European New Deal

One country that symbolised the crisis of the last 10 years was Greece. Its insolvency embarked the country on a long regime of bail-outs and austerity. This August, Greece officially emerged from the crisis, with the OECD forecasting GDP growth again. So, did the austerity work? The former Greek finance minister and co-founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM) remains unconvinced.

The Left must adopt a new, credible EU policy agenda: It’s time to explain how the bloc, and the euro, could be run differently, democratically and sustainably

Italy’s recent political crisis has at once confirmed the European Union’s unsustainability and the left’s impotence.

Ladies and gentlemen, the main reason for being here tonight is to use, in our capacity as the Democracy in Europe Movement – DiEM25 -, to press whatever resources we have into the service of healing the rift between progressive Remainers and progressive Leavers. We have enough divisions in the UK, we have enough divisions in the EU, we do not need another one along the lines of Brexit. Yes, we at DiEM25 campaigned, along with Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Caroline Lucas and others for a radical remain. But I am not here, tonight, as a Remainer.

Join economist and Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) co-founder Yanis Varoufakis for a keynote talk on the economic force that has shaped our world: globalisation.

ATHENS – Greece’s never-ending public-debt saga has come to signify the European Union’s inept handling of its inevitable eurozone crisis. Eight years after its bankruptcy, the Greek state’s persistent insolvency remains an embarrassment for Europe’s officialdom. That seems to be why, after having declared the euro crisis over in the rest of Europe, the authorities seem determined to declare final victory on the Greek front, too.

Back in 1991, a left-wing friend expressed his frustration that “really existing socialism” was crumbling, with exaltations of how it had propelled the Soviet Union from the plough to Sputnik in a decade.

I remember replying, under his pained and disapproving gaze: “So, what? No unsustainable system can be, ultimately, sustained.” Now that globalization is also proving unsustainable, and is in retreat, its liberal cheerleaders resemble my friend when they proffer similarly correct, yet irrelevant, exaltations of how it lifted billions from poverty.

Listen to this insightful one hour-long discussion on democracy’s discontents in Europe and the United States between two economists who, in 2015, worked together to restore democracy in a small European country while helping its people escape debt-bondage. Here they discuss those events as well as the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25) that is now taking the fight for democracy to every corner of Europe. [Click here for the podcast.]

The American New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt’s first two terms combined the goals of financial stabilization, reconstruction, conservation, and employment—jobs for the jobless; public works; power systems and new industries, especially in the South; soil conservation and reforestation to battle the Dust Bowl; and a potent mix of regulations and insurance to assert public power over high finance.