούν να μην τους απευθυνόμαστε ως θύματα (16’34”-20’42”)Οικουμενικό Βασικό Εισόδημα: ένα πραγματικά ριζοσπαστικό εργαλείο, εφόσον δεν χρηματοδοτείται από φόρους (20’42”-23’44”)Η παραδοχή ότι το κράτος για να ξοδέψει πρέπει πρώτα να φορολογήσει ή να δανειστεί είναι εσφαλμένη και μας οδηγεί στην παγίδα της Λιτότητας (23’44”-25’29”)Το πραγματικά ριζοσπαστικό πρόταγμα: ένας εργαζόμενος-μία μετοχή-μία ψήφος (25’29”-33’53”)Τι πρέπει να κάνει τώρα η Ευρώπη: Το Πολιτικό Πρόγραμμα του DiEM25 για την δεκαετία του ‘20 (33’53”)

 

The post Το ιδεολογικοπολιτικό πλαίσιο των πολιτικών μας: Η εισήγησή μου στην 6η Συνεδρίαση της ΚΕ του ΜέΡΑ25, 17 ΑΠΡ 2021 appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

‘The Austerity Doctrine in the Time of Coronavirus’: Crucial Q&A on post-pandemic austerity with Brian Eno & Yanis Varoufakis plus special guests Stephanie Kelton & Naomi Klein

In the 3rd episode of Let’s Talk It Over regulars Brian Eno and Yanis Varoufakis welcomed very special guests Stephanie Kelton and Naomi Klein to discuss The Austerity Doctrine in the Time of Coronavirus. Here are some of the questions tackled in the program:Austerians for years told us that all hell would be unleashed on us if the government spent a little more. But, during the pandemic the same politicians/bureaucrats printed trillions. Where did all that government money come? Does it need to be repaid via higher taxesHas the pandemic ended the reign of austerity as policy and mindset?Or is austerity lurking in the shadows of the various stimulus plans, ready and willing to continue its destruction of human prospects and ecosystems?And here are some basic points that everyone must grasp regarding austerity:What is austerity in practice?It is a policy of cutting government spending as a means to reduce the budget deficit so as to slow down the built up of public debt – or even to run budget surpluses in order to reduce it.What is the fallacy on which austerity policies are founded?The failure to recognise that, unlike a person, family or company, the government cannot bank on its income being independent of its spending. You and I, if we choose not to spend money on new shoes, will keep that money. But not the government. If the government cuts spending during periods of falling private spending, then the sum of private and government spending will decline faster. But this sum is national income. So, austerian government spending cuts mean lower national income and fewer taxes. Thus, unlike you and I, when the government cuts its spending during tough times it is cutting its income too!What is austerity in essence?Austerity is hidden class war and war against the environment. That’s what austerity is. Recall that austerians, whatever they say in words, are never against government spending as such – as long as the money is spent on the rich and the polluters (Republican tax cuts, money for weapons, subsidies for fossil fuels). No, their gripe is with money spent on the weak and on maintaining priceless values, like clean air or public libraries.Why do the powerful adore austerity and despise public debt?If you ask them, they will go on and on about the perils of inflation and the fear of public debt. While it is true that the rich do fear inflation, a force that eats into the real value of their mountains of cash, and while it is also true that they do not want to be taxed so that poor kids can have health care or a good education, there is another explanation of their love of austerity: they like austerity because they want little people to have as few survival options as possible. Why? Marx has the answer here in the form of the lovely true story of Mr Peel. Back in the 1840s, sensing that a massive economic crisis was on the cards, Mr Peel bought a number of ships, filled them with food, seeds, equipment and 300 persons of the working-class, men, women, and children. But soon after their arrival in W. Australia, Mr. Peel’s plan was in ruins. What had happened? The transported labour force abandoned Mr Peel, got themselves nice plots of land in the surrounding wilderness, and went in ‘business’ for themselves. The workers’ access to alternatives meant that Mr Peel, though he took with him money, equipment and a workforce, could not take capitalism with him.Capitalist bosses understand this. They and their political agents fear, above all else, that public spending may give the little people too many alternatives. The more alternatives they have the lower the capitalist class’s hold over them. It is the fear of losing power, like Mr Peel, that lures them to austerity – even when austerity-induced depression depresses the capitalists’ capacity to find customers. After all, when that happens, the powerful can always depend on the money tree, the central bank, to mint money for them – never, of course, for the little people.In short, austerity helps the Mr Peels of the world reproduce themselves as capitalists.Is austerity dead in the water in the time of coronavirus? President Biden is pushing trillions of new government spending though Congress. PM Boris Johnson has distanced himself from austerity. Even the EU is paying lip service to the need to suspend austerity. Is this the end of austerity? Listen to Stephanie Kelton answer this crucial question… Meanwhile, note that the fact that government spends more during bad times does not necessarily mean that austerity is on hold. For example, if during this pandemic a previously austerian government only replaced lost incomes, yes, its spending went up but its fiscal stance remains one of structural austerity – in the sense that, the moment the pandemic passes, government spending goes back to its earlier stingy levels. If new investments are added to replaced incomes, yes, that would spell the end of austerity. In that sense, the jury is still out on Joe Biden and Boris Johnson – while it is clear that the EU remains stubbornly wedded to austerity.

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A Covid-19 counterfactual for Europe – Project Syndicate

