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About Yanis Varoufakis

Yanis Varoufakis is the former finance minister of Greece, Professor of Economics at the University of Athens and Visiting Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of The Global Minotaur (Zed Books). His blog is here.

Yanis Varoufakis es ex-ministro de Finanzas de Grecia, profesor de economía en la Universidad de Atenas y profesor visitante en el Lyndon B. Johnson Graduate School of Public Affairs, Universidad de Texas, Austin. Es el autor de The Global Minotaur (Zed Books). Su blog está aquí.

Articles by Yanis Varoufakis

This week's editor

En Liang Khong is openDemocracy’s assistant editor.

Digital Liberties

How to fight for digital human rights?

European integration

Six countries. Six different paths to EU integration.

No to TTIP

The secretive EU-US trade deal explained

Brexit Britain: what went wrong and what next? Panel 1

Mary Kaldor, Yanis Varoufakis, Owen Jones, Zoe Gardner, and Ash Sarkar 11 October 2016

A discussion on why Britain voted for Brexit and what radical remainers should do now. (Video, 80 mins).

...the reply

Yanis Varoufakis 4 October 2016

Yanis Varoufakis responds to Alexis Cukier and Patrick Surain, who challenged him on his time as Greek finance minister, the feasibility of reforming existing EU structures, and a left-wing exit from the EU. Read 'the challenge' here.

Democratising Europe – a transnational project?

Yanis Varoufakis, Anthony Barnett, Rosemary Bechler, and Alex Sakalis 13 September 2016

What role does national self-determination and 'self-government’ play in European and human emancipation today? Yanis Varoufakis replies for DiEM25.

Europe’s left after Brexit: DiEM25’s perspective

Yanis Varoufakis 9 September 2016

Varoufakis replies to Tariq Ali, Stathis Kouvelakis, Vicente Navarro and Stefano Fassina on the role of the national level in the inevitable clash with the EU establishment and current practices.

The IMF confesses it immolated Greece on behalf of the Eurogroup

Yanis Varoufakis 5 August 2016

What good is it to have a mea culpa if those officials who imposed such disastrous, inhuman policies remain on board and are, in fact, promoted for their gross incompetence?

A painful lesson from Brexit: Why DiEM25 needs a simpler message

Brian Eno and Yanis Varoufakis 4 July 2016

The facts are simple: for the past three decades, 80% of the people are taken to the cleaners 95% of the time by the top 20% of society.

"The EU’s disintegration is now running at full speed." - Yanis Varoufakis comments on the results of the UK referendum

Yanis Varoufakis 24 June 2016

OUT won because the EU establishment have made it impossible, through their anti-democratic reign (not to mention the asphyxiation of weaker countries like Greece), for the people of Britain to imagine a democratic EU.

'We crave change! We are campaigning for change! We are working to tear up the status quo!'

Yanis Varoufakis 31 May 2016

Yanis Varoufakis' speech from the Another Europe is Possible event in London. (Video)

Anthony Barnett in conversation with Yanis Varoufakis

Yanis Varoufakis and Anthony Barnett 30 May 2016

openDemocracy founder Anthony Barnett discusses DiEM25, Brexit and European democracy with Yanis Varoufakis. Recorded at the Another Europe is Possible event in London, 28 May 2016.

DiEM25 in London

Yanis Varoufakis, Mary Kaldor, Zoe Gardner, James Schneider, and Paul Hilder 30 May 2016

A video of the DiEM25 breakout session at the Another Europe is Possible Event in London.

Europe and the spectre of democracy: Michel Feher interviews Yanis Varoufakis

Yanis Varoufakis and Michel Feher 13 May 2016

"Our transnational movement to bring together Europeans has to be energized from the cities to adopt the methods, the narrative, the esprit and the élan of these movements in order to create a potential for reconstituting the dynamics of European progressive politics."

What’s DiEM25, really? Reply to an open letter by Souvlis & Mazzolini

Yanis Varoufakis 10 April 2016

As in the 1930's, it is our duty to reach across party affiliations and borders to create a pan-European movement of democrats (radicals, liberals, even progressive conservatives) opposed to the forces of evil.

Press conference: DiEM25 launched by Yanis Varoufakis and Srecko Horvat

Yanis Varoufakis and Srećko Horvat 12 February 2016

The Democracy in Europe Movement 25 was launched by Yanis Varoufakis at the Volksbühne in Berlin on February 9. Here is a video of the press conference which preceded it.

Yanis Varoufakis, los orígenes de la crisis económica en Europa y en el mundo

Yanis Varoufakis 5 February 2016

acTVism Munich entrevista en este video a Yanis Varoufakis, el economista y político griego mundialmente conocido por su oposición a las políticas de austeridad de la Troika. English

Yanis Varoufakis – the origins of the European and global economic crisis

Yanis Varoufakis 4 February 2016

In this video, acTVism Munich interviews Yanis Varoufakis, a world renowned economist who was a former member of the Greek parliament. Español

An open letter to Yanis Varoufakis from the movements - and his reply

Yanis Varoufakis and John Malamatinas 25 January 2016

"Dear Yanis, a couple of weeks ago, you issued an invitation for the founding of a Pan-European movement against austerity. Since then, I’ve been thinking to respond to you about this in an open letter."

"One very simple, but radical, idea: to democratise Europe." An interview with Yanis Varoufakis

Yanis Varoufakis and Alex Sakalis 25 October 2015

As he prepares to launch a new, pan-European movement for change, Yanis Varoufakis sits down with Can Europe make it? to discuss democracy in Europe, Brexit, and the other part of Plan X.

Why we recommend a NO in the referendum - in 6 short bullet points

Yanis Varoufakis 2 July 2015

The future demands that, with the power vested upon us by that NO, we renegotiate Greece's public debt as well as the distribution of burdens between the haves and the have nots.

Greece’s proposals to end the crisis: my intervention at the Eurogroup

Yanis Varoufakis 19 June 2015

We are never going to ask you to subsidise our state, our wages, our pensions, our public expenditure. The Greek state lives within its means.

“Greece will neither want to leave the euro nor threaten to do so”

Yanis Varoufakis and J. Luis Martin 12 January 2015

When the leader of a political party about to win government offers you the opportunity to implement policies you have been advocating for years, it is pure cowardice to shirk the task. Interview with the soon-to-be new Syriza Finance Minister.

EU centralisation-without-representation: a reply to Frances Coppola, Simon Wren-Lewis and Niall Ferguson

Yanis Varoufakis 6 October 2014

Europeans are against ‘more Europe', because they are against the particular type of authoritarian, anti-democratic political union on offer. It would not after all, be the first time in history that a political ruling class place their preference for more unchecked power ahead of their concern for shared prosperity.

Whither Europe? The Modest Camp vs the Federalist Austerians

Yanis Varoufakis and James Galbraith 11 June 2014

Proposals are multiplying – especially as evidence mounts that the crisis is continuing, despite all the official announcements of its end. Why not save Europe today, so that we can consider, in due course, how best to proceed with deeper, more difficult measures later on?

Open letter to a good friend and colleague

Yanis Varoufakis 28 June 2012

... who happened to become Greece’s Finance Minister yesterday…

Greek election result: an assessment

Yanis Varoufakis 18 June 2012

The New Democracy party will lead the government even though it is utterly clear that at least one in three of the voters who backed it think very little of the party but felt they had no other option. This is as inauspicious a beginning for a new government with a mountain range of challenges as one could have imagined.