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Thomas Piketty recently criticised DiEM25’s New Deal for Europe for relying on new debt, rather than new taxes, to fund green investment. James K.

The 2008 global financial crisis — the modern 1929 crash — set off a vicious chain reaction across Europe. By 2010 it had irreparably damaged the foundations of the eurozone, causing the establishment to bend its own rules and commit crimes against logic in order to bail out its banker friends. By 2013 the neoliberal ideology that had legitimised the EU’s oligarchic technocracy had plunged millions into misery, even through the enactment of official policies: socialism for the financiers and harsh austerity for the many.

Demokratie in Europa is DiEM25’s new political party in Germany. Demokratie in Europa is running in the European Parliament election this coming May as part of our EUROPEAN SPRING that is campaigning across Europe on the basis of our transnational NEW DEAL FOR EUROPE.

The lean years are here again, to the apparent satisfaction of Germany’s Finance Minister, a Social Democrat.  The rate of growth of the budgetary surplus was declining, therefore restraining expenditure was the prudent attitude, the public must rest assured that over the next few years 25 billion euros will be saved, the chance of a mildly pro-cyclical switch to austerity will not be missed.  But such is the degree of credibility of prudent handling of the public finances that the markets over-reacted, the Minister had to reassure that all was really not quite so bad, equilibrium of polit

The fact that Italy’s public debt has a lower credit rating than private debt is a reflection not of public debt’s intrinsic inferiority but of a political choice made by European leaders. And, by bolstering an authoritarian politician, that choice is now blowing back on them.

Imagine that we knew the day of our death. Our lives would change drastically. Though we know we shall surely die, not knowing precisely when the mortal coil will be shuffled off makes all the difference, allowing us to live life productively on a day-by-day basis. For exactly the same reason, the fixed deadline embedded in Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty guaranteed that nothing good would come out of the Brexit negotiations.

The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Oxford University, kindly invited me to deliver the 2019 Taylor Lecture on 12th February 2019. I chose the topic of  Realistic Utopias versus Dystopic Realities – my aim being to highlight the manner in which really-existing capitalism is marketed as a utopian science fiction that has nothing to do with… really-existing capitalism. Behind this elegant utopian mathematical the powers-that-be hide a dismal dystopia that is failing humanity in a variety of ways.

Yanis Varoufakis est en campagne. L’ancien ministre grec des Finances, chantre de la lutte contre l’austérité, va se présenter aux élections européennes, en Allemagne. De passage en France, il est l’invité de “L’Interview éco”, lundi 18 février.

Monday 18 February, 20.00, live from Théâtre du Rond-Point. A discussion between Aude Lancelin and Yanis Varoufakis on politics and philosophy. Follow on @LeMediaTV.