Imagine that the coronavirus pandemic, rather than undermining confidence in the European Union, had strengthened it. Imagine that Covid-19 had persuaded EU leaders to overcome years of acrimony and fragmentation. Imagine that it had catalysed the emergence this year of a stronger, more integrated bloc to which the world looked for global leadership.Imagine. It isn’t hard to do.At the end of February 2020, two weeks before the World Health Organisation declared a pandemic, the EU Council had already instructed the European Commission to coordinate Europe’s war against the coronavirus. Within days, the Commission compiled a list of essential gear in short supply across Europe, from protective equipment to intensive care units, and placed orders with manufacturers. It also convened Cov-Comm, a committee of top epidemiologists and representatives of EU public health systems to offer daily guidance. Liberated of the need to procure essential supplies and work out optimal travel and social distancing strategies, national governments concentrated on implementing the emergent EU plan.By the time, a month later, the pandemic had shown its teeth in northern Italy, truckloads of protective gear, oxygen canisters, intensive care machinery, and even doctors and nurses began to arrive from across Europe, all coordinated by Brussels. While the European Parliament debated the finer points of balancing civil liberties and public health, the Commission continued to map out, in cooperation with national governments, the needs of health-care systems across the EU.In March, Cov-Comm recommended lockdowns, with rules varying from region to region. The European Council backed the Commission’s plan for a quarantine rollout, to be reviewed daily. As Europeans entered quarantine, a network of mass testing centres was erected across the EU. Regular testing in every neighbourhood, near every school, and at or close to every workplace would enable a coordinated, safe exit from horizontal lockdown.April being the cruellest month, the number of casualties spiked, but at least hospitals coped well, thanks to the pooling of equipment and human resources across Europe. Asked by journalists how visiting foreign doctors and nurses communicated with their Italian and Spanish colleagues inside the intensive care wards, a German anesthesiologist replied, ‘In the face of death, medical professionals communicate by osmosis.’With the lockdowns pummeling both consumption and production, Europe’s economies entered the worst recession in memory. Unlike the euro crisis a decade earlier, the pandemic dragged down economic activity throughout Europe. The common foe, along with the spirit of solidarity in health care, engendered a new mood, which soon permeated official circles. The result was a ground-breaking resolution, approved in early May by the Eurogroup of finance ministers, and then by the European Council. Next Generation Europe, or NGE, was then launched immediately.Four pillars made the NGE a prelude to Europe’s proper unification. There was a common mechanism to absorb the inevitable rise in public debt as states struggled to support businesses and employment. A central health fund would now pay for the fight against Covid-19, including vaccination procurement. A cash payment to every European would lift all boats at once. And a proper investment programme would finance the Green Energy Union Europe so badly needs.To build the NGE’s four pillars, EU leaders had to clear the hurdle that had blocked them during all previous crises by figuring out how to simulate a federal government without violating the letter of EU laws and treaties. The solution on which the NGE project turned was ingenious. At the crucial April 2020 Council meeting, Germany’s lame-duck chancellor, Angela Merkel, reportedly said: ‘As our only common institution with real firepower, the European Central Bank was always going to bear the burden. Let us at least put it to good use.’European leaders did just that. To absorb the inevitable rise in public debt, all member states’ primary budget deficits (net of debt payments) since March 2020 would be financed by 30-year bonds issued by the ECB. The bonds’ long maturity meant that Europe’s leaders were giving themselves 30 years to form a proper federal government, complete with a common Treasury, lest the ECB be forced to print the money to repay bondholders. ‘If Europe cannot unite within three decades,’ said French President Emmanuel Macron in the May European Council meeting, ‘maybe we do not deserve our Union.’EU leaders had crossed the Rubicon, and now the NGE’s solutions to other problems emerged. For example, to fund vaccine research and development, and pay for local production under license across Europe, the ECB promised to purchase zero-coupon perpetual bonds issued by pharmaceutical companies. Nothing in the ECB’s charter prevents it from purchasing corporate bonds, so the EU could use this mechanism to fund a successful vaccination programme as well as other basic health goods to be shared among all Europeans. Even better, the EU used this mechanism to procure hundreds of millions of vaccine doses for distribution to neighbouring and developing countries free of charge.Then there was the NGE’s cash injection programme, the equivalent of the federal government checks that US households received during the pandemic. EU leaders discovered that nothing in the ECB’s charter, or in any EU treaty, prevented the ECB from crediting every European adult’s primary bank account with €2,000 ($2,350), at a total cost of no more than €750 billion. With every European, whether German or Greek, Dutch or Portuguese, receiving the same amount, the EU treaties’ prohibition of fiscal transfers and bailouts of one member state by another was never violated.Lastly, the NGE directed the European Investment Bank to issue bonds roughly equivalent to 5 percent of Europe’s total income, also to be backed in the bond markets by the ECB. This funded a new European Green Works Agency to develop the EU’s Green Energy Union and, more generally, to finance Europe’s Green New Deal.While infection rates rose and fell, by December 2020 the coordinated rollout of Europe’s vaccination programme arrested the virus’s spread. Europeans celebrated the arrival of 2021 with tangible expectations of shared, green prosperity. Meanwhile, Europe’s global standing improved, including in post-Brexit Britain. Shipments of vaccines donated by the EU played a role, but not as large as Europe’s demonstration that unity and solidarity had, at last, prevailed across our continent.

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Πρόσωπο με Πρόσωπο Νο.3: Απαντώντας σε 10 νέες βιντεο-ερωτήσεις σας

Στο 3ο «Πρόσωπο με Πρόσωπο» απαντώ σε ερωτήσεις για το βασικό εισόδημα, την απάθεια, την συμμετοχική δημοκρατία, το πως μπορεί να ακουστεί η φωνή του ΜέΡΑ25, τους οικονομικούς νομάδες, το brain drain, την θητεία, το MeToo, τη σχέση κράτους-εκκλησίας κλπ Η ιδέα απλή: Παρακάμπτουμε τα Μέσα Μαζικής Εξαπάτησης. Απαντώ, χωρίς φίλτρο, τις ερωτήσεις που εσύ μας στέλνεις με ένα βίντεο του ενός λεπτού. Εδώ οι απαντήσεις σε οκτώ νέες ερωτήσεις, στο “2ο επεισόδιο”. Στείλε μας τη δική σου βιντεο-ερώτηση ως εξής:Ο τρόπος είναι απλός:Βιντεοσκόπησε την ερώτησή σου με το κινητό, τον υπολογιστή ή την κάμερά σου σε landscape mode.Φρόντισε να είναι καθαρός ο ήχος σου. Προσπαθούμε να αποφύγουμε πολυσύχναστα μέρη, όπου οι γύρω θόρυβοι μπορεί να αποσπούν την προσοχή από την ερώτησή σου.Στην αρχή του βίντεο, δήλωσε το όνομα και την ιδιότητά σου.Η διάρκεια του βίντεο δεν πρέπει να υπερβαίνει το ένα λεπτό. Ερωτήσεις με διάρκεια πάνω από ένα λεπτό, δεν μπορούν δυστυχώς να γίνουν δεκτές.Μπορείς να παρακολουθήσεις ένα παράδειγμα ερώτησης εδώ.Αμέσως μετά, μπορείς να στείλεις το βίντεό σου, με τις παρακάτω free πλατφόρμεςwetransfer.comdatatransfer.grfromsmash.comστο email: face2face@mera25.gr.Ο τρόπος αποστολής του βίντεο είναι απλός: συμπληρώνεις το email σου και το email αποστολής και πατάς send, transfer ή share.Αυτό ήταν! Εμείς παραλαμβάνουμε την ερώτησή σου και σου απαντάμε ότι την λάβαμε.

