The former Minister of Finances Yanis Varoufakis, along with another 18 economists, has signed an open letter calling Europe to support the United Nations’ proposal for the debt restructuring of sovereign states.
In the open letter, the economists argued that Greek crisis has demonstrated how “individual states acting alone cannot negotiate reasonable conditions for the restructuring of their debt within the current political framework, even though these debts are often unsustainable over the long term”.
Furthermore, the economists claim that the negotiations over the summer were a “sham”, which “caused many Europeans to retreat into nationalism and express defiance towards international institutions”.
“Throughout its negotiations with creditor institutions, Greece faced a stubborn refusal to consider any debt restructuring, even though this refusal stood in contradiction to the IMF’s own recommendations” they further explain, before reaffirming that “democratic rights, rather than the dictates of the market, are at the heart of international governance”.
The open letter is singed by Mr. Varoufakis, Thomas Piketty, James Galbraith, Heiner Flassbeck, Martin Guzman, Jacques Généreux, Steve Keen, Gabriel Colletis, Michel Husson, Benjamin Lemoine, Mariana Mazzucato, Robert Salais, Bruno Théret, Xavier Timbeau, Gennaro Zezza, Giovanni Dosi, Engelbert Stockhammer, Ozlem Onaran and François Vatin.
