EUROLEAKS

The Eurogroup approved a 500 billion package to fight the crisis. You recently wrote in the Guardian that The EU’s coronavirus relief deal is a gift to Europe’s enemies. Explain.

To begin with, the 500 billion euros is almost entirely loans. It’s exactly what Europe doesn’t need, especially like the countries that were hit the hardest, like Italy or Spain or Greece, which have the least capacity to have the necessary increase in public debt.

The lack of EU help for the states hardest hit by COVID-19 is the latest sign of the hollowness of “European solidarity.” As Yanis Varoufakis tells Jacobin, the European Union’s institutions are hardwired to ignore the needs of the social majority — preferring to allow mass suffering than to change their own rules.

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss Greek former Minister of Finance and Secretary-General of left-wing political party MeRA25, Yanis Varoufakis’ Euroleaks audio file release.
Varoufakis leaked audio recordings of secretive Eurogroup talks with Greece during a tense negotiation for debt relief and restructuring.