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Everything Must Change! DiEM-TV’s lockdown interviews now available as a book

As the pandemic placed capitalism in suspended animation, dividing us between the privileged who could afford to quarantine ourselves and those who risked life and limb keeping the world’s wheels turning, DiEM-TV went into action. Srecko Horvat and I began a series of livestreamed discussions with one aim in mind: to keep alive the hope that, once the virus is defeated, there will be no return to business as usual. At some point, Srecko and Renata Avila, also a member of DiEM25’s top coordination collective, went through the transcripts and edited them. The result is this book published by the good people at OR Books. Below, a review by Ben Terrall that just appeared in Counterpunch.The stalwart left-wing publisher OR Books has firmly established itself as go-to source for titles that challenge the status quo and suggest options for moving beyond our current ruts. Two new collections from OR do just that. Everything Must Change: The World After COVID-19 collects political conversations among political activists, artists, and academics about how to build movements that confront capitalism and also counter the nauseating appeal of far-right nationalism; Rediscovering Earth: Ten Dialogues on the Future of Nature features various thinkers addressing the grim realities of species destruction and climate chaos.Everything Must Change is culled from the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25)’s online broadcasts from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The book’s editors, Renata Avila, a Guatemalan human rights lawyer, and Srecko Horvat, a Croatian philosopher, pulled together conversations that they and the Greek economist and writer Yannis Varoufakis conducted with an impressive mix of international leftist movers and shakers. The result is a commendably broad range of ideas about moving forward with left agendas.In a discussion with Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Varoufakis calls for “a progressive international movement” committed to internationalism and solidarity. That vision dovetails with Horvat’s introductory explanation that Everything Must Change “is intended as a collective message that transnational cooperation and resistance, precisely in times of global lockdowns and police states, not only remains possible, but becomes necessary.” Varoufakis and Horvat practice what they preach by serving, along with Avila and other leftists from around the world, on the Council of Advisors for the Progressive International, a joint initiative of DiEM25 and the U.S.-based Sanders Institute. The Progressive International includes many participants from the Global South and aspires to an ecologically sustainable and just post-capitalist world, a common goal among the participants in Everything Must Change.Vijay Prashad is the author of books including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. He directs the Transcontinental Institute for Social Research, which is powered by an impressive roster of researchers and analysts and supports progressive struggles throughout the world. In his conversation with Horvat, Prashad focuses on how government policies can aggressively battle the spread of COVID-19. He cites the work of Cuban doctors and developments in the leftist Indian state of Kerala, which, Prashad explains, “has built and maintained state institutions against a lot of pressure from institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, which says, ‘Kill off your state!’”Prashad’s emphasis on the damage wrought by neoliberalism is echoed throughout the book. Neoliberal dogma, which supports fiscal austerity, union busting, and the destruction of barriers to free trade, demonizes state-funded projects and sugarcoats privatization and the profit motive. Neoliberals argue that syphoning money upward will eventually benefit everyone and any resultant injustice or environmental degradation will be resolved by market forces. This ideology underpins economic policies and political priorities in the United States and Europe, and has been forced down the throats of governments around the world.The late activist and anthropology professor David Graeber argues that the capitalist addiction to growth and class war on the poor has been hit hard hard by the COVID-19 crisis. In his view, the pandemic is “a completely random event which has given us a moment of breathing space and reminded us that we have the ability to take dramatic action, that, perhaps, we should stop listening to those who tell us what is possible and impossible.” Graeber explains, “The normal is standing on the tracks looking at an oncoming train and arguing with each other about how fast it’s going. We’ve now had someone knock us off the tracks, out of the way, and what are we going to do, get back on?”Though similar arguments are made by interviewees in Everything Must Change!, they also present different points of view and come at the same problems from different angles. There is no rigid party line that unites the patricipants in this book. While some of them embrace Marxism of a more orthodox variety and are loathe to criticize authoritarian socialist governments, others are less old school Left.Graeber points to dangers inherent in both capitalist and ostensibly socialist states; critiquing economic models which prioritize constant growth, he notes that this “strange version of historical determinism (…) is one reason why many old apparatchiks in Eastern Europe were able to quite easily switch from a Marxist-Leninist philosophy to neoliberalism without too much conceptual dissonance.” Graeber points to the largely overlooked current example of Kurdish organizing in Rojava as a source of hope for egalitarian change: “The Kurdish people have managed to hold their project together, in one of the least friendly places in the world to have a feminist-anarchist revolution, for almost a decade now. It’s one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever seen and, if nothing else, it shows that those who claim such ambitions are impracticable or impossible are simply wrong—you try fighting ISIS!”Elsewhere, Varoufakis points out, “A great deal of authoritarianism rises up within our ranks. This is why I have a soft spot for the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists during the civil war, who had back and red in their flag: red to signify revolution and black to signify the darkness in the soul of each one of us, which we must always be aware of because it can rise up and put us in our own gulags, as has happened so many times.”In a welcome departure from a plethora of political books addressing “what must be done,” several entries in Everything Must Change! touch on the importance of humor in politics, both as a survival mechanism and a weapon against the powers that be. Horvat gives examples of mordant wit born out of the dark realities of life in his homeland and discusses laughter in bleak times with writer and director Larry Charles. Charles, a writer/producer on the TV show Seinfeld and director of the Borat movies and the wildly underrated Bob Dylan film Masked and Anonymous, observes, “Humor is a natural human antidote to bleakness that is as important, in my view, as water or food. If you lose your sense of humor, you lose your humanity and your ability to feel compassion toward others.” When he visited Liberia after the Ebola crisis, Charles discovered a comedy industry that arose in response to that pandemic. He tells Horvak, “There, at their nadir as a society, with the Ebola crisis wiping them out, humor (…) really became a lifeboat for the society.”Alas, people struggling with addiction, depression, and anxiety do not always have an easy time laughing to keep from crying. The writer Johann Hari blames that fact on societal ills as much as brain chemistry. In a wide-ranging conversation with Varoufakis, Hari notes the large body of evidence which points to financial insecurity being a cause of anxiety and depression. The rates of those maladies in the U.S. have skyrocketed in the wake of increasing unemployment, stagnating wages, and assaults on the post-New Deal social safety net, an ugly reality overlooked in mainstream U.S. discussions of treatment regimens.Hari tells Varoufakis, “Anything that reduces depression should be regarded as an anti-depressant. For some people