English

The left-wing party’s embrace of austerity created the conditions for a parasitic and cruel oligarchy to return
The Greek right is back: greedier, uglier and more focused than ever. The incoming New Democracy government is determined to reclaim full control of the state on behalf of the most parasitic segment of Greece’s oligarchy and, of course, of our country’s ruthless creditors.

Greece’s Tories, the New Democracy party and its leader, Mr Kyriakos Mitsotakis, today are the victors in our general election. However, their victory that was set in motion on the night of the referendum (5th July 2015) by Mr Tsipras, the outgoing Prime Minister.

To read DiEM25’s Green New Deal and join the many, including 18 parties from 13 countries, that have ‘taken the pledge’, click here.

Amid the bad results for the Left in the European elections, the Greek outcome was particularly poignant. In the last such contest in 2014, Syriza rode the revolt against austerity to become the largest single party, in its final step toward national office. Five years later, in last month’s election, it finished ten points behind the right-wing New Democracy.

Theresa May’s sequence of strategic errors has rendered impossible a soft Brexit. By adopting red lines consistent solely with a hard Brexit, while denying herself the option of walking out without a deal, the Prime Minister engineered the current stalemate. Now, Mrs May is about to bequeath a poisoned chalice to her successor.

“We showed Europeans how a common agenda can be put together collaboratively by many political actors coalescing from all over Europe. How a common list of candidates, in support of this common agenda, can emerge. How we can campaign across Europe, together, under the banner of this agenda. In the months and weeks leading to 26th May, I have had the distinct privilege of campaigning with all of you in Paris, in Brussels, across Italy and the UK, in Denmark, in Portugal and, of course, in Greece and in Germany.

Nothing has ever been subtle with Yanis Varoufakis, the leather-jacketed, motorbike-riding economist who was finance minister of Greece for six of the most tumultuous months in that country’s history. Plain-spoken (to say the least) and a self-professed radical, he is, at 58, not nearly done waging war on Europe’s major power players.

ATHENS – The eurozone country that has become synonymous with insolvency is today proving to be a treasure-trove for some. Traders who bought Greek assets a few years ago have good reason to celebrate, having banked returns that no other market could have provided. But, as is often the case, an opportunity that seems too good to be true probably is. And this one could portend the next phase of our global crisis.

Forget the People’s Vote: the upcoming elections for European Parliament have become the new second referendum. To one side, Nigel Farage hopes to gather the Leave vote behind his new Brexit Party. To the other, a splintered coalition of Greens, Changers, Lib Dems, and Labour candidates are campaigning for Remain. Both sides agree on the primary purpose of these European elections: “vote so you can be heard on Brexit.”