The Telegraph — Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s former finance minister, said there is no reason to celebrate the the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the accord that spawned the European Union.
“(The summit) is a wake that is being portrayed as a celebration,” he told The Telegraph in Rome, on the eve of the meeting which brings together 27 EU leaders but not Theresa May.
“In the collective consciousness of the majority of Europeans, the EU’s legitimacy has died. We are keen to revive it. We are not Euro-sceptics but what the establishment is doing will only accelerate the disintegration of the EU.”
Asked if he thought the British decision to leave the EU was sensible in light of the failings of Brussels, he said: “I campaigned vigorously in Britain before the vote, trying to convince my audience of two contradictory views – that the EU leaves a great deal to be desired and is in a serious state of disrepair, but that the people of Britain should have stayed to join the rest of us across Europe in trying to fix it.”
The 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome should have been a time of celebration, but instead “the idea of Europe is in retreat and the EU is in an advanced state of disintegration.”
“Europeans watching on their TV screens their leaders celebrating here in Rome will be asking themselves: what exactly are they celebrating? Their business-as-usual approach, which is fanning the flames of xenophobic nationalism? It is not at all clear what they are in Rome for,” the economics professor said.
Mr Varoufakis compared Europe’s current political and economic crisis to the early 1930s. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, liberals and conservatives failed to come together and Europe “fell into the abyss”. “Europe is disintegrating and we have, at most, a decade to save it,” he said.