that will include drugs, but we need to radically expand our concept of anti-depressants—a higher minimum wage: a really good antidepressant! Universal basic income: really good antidepressant! Transforming corporations into democratic cooperatives where the workers are in control: really good antidepressant!”The goal of Rediscovering Earth is to not only analyze the insanity of continuing knowingly destroy our planet but also to help us avert catastrophe. Anders Dunker, a Norwegian journalist and philosopher who conducted Rediscovering Earth’s ten interviews, explains, “The selection of writers and thinkers collected in this book all attempt to transplant discoveries from the domain of the natural sciences to a broader cultural field. For new insights to take root in the culture at large, they need to be integrated with our other systems of knowledge, and be nourished by insights and considerations from anthropology, history, philosophy, and literature.”Ursula K. Heise, the Chair of the Department of English at UCLA, who specializes in biodiversity, tells Dunker, “Native Americans sometimes speak about nature as a house or garden that needs to be tended for it not to deteriorate. This (…) is certainly not how white North Americans tend to think of nature: as something that is best when it is disturbed as little as possible. We might need a different attitude, where we see nature as our home, something to be constantly cared for. What we need to ask, at least in an urban context, is what ecosystem with a high level of diversity we can aim for. What is an ecosystem that will be functional, both biologically and socially, in an urban context that includes millions of humans?” A great question, certainly, but it would have been more instructive if Heise had been pushed to elaborate on some potential answers. Heise worries about overwhelming her students with readings on species extinction; although on antidote she sees for the darkness of that material is looking at how cities might provide new accommodation for species other than just humans. Again, while she does provide some brief examples of urban coexistence among different species, she might have elaborated more about the ways in which animals are finding niches in urban ecosystems on their own.Argentine ecologist Sandra Diaz is another intellectually impressive biodiversity specialist who weighs in with Dunker. Diaz works with the UN-backed Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service (IPBES) and co-chaired a 2019 IPBES Global Assessment Report which concluded that one million species face extinction and the rapid decline of the natural world is at least as severe a problem as climate change. Diaz notes that “the root causes of biodiversity and ecosystem crisis around the world are all deeply social, economic, and political. There is hardly any big challenge today that is not at the same time social and biological.” She argues for the creation of “a more pluralistic, more tolerant world, in every sense.” She stresses that environmental movements “will have to get a lot stronger, fast, to be enough, to be timely.”Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature (1989), the first book on global warming to reach a mass audience, also emphasizes that time is of the essence in stopping destruction of the biosphere. After writing a slew of books decrying ecological destruction, McKibben became an activist by co-founding 350.org, an organization which campaigns for cutting carbon emissions. The urgency of that goal is underscored by the group’s name—350 parts per million of carbon is the upper limit in the earth’s atmosphere beyond which our future gets dicey; currently the number stands at 415 parts per million.McKibben describes the point at which he needed to take action beyond authorship: “It was a shock to realize at some point that we had won the argument, (…) but even if we won the argument, we were losing the fight. And that’s because fights are not about arguments and data and stuff. Fights are about money and power. And the fossil fuel industry had all of that. And so we needed to build some power of our own.” Thankfully, given his journalistic skills and his ability to communicate important ideas, McKibben will continue to write books, but he says, “I’m no longer under the illusion that that’s how we’re going to win this. We’re going to win this, if we win this, by organizing.”The discussion with McKibben is especially satisfying, coming as it does after an interview with geographer Jared Diamond. Diamond’s tendency to depoliticize societal changes and avoid criticism of military and corporate elites is manifest in his bestseller Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, and that trait permeates his talk with Dunker. On oil company higher-ups, he tells Dunker, “Exxon has had two presidents in succession who were inclined to dismiss environmental concerns. The CEO of Chevron, on the other hand, is personally concerned about environmental issues […] every week the CEO sends an internet post that goes out to the seventy thousand employees of Chevron—and the posts regularly talk of environmental concerns.”McKibben’s take on Exxon executives goes beyond their being “dismissive” of environmentalists: “The shocking thing about Exxon was that they knew [about their contribution to global warming] and were willing to lie. That lie, because of the stakes, turns out to be the most consequential lie in human history.” He doesn’t glad-hand Chevron either, saying, “The most critical task must be to break the political power of the fossil fuel industry.”McKibben and Vandana Shiva are the two figures in Rediscovering Earth most tied to activist movements. Like McKibben, Shiva is an author and scholar who has been writing important books on the environment since the 1980s. For decades, both internationally and in her homeland of India, she has battled multinational corporations that make billions selling feeds, pesticides, and fertilizers. Shiva is with McKibben on the need to abandon fossil fuels. She explains, “[Insects] are (…) being driven to extinction by poisons used in factory farming. The same industrial system causes greenhouse gas emissions by moving food around unnecessarily. At this point, negotiating about emission quotas will not help us. If we don’t show the courage to make a ‘biophilic leap,’ we will not go anywhere.” (“Biophilic” means “of or pertaining to ‘biophilia,’” which the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, defines as “a strong attraction for or emotional attachment to the living world.”)The one novelist interviewed in Rediscovering Earth is Kim Stanley Robinson, the preeminent practitioner of left wing science fiction. Robinson gained a following with his Mars Trilogy of the 1990s (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars), in which he envisioned political battles accompanying the colonization and terraforming of the red planet. More recently, he wrote the terrific New York 2140 (2017), set in New York City after a dramatic sea level rise.Books dealing with climate change can be dry and didactic, and, if written by academics, a chore for readers without science backgrounds. Robinson’s most recent novel, 2020’s The Ministry For the Future, is none of those things. Robinson describes it as “both a utopian novel with a collectivized vision, and also a kind of dramatized policy blueprint, acting out in a way that you can believe in.” He adds, “Never have I tried anything messier. And that’s saying a lot, because all of my novels are messy.” If so, The Ministry for the Future is a glorious mess, one that provides a smart, soulful alternative to excessive screen time and mainstream information overload. Robinson tells Dunker, “I’m not of the belief that any one novel or book can change much, but you can channel the voices. You can kind of make a document of your time that has an impact on how people see it. So, I do believe novels help to create ideology.”Not a bad thing to achieve. I hope that both of these collections can also contribute to an ideological shift away from settling for business as usual. As Sandra Diaz comments to Dunker about working for a better future, “We might just make it, as we did with other important environmental and social achievements that we now take for granted, but which were unthinkably large steps at the time. It is not going to be easy. But, on the other hand, what other option do we have?”

