Dialogue - Page 24 of 39

Plan B: A Parallel Banking System Devised by Yanis Varoufakis

Much has been debated about the Plan B that would lead Greece into previously uncharted waters of a so called ‘Grexit’. The Alexis Tsipras-headed government had the very same scenario prepared, according to the ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who led the negotiations with the Eurozone leaders and the “Institutions”. Varoufakis, in a teleconference call on July 16, alleged that his boss had given him the go-ahead to create a parallel banking system.

The challenges of adequate minimum income in Europe

Minimum Income Schemes (MIS) are defined as “income support schemes which provide a safety net for those who cannot work or access a decent job and are not eligible for social insurance payments or those whose entitlements to these have expired”. They should therefore not be confused with the concept of minimum wage.

The Price of Looking the Other Way

By Deniz Torcu

According to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Turkey is aware of the necessity to foster the linkages between political stability, economic welfare and cultural harmony in order to attain sustainable global peace.” While promoting the notion of “zero problems”, what Turkey has in fact achieved over the past decade under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has been the creation of new problems and the rupture of long-lived alliances in the Middle East, such as the alliance with Israel.

Germany: The key problem of the EU crisis?

Dialogue , Op-ed
20 July, 2015

By Viktor Sukup

In the endless Greek crisis and the recipes supposedly designed to overcome it, Germany—whose Chancellor began by imposing the IMF’s participation—is the main hardliner pretending to “have the “Eurozone rules respected”.

A Carthaginian Peace for Greece

By Deniz Torcu

As of July the 13th, following tense negotiations, Eurozone leaders have reached an agreement for the new Greek bailout. A few days ago, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras proposed an austerity plan which was nearly identical to the very one that the Greek people vetoed in the July 5th referendum. The Greek proposal includes strict measures like a unified VAT rate of 23%, elimination of discounts on islands, incrementation and/or adjustment of corporate income and property tax rates, abolition of subsidies for farmers, introduction of penalties for early retirement, privatization of state-owned companies, etc.

The UK Budget and the Politics of Language

By David Yarrow

No language is neutral. When we discuss economic life, we are constantly cutting up an immensely complex and messy reality into manageable concepts and stories in a way which necessarily foregrounds certain assumptions and relegates others to the background. In the process, some policy responses are normalised as common sense while alternatives are rendered unthinkable. How we talk about the economy frames how we understand and visualise it, and we must attend to the way in which language performs often implicit ideological work.

This cannot be a German Europe…

The fight about Greece’s bailout deal that is taking place within the Eurozone and the EU is not just about the sums of money that Greece may or may not get, and the reforms that it may or may not implement in return. There is a deeper fight about the nature of the European project and even the soul of Europe that cannot be ignored.

Open letter by top economists to Merkel on Greece

By Thomas Piketty, Jeffrey Sachs, Dani Rodrik, Heiner Flassbeck and Simon Wren-Lewis

The never-ending austerity that Europe is force-feeding the Greek people is simply not working. Now Greece has loudly said no more.

Tunisie: comment éviter que le terrorisme succède au printemps arabe?

The author of this article is a Muslim woman in her mid 40s, of Algerian nationality but resident in France since her youth, who prefers her identity not to be disclosed.

L’Egypte et la Tunisie ont pour point commun de ne pas avoir adopté de régime islamiste au lendemain du printemps arabe. Issue prévisible ou non de leur révolution ; le premier semble avoir voulu retourner au conservatisme militaire, sans doute du fait de la tournure dramatique qu’y a prit le printemps arabe, révélant ainsi un manque de préparation citoyenne au changement.

Why Europe needs a new global strategy

By Ewald Wermuth, Giovanni Grevi, Dirk Messner, Kevin Watkins and Teresa Ribera

The challenges facing Europe today have global implications and require global solutions. From the Greek crisis to migration and climate change, the EU must seek answers beyond its borders.