English

One Schulz does not a federation make: Comment on Martin Schulz’s belated federalist speech

Isn’t it remarkable how establishment European politicians speak common sense once they have lost power and are about to begin their long slide into oblivion? Martin Schulz just copied that pattern with his passionate federalist speech and his pronouncement that “the EU cannot afford another four years of German European policy à la Wolfgang Schäuble”.

BBC1 Question Time, debating Trump, Brexit bill, UK regional development & Yemen, 30th November 2017

David Dimbleby presents topical debate from Scarborough, with a panel including Conservative MP and prisons minister Sam Gyimah, Labour’s Chuka Umunna, Ukip’s new leader Henry Bolton, deputy editor of The Sunday Times, Sarah Baxter and the economist and Yanis Varoufakis, DiEM25 co-founder & former finance minister of Greece.
For the whole program watch below:

A Tale of Two Faltering Unions (UK and EU); and what DiEM25 proposes in response – Address at the Oxford Guild, Oxford University, 28/11/2017 (Audio + Full Transcript)

Yanis Varoufakis, co-founder of DiEM25, former Minister of Finance for Greece and high profile economist, academic and writer, addressed The Oxford Guild  on Tuesday 28th November in the Said Business School Amphitheatre. He discussed the state of the European Union, of the United Kingdom, the political landscape globally and the political/economic/social agenda of DiEM25 across the EU and the UK. The event was organised in association with the Economics Society and was free and open to all.

Keynote on ‘Europe and its Neighbours’, Chatham House event at the Royal Society of the Arts, London – 20th November 2017 (audio), followed by conversation with Quentin Peele

“Britain is a great democracy imperilled by the delusion that it is a great power. The EU is a great power imperilled by the delusion that it is a great democracy. To stabilise our common neighbourhood, in the East, the Middle-East and Africa, both Europe and the UK must overcome their delusions and work toward simulating a federation.”

 
 

Adults in the Room – reviewed by C. Collier for Brave New Europe

How far should economists engage in day-to-day politics?

“Researchers have an obligation to society to take positions on questions on which they have acquired professional competence,” says French economist Jean Tirole[1]. But how does an academic do this when media are not, in Tirole’s words, his ‘natural habitat’?

My ‘Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A brief history of capitalism” reviewed by Ireland’s finance minister

It is not often that one’s book is reviewed by a sitting finance minister. But these are strange times.

On 4th November Ireland’s finance minister Paschal Donohoe took the trouble to review my ‘Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A brief history of capitalism” for The Irish Times. To my utter surprise, he had some exceptionally complimentary things to say about my little book, for which I am – naturally – grateful.