Ben Terrall is a writer living in the Bay Area. He can be reached at: bterrall@gmail.com

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Το εμβολιαστικό σκάνδαλο της ΕΕ, τα self tests, τα κόκκινα δάνεια και η «Ελλάδα 2.0» του κ. Μητσοτάκη – Action24

Καλεσμένος στην εκπομπή “Brain Storming”, με την Κατερίνα Δούκα και Σταμάτη Ζαχαρό, συζητάμε για το εμβολιαστικό φιάσκο της ΕΕ, τα Self Tests, την εγκληματική διαχείριση της πανδημίας, το σχέδιο “Ηρακλής” για τα κόκκινα δάνεια και τους πλειστηριασμούς, το Εθνικό Σχέδιο Ανάκαμψης και Ανθεκτικότητας “Ελλάδα 2.0” και τέλος, για τα σενάρια συνεργασίας και εκλογών.

The post Το εμβολιαστικό σκάνδαλο της ΕΕ, τα self tests, τα κόκκινα δάνεια και η «Ελλάδα 2.0» του κ. Μητσοτάκη – Action24 appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Για την Τεχνοφεουδαρχία & την υπέρβασή της, καθώς και τα πιο “πεζά” ζητήματα της επικαιρότητας – στο ΠΡΩΤΟ ΠΡΟΓΡΑΜΜΑ με τον Γιώργο Παπαζαχαρίου

Καλεσμένος του Γιώργου Παπαζαχαρίου στο Πρώτο Πρόγραμμα της ΕΡΤ, αναφέρομαι στην Τεχνοφεουδαρχία του σήμερα, στην υπέρβασή της (όπως την περιγράφει στο νέο του βιβλίο ANOTHER NOW, που θα κυκλοφορήσει προσεχώς και στα ελληνικά – αλλά και για την πρόταση του ΜέΡΑ25 για τη σύσταση ανεξάρτητου Σώματος Δίωξης Πολιτικού και Μεγαλοεπιχειρηματικού εγκλήματος, τη διαπλοκή των ΜΜΕ, την κρίση του καπιταλισμού που εντείνει η πανδημία, τη συμπαιγνία των εξεταστικών επιτροπών, τις κατάπτυστες ΝΔ-ΣΥΡΙΖΑ για Ελληνικό & Σκουριές που λεηλατούν τη φύση και τις παγκόσμιες εξελίξεις που δρομολογούν Κίνα και ΗΠΑ.

The post Για την Τεχνοφεουδαρχία & την υπέρβασή της, καθώς και τα πιο “πεζά” ζητήματα της επικαιρότητας – στο ΠΡΩΤΟ ΠΡΟΓΡΑΜΜΑ με τον Γιώργο Παπαζαχαρίου appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

‘The Austerity Doctrine in the Time of Coronavirus’ – LET’S TALK IT OVER chat Brian Eno & Yanis Varoufakis hosting special guests Stephanie Kelton & Naomi Klein – 15th April, 19.00CET

For the 3rd episode of Let’s Talk It Over Frank Barat introduces LTIO regulars Brian Eno and Yanis Varoufakis who will, in turn, welcome very special guests Stephanie Kelton and Naomi Klein to discuss The Austerity Doctrine in the Time of Coronavirus. Has the pandemic ended the reign of austerity as policy and mindset?Or is austerity lurking in the shadows of the various stimulus plans, ready and willing to continue its destruction of human prospects and ecosystems?

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The post ‘The Austerity Doctrine in the Time of Coronavirus’ – LET’S TALK IT OVER chat Brian Eno & Yanis Varoufakis hosting special guests Stephanie Kelton & Naomi Klein – 15th April, 19.00CET appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Η Ιστορία όπως ΔΕN συνέβη: Πως η Ελλάδα μπορούσε να νικήσει την πανδημία – βίντεο

