15.02.2016
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Introduction: 

Europe gets pulverized by authoritarianism and incompetence, says Yanis Varoufakis on Kontext TV. The lack of democracy has been responsible for the economic disaster in the EU. In the U.S. a similar situation with unemployment rates still at 11 - 12 % would have led to the fall of the government while the bureaucrats got fired. Not so in the EU where the opposite is true. The "comedy of errors" goes on since all important decisions are made in backrooms by unaccountable EU representatives. The group „Democracy in Europa Movement 2025“ (DiEM25), recently co-founded by Varoufakis wants to prevent the collapse of the EU by a collective push for democratization.

Guests: 

Yanis Varoufakis: Former Finance Minister of Greece and Co-Founder of "Democracy in Europe Movement 2025" (DiEM25)

The lack of democracy has been responsible for the economic disaster in the EU, says Yanis Varoufakis. In the U.S. a similar situation with unemployment rates still at 11 - 12 % would have led to the fall of the government while the bureaucrats got fired. Not so in the EU where the opposite is true. The "comedy of errors" goes on since all important decisions are made in backrooms by unaccountable EU representatives like in the Euro working group. The cartel of interests behind it must be stopped to prevent a crash and an ever widening gap between public opinion and politics. And: Corporations should pay their taxes in Europe. "The reason why we have democracy in Germany, in Britain, in Greece, in the United States is because capitalism without democracy is a very uncivilized system. In which life is nasty, brutish and short."

Varoufakis is co-founder of DiEM25 - Democracy in Europe Movement 2025. The movement wants to provide a platform for democratizing the EU. The movement has three core demands: transparency of the EU institutions, re-deployment of these institutions to serve the people and forming a European constitution through a general assembly. For Varoufakis a first cost-free step would be to live stream the meetings of the Euro group, Ecofin group and European council. The minutes of the ECB should also be published. Furthermore the EU institutions must be re-deployed to make them work again. "So the ECB instead of buying bonds which is depressing the pension funds it could be buying European Investment Bank bonds to finance a Green New Deal for Europe." But there were no democratic institutions to engage in this kind of policy as the EU parliament is only a pretended parliament without legislative powers. Also missing is a constitution. Varoufakis: "Without a constitution we can't have a single market that functions and which creates economic outcomes which are consistent with shared prosperity and shared democracy."

The Crash of the EU ist already going on, says Varoufakis. The Schengen system of open borders is collapsing. Politicians are on the one side demanding Turkey to open its borders for refugees coming from Syria while on the other side they push Greece to shut down its borders to Turkey. "What do they want to do? Do they want the Greek Navy to shoot refugees when they are coming in? Or do they want a member state of the European Union to create a concentration camp for refugees, because we don't want them to go to Paris?" The impression of a "disintegrating European Union" is also dominating the economic situation. The banking sector of the EU is fragmented and driven by destructive imbalances. "Our politicians are calling something a banking union which is not a banking union. So we have a subterfuge. We have a campaign of disinformation about what we're doing. Orwellian. We take a disunion in banks and we call it union. And people out there think, 'Oh, now we have a banking union'. We don't! So this is the disintegration in real-time in front of us."