Ποιός θα περίμενε ότι η Ελλάδα, μετά από μια δεκαετία βαθιάς κρίσης, θα κατάφερνε το 2020 να νικήσει την πανδημία και να αποδράσει από την Χρεοδουλοπαροικία; Ας δούμε το χρονικό του θαύματος:15η ΙανουαρίουΔυο βδομάδες πριν καν ο Παγκόσμιος Οργανισμός Υγείας κηρύξει συναγερμό για πανδημία Covid-19, ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης συγκαλεί  Επιτροπή Ειδικών. Συμμετέχουν επιδημιολόγοι αλλά κι οι εκπρόσωποι των νοσοκομειακών γιατρών του ΕΣΥ που θα κληθούν να σηκώσουν το βάρος.26η ΦεβρουαρίουΠρώτη διάγνωση κρούσματος την ώρα που στην γειτονική Ιταλία οι νεκροί είναι ήδη πολλοί. Η Επιτροπή Ειδικών συνεδριάζει πλέον καθημερινά και τα αναλυτικά πρακτικά της αναρτώνται στο διαδίκτυο εντός 24 ωρών.27η ΦεβρουαρίουΟ Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης συγκαλεί Κυβερνητικό Συμβούλιο το οποίο διαθέτει την ίδια μέρα 1 δις για την ενίσχυση του ρημαγμένου ΕΣΥ, για την έγκαιρη προμήθεια προστατευτικού εξοπλισμού, για χιλιάδες προσλήψεις μόνιμου προσωπικού.1η ΜαρτίουΗ Επιτροπή Ειδικών συνιστά την άμεση προμήθεια μεγάλης ποσότητας αντιδραστηρίων και την προετοιμασία για το στήσιμο, εκτός των νοσοκομείων, κέντρων μαζικών τεστ σε όλη τη χώρα.6η ΜαρτίουΗ κυβέρνηση δίνει στη δημοσιότητα χάρτη με τα 1500 νέα κέντρα μαζικών τεστ σε χώρους εύκολα προσβάσιμους τόσο με αυτοκίνητο όσο και πεζή. Όπως εξηγεί ο Πρωθυπουργός, μετά την νίκη επί του Covid-19 θα ενσωματωθούν στο ΕΣΥ ως το δίκτυο πρωτοβάθμιας περίθαλψης που, έτσι κι αλλιώς, είχε ανάγκη το τόπος.12η ΜαρτίουΠρώτος θάνατος από κορωνοϊό στην Ελλάδα. Αρχίζουν να λειτουργούν τα πρώτα 300 από 1500 συνολικά κέντρα που παρέχουν δωρεάν τεστ. Προτεραιότητα δίνεται στο υγειονομικό προσωπικό, στους δάσκαλους και καθηγητές, και στους ανθρώπους της πρώτης γραμμής, όπως οι ταμίες στα σουπερμάρκετ, οι πωλητές στις λαϊκές αγορές κι οι οδηγοί λεωφορείων.22η ΜαρτίουΣε διάγγελμά του ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης ανακοινώνει δίμηνη μάχη προάσπισης του ΕΣΥ: δίμηνη αυστηρή καραντίνα, μονιμοποίηση στις ίδιες μονάδες που υπηρετούν όλων των επικουρικών γιατρών και νοσοκόμων, προκήρυξη νέων μόνιμων θέσεων για 2 χιλιάδες γιατρούς και 5 χιλιάδες νοσηλευτές25η ΜαρτίουΤην μέρα της εθνικής μας γιορτής ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης ανακοινώνει την πλήρη λειτουργία και των 1500 κέντρων μαζικών τεστ όπου έχουν ήδη ξεκινήσει εβδομαδιαία τεστ όλων όσοι αναγκάζονται να εργάζονται κατά τη διάρκεια της καραντίνας.1η ΑπριλίουΤίθεται σε λειτουργία το ένα και μοναδικό ηλεκτρονικό μητρώο ασθενών COVID-19 συμβάλλοντας καθοριστικά στην ιχνηλάτηση των κρουσμάτων.8η ΑπριλίουΜε εντολή του Πρωθυπουργού, ο Υπουργός Οικονομικών ανακοινώνει την άμεση, ουσιαστική στήριξη της οικονομίας. Καταργούνται όλες οι προπληρωμές φόρων. Ο ανώτερος ΦΠΑ από το 23% στο 15%. Αντίστοιχη μείωση του φόρου μικρών επιχειρήσεων στο 15%. Κουρέματα των οφειλών σε εφορίες, ταμεία και τράπεζες των μικρομεσαίων που επλήγησαν από την καραντίνα. Τέλος ο Ηρακλής με τη δημιουργία κακής δημόσιας τράπεζας για τα κόκκινα δάνεια. Ο ίδιος ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης στηρίζει τον υπουργό του με δήλωσή του στα διεθνή μέσα:«Είμαι σίγουρος ότι οι εταίροι μας κατανοούν πως έχουμε υποχρέωση να κάνουμε τα αυτονόητα, χωρίς την προέγκριση τους, σε μια στιγμή που αντιμετωπίζουμε ζήτημα ζωής και θανάτου τόσο των ανθρώπων μας όσο και ΤΩΝ επιχειρήσεων κατάφεραν να επιβιώσουν μετά από 10 χρόνια κρίσης. Κάνουμε ό,τι χρειάζεται. Τίποτα παραπάνω.»1η  ΜαΐουΑνακοινώνεται πρόγραμμα στήριξης των ανθρώπων του πολιτισμού αλλά και όλων των «αχαρτογράφητων» πολιτών. Ενισχύονται με μείγμα επιδομάτων, ειδικών χρεωστικών καρτών αλλά και μεταταβιβάσιμων ηλεκτρονικών πιστώσεων μέσω του Taxisnet.15η ΜαΐουΟ Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης δίνει εντολή άμεσης πρόσληψης οδηγών και ενίσχυσης του στόλου των αστικών συγκοινωνιών τόσο με αγορές όσο και με επιτάξεις.20η ΜαΐουΈχοντας κάνει πάνω από 2 εκ. μαζικά τεστ, και χαρτογραφήσει την εξάπλωση του ιικού φορτίου, η χώρα ετοιμάζεται πυρετωδώς για την έξοδο από την οριζόντια καραντίνα την 23η Μαΐου. Όσοι «μένουν σπίτι» λόγω θετικού τεστ στηρίζονται οικονομικά με 500 ευρώ το δεκαπενθήμερο και τους προσφέρεται, αν μένουν μόνοι, κατ’ οίκον βοήθεια.23η ΜαΐουΞεκινά η προετοιμασία για το άνοιγμα του τουρισμού. Προϋπόθεση εισόδου στη χώρα το αρνητικό μοριακό τεστ τις τελευταίες 72 ώρες αλλά και ράπιντ τεστ κατά την είσοδο.28η ΜαΐουΗ Κομισιόν ανακοινώνει την συμφωνία Μέρκελ-Μακρόν: Αντί για το ευρωομόλογο που ζητούσε ο Μακρόν, η γερμανίδα καγκελάριος προτείνει προσωρινό Ταμείο Ανάκαμψης. Ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης αντιπροτείνει ανταλλαγές μέρους των εθνικών ομολόγων με αέναα ομόλογα (perpetual bonds) έκδοσης της ΕΚΤ και προαναγγέλλει ελληνικό βέτο αν το σχέδιο της Κομισιόν δεν προβλέψει, τουλάχιστον, βαθιά αναδιάρθρωση του χρέους μας στον ESM και μόνιμη απαλλαγή της χώρας από τις μνημονιακές υποχρεώσεις του παρελθόντος που δεν ισχύουν για άλλες χώρες.1η ΙουνίουΕνώ οι πρώτες 3 χιλιάδες νέοι μόνιμοι γιατροί και νοσοκόμοι έχουν αναλάβει υπηρεσία στο ΕΣΥ, με εντολή Μητσοτάκη επαναλειτουργεί το Νοσοκομείο Λοιμωδών στη Θεσσαλονίκη ώστε να ελαφρυνθούν τα υπόλοιπα νοσοκομεία από περιστατικά Covid-19. Στο μεταξύ, νέα οριζόντια καραντίνα αποτρέπεται καθώς τα 1500 κέντρα μαζικών τεστ λειτουργούν 12 ώρες ημερησίως παρέχοντας τη δυνατότητα εβδομαδιαίων τεστ σε όλους.19η ΙουνίουΟ ΕΟΤ ξεκινά διεθνή καμπάνια με σλόγκαν: Greece – Safety within Reason, Humanity without Limits (Ελλάδα – Ασφάλεια σε Λογικά Πλαίσια, Ανθρωπιά Χωρίς Όρια)1η ΙουλίουΞεκινά η εντατική επιμόρφωση των εκπαιδευτικών στις διαδικασίες της αποτελεσματικής τηλεκπαίδευσης, με δυνατότητες προεγγραφής μαθημάτων σύμφωνα με τα πρότυπα του βρετανικού Open University. Προσλαμβάνονται όλοι οι αναπληρωτές καθηγητές από τον Ιούλιο ώστε να συμμετέχουν κι αυτοί στην καλοκαιρινή προετοιμασία. Επιτάσσονται και ετοιμάζονται κτήρια κοντά στα σχολεία ώστε να αυξηθούν οι τάξεις και να μειωθεί ο αριθμός μαθητών ανά αίθουσα το πολύ στους 13 ενώ προσλαμβάνεται επί πλέον προσωπικό καθαριότητας. Οπτικές ίνες και νέοι υπολογιστές εγκαθίστανται στα σχολεία ώστε να υποστηρίξουν την τηλε-διδασκαλία, σε περίπτωση που χρειαστεί να ξανακλείσουν τα σχολεία. Μαζική προμήθεια τάμπλετ  αλλά και προετοιμασία αποστολής έντυπου υλικού σε μαθητές. Αντίστοιχη προετοιμασία γίνεται και στα πανεπιστήμια.15η ΙουλίουΟ Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης αντιστέκεται στις πιέσεις ναυτιλιακών και αεροπορικών εταιρειών και ταξιδιωτικών γραφείων. Για όλο το καλοκαίρι, η μέγιστη πληρότητα σε πλοία και αεροπλάνα δεν θα ξεπεράσει το 50%.14η ΣεπτέμβρηΜετά την καλοκαιρινή προετοιμασία τους ανοίγουν τα σχολεία, με μοριακά τεστ σε δάσκαλους και μαθητές και εβδομαδιαία ράπιντ τεστ στους μαθητές.5η ΟκτωβρίουΤο δίκτυο μαζικών τεστ αναφέρει αύξηση του ιικού φορτίου και ο Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης επιτάσσει προκαταβολικά ιδιωτικές μονάδες υγείας ενώ εντατικοποιούνται τα τεστ.14η ΝοεμβρίουΚαθώς έρχονται τα μαντάτα απ΄έξω για τις πολύ καλές επιδόσεις των εμβολίων της BioNTech, της Moderna και της Οξφόρδης, ο Πρωθυπουργός ανακοινώνει τη σταδιακή μετατροπή του δίκτυου των 1500 κέντρων μαζικών τεστ του ΕΣΥ σε κέντρα μαζικών τεστ και εμβολιασμού. «Σήμερα τα ρίχνουμε στον αγώνα κατά του Covid, αύριο θα είναι η ραχοκοκκαλιά της πρωτοβάθμιας περίθαλψης του εθνικού μας συστήματος υγείας», δήλωσε.12η ΔεκεμβρίουΤα  κέντρα μαζικών τεστ είναι πλέον έτοιμα να ξεκινήσουν τους εμβολιασμούς συνεχίζοντας, παράλληλα, την διενέργεια των μαζικών τεστ που εξασφάλισαν ότι η Ελλάδα – αντίθετα με άλλες ευρωπαϊκές χώρες – δεν χρειάστηκε 2ο και 3ο οριζόντιο λοκνταουν.1η ΙανουαρίουΗ χώρα που για μια δεκαετία υπέφερε όπως καμία άλλη ευρωπαϊκή ξεκινά το 2021 με καλούς οιωνούς! *********************************************************************Δυστυχώς, τα πράγματα δεν έγιναν έτσι.Κάτι η απέχθεια της κυβέρνησης για ο,τιδήποτε είναι δημόσιο αγαθόΚάτι οι δεσμεύσεις του Κυριάκου Μητσοτάκη σε κλινακάρχες, καναλάρχες, κολλεγιάρχες, ολιγάρχες και ΣιαΚάτι το ΝΑΙ ΣΕ ΟΛΑ στην τρόικαΚάτι, η ανικανότητα κι η ευθυνοφοβία.… να πώς χάθηκε η μεγάλη ευκαιρία να προστατευτούν οι πολίτες, να βγει η Ελλάδα νικήτρια, να διδάξουμε ένα μάθημα σε φίλους και εχθρούς σώζοντας ανθρώπους, κρατώντας επιχειρήσεις, ζωντανές, διαφυλάσσοντας ελευθερίες που ο λαός μας κέρδισε με το αίμα του. 

The post Η Ιστορία όπως ΔΕN συνέβη: Πως η Ελλάδα μπορούσε να νικήσει την πανδημία – βίντεο appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

What Europe Must Now Do – DiEM25’s Progressive European Policy Agenda for the 2020s

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, the EU has failed to make Europe safer. By refusing to terminate its reliance on fossil fuels, the EU has reinforced geopolitical tensions, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean.DiEM25 is now working on a Progressive Agenda focusing on PUBLIC HEALTH, SHARED PROSPERITY, and GREEN PEACE. Our Agenda comprises policies drawn from DiEM25’s comprehensive Green New Deal for Europe as well as policy initiatives honed at the outset of the 2020 pandemic.

[Nb. The text below is now subject to consultation by DiEM25 members, National Collectives and Electoral Wings across Europe. Its final version, including proposed amendments, will be put to an all-member vote in the last week of May.]

Decent Public Health, Shared Prosperity & a Green PeacePublic HealthEuropean public health can no longer remain within the ‘competence’ of nation-states. The pandemic demonstrated that, unless the EU provides basic health services (e.g. vaccines) to all its citizens equally and efficiently, the Union is unsafe – some would say pointless.The pandemic demonstrated that the EU must guarantee its citizens equal access to facilities that provide free testing, free vaccines and free primary care. Basic goods (e.g. test kits, vaccines, protective equipment) must be procured centrally and sizeable stocks must be in place everywhere within well-functioning public health systems and networks.Mindful of Europe’s duty to non-European countries in its neighbourhood and beyond, the EU must also donate such basic public health goods to developing countries far and wide. All these basic goods are to be paid for using the ECB’s monetary firepower, not the member-states’ stressed budgets.In the interest of civil liberties and to ensure its citizens the basic privacy rights that Europeans have earned the hard way over centuries of struggles, in times of health emergencies, like the present one, the EU must tread carefully. DiEM25 supports digital technologies which can facilitate an effective track and trace system during a pandemic while safeguarding anonymity. However, DiEM25 is utterly opposed to the exploitation of such emergencies in the interests of corporations and states seeking make citizens transparent, while they remain opaque. In this context, DiEM25 opposes all vaccination certificates or passports which open up a Pandora’s Box of civil liberty violations by insurance companies, employers and state agencies.Shared ProsperityDuring the Covid-19 pandemic, compared to the US, China and the UK, the Eurozone suffered the largest drop in investment, the greatest capital flight, and the largest increase in its output gap (i.e. difference between potential and actual production). Moreover, Europe’s internal imbalances (which were the cause of the massive Euro Crisis) have grown exponentially. Despite this, Europe has administered the smallest stimulus in the developed world and has done the least to bolster investment – relying almost entirely on a so-called Recovery Fund that is macroeconomically insignificant and politically poisonous. As a result, the 2020s are shaping as a second Lost European Decade.To prevent this, and to give shared European prosperity a chance, DiEM25 has proposed – and is doing so again – four policies:ECB-Bonds to lessen the strain on member-state budgets: All primary budget deficits since March 2020 to be financed by means of 30-year bonds issued by the ECB (ECB-bonds), ensuring that the new pandemic-induced national debt does not weigh down already overburdened national budgets. The 30-year-long maturity of the ECB-bonds will function as an added incentive for a proper democratic political union to emerge within three decades. Additionally, we envisage perpetual ECB-issued bonds, to be exchanged with member-state bonds, for the purposes of restructuring even deeper the debt burden caused by the outbreak of the Euro Crisis in 2010.Solidarity Cash Payments: The ECB injects a €2000 European Solidarity Cash Payment to the primary bank account of every European resident. This can be repeated whenever necessary, replacing all ECB corporate bond-purchases.European Green Recovery & Investment Program: The EU to direct the European Investment Bank (EIB), and its subsidiary the European Investment Fund (EIF), to issue annually EIB-EIF bonds approximately equal to 5% of the EU’s GDP, to be backed in the bond markets by the ECB. The monies will fund a new European Green Works Agency whose remit is to build up the EU’s necessary Green Energy Union and to fund the EU’s Green TransitionRescinding all post-2010 austerity conditionalities: The EU countries worst hit by the pandemic also happen to be the ones worst hit by the savage austerity and privatisation programs that the troika imposed upon them directly or indirectly since 2010. All these ‘conditionalities’ now act as a drag upon the whole of the EU and must be rescinded immediately.Green Peace in Europe’s neighbourhoodIn 2020 the EU officially endorsed a so-called ‘Green Deal’. Regrettably, it was endorsed “more in the breach than in the observance”: No real funding was ever put aside for this ‘Green Deal’ and, worse still, the EU continues to pursue the extraction and distribution of fossil fuels in a manner that increases geopolitical tensions.In particular, plans to extract oil and gas in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean are causing geopolitical tensions that only benefit arms dealers and the financial vultures who profit from ‘securitising’ fossil fuels and gas pipelines and that will, most probably, not even see the light of day. They also fuel the pre-existing migration crisis by turning Turkey against the EU and vice versa. Meanwhile, in Europe’s North East, Nordstream2 is causing new tensions and new dependencies on regimes and industries that have nothing good to offer the majority of Europeans. For Peace’s sake, and for the sake of European security and sovereignty, this must end.DiEM25 proposes an EU initiative to bring Peace and Shared Green Prosperity to all the peoples of the Mediterranean. We are campaigning for the EU to call a Peace and Green Energy Mediterranean Summit. The idea is for all Mediterranean countries to sit around the same table with a view to achieving the following:Encourage all participants to declare the Mediterranean a fossil fuel free zone (i.e. no new drilling and no new gas pipelines) and to work towards building a joint Green Energy UnionMark, on the same map, each country’s claim regarding its sea borders (e.g. continental shelf, economic zone)Agree collectively to take any remaining competing claims to the International Court at the Hague on condition that the Court’s decision will be accepted as final by all participantsProvided the above have been achieved, the EU will fund, via the European Investment Bank and other investment vehicles (e.g. see 2.2.3 above), the lion’s share of a Green Energy Union incorporating the EU, the Middle East and Northern Africa.SummaryThe EU will either unify to confront the prospect of another lost decade, or it will perish. DiEM25’s Progressive European Policy Agenda for the 2020s offers the only path toward unification. The three sets of policies we propose are immediately implementable and consistent with the letter of the EU Treaties. They promise:To share the burden of safeguarding public health across EuropeTo extend this duty to developing countries in recognition of the pandemic’s main lesson, namely that viruses respect no bordersTo share the pandemic-induced public debt burden between EU member-states, while rescinding the institutionalised austerity left over from the Euro CrisisTo deliver the public green investments necessary for a sustainable EuropeTo pay for Europe’s recovery and health using existing monetary financing tools which, currently, fund the oligarchy instead of public health, public goods and programs in the public interestOnly DiEM25’s Progressive European Policy Agenda for the 2020s offers Europe a chance to become a genuine, democratic Union. The only other option is disintegration.

Appendix: DiEM25’s post-Pandemic Progressive Policy Agenda in bullets

PUBLIC HEALTHThe provision of basic health goods becomes an EU dutyA new EU Network of Public Primary Health Care Centres easily accessible to every EU citizen offering:free testing on demandfree vaccinations on demandgeneral practice care free at the point of deliveryCentralised procurement for:test kitsvaccines, including the purchase of patents so as to facilitate local productionbasic medicinesprotective equipmentEU commits to providing to developing countries, free of charge, as many test kits, vaccines, basic medicines and protective equipment quantities as it has procured for EuropeansDirect funding of 1.2,1.3&1.4 above utilising ECB instruments (e.g. ECB bonds, EU perpetuals to be purchased by the ECB)Vaccination passports and/or certificates are banned, to protect basic privacy rights. Instead, the EU funds the development of applications (Apps) that allow for an efficient track-and-trace system, securing anonymity, to be incorporated in the EU network of public primary health care units mentioned in 1.2 above.SHARED PROSPERITYECB-Bonds to lessen the strain on member-state budgets: All primary budget deficits since March 2020 to be financed by means of 30-year bonds issued by the ECB (ECB-bonds), ensuring that the new pandemic-induced national debt does not weigh down already overburdened national budgets. The 30-year-long maturity of the ECB-bonds will function as an added incentive for a proper democratic political union to emerge within three decadesSolidarity Cash Payments: The ECB injects a €2000 European Solidarity Cash Payment to the primary bank account of every European resident. This can be repeated whenever necessary, replacing all ECB corporate bond-purchasesEuropean Green Recovery & Investment Program: The EU to direct the European Investment Bank (EIB), and its subsidiary the European Investment Fund (EIF), to issue annually EIB-EIF bonds approximately equal to 5% of the EU’s GDP, to be backed in the bond markets by the ECB. The monies will fund a new European Green Works Agency whose remit is to build up the EU’s necessary Green Energy Union and to fund the EU’s Green TransitionRescinding all post-2010 austerity conditionalities: The EU countries worst hit by the pandemic also happen to be the ones worst hit by the savage austerity and privatisation programs that the troika imposed upon them directly or indirectly since 2010. All these ‘conditionalities’ now act as a drag upon the whole of the EU and must be rescinded immediately.GREEN PEACEThe EU to call a Peace and Green Energy Mediterranean Summit involving all Mediterranean countries for the purposes ofdeclaring the Mediterranean a fossil fuel free zoneworking towards joint EU-Mediterranean Green Energy Union incorporating the EU, the Middle East and Northern Africadelineating each country’s claim regarding its sea borders (continental shelf, economic zone)agreeing to take any remaining competing claims to the International Court at the Hague for binding arbitrationThe EU will fund, via the European Investment Bank and other investment vehicles the lion’s share of the EU-Mediterranean Green Energy Union a Green Energy Union.

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