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Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has called on the European Union to reform its institutions and use the EIB to boost investment in Greece. He believes the EU should address the structural inequalities that plague its weakest members. EurActiv France reports.

The annual forum of the Institute for New Economic Thinking on 9 April provided a hospitable stage for Yanis Varoufakis to explicate his vision of economic theory, and the European economy. The government minister, and professor of economics, found himself the centre of attention at the Paris forum, and took the time to explain his strategy in detail, as a crucial payment deadline loomed over his country's finances.

"Few finance ministers have such a talent for economics as Yanis Varoufakis," the Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz acknowledged, before asking him questions on the reasons behind Europe's economic deadlock.

Founding fathers to blame for lack of eurozone integration

"I believe we have to put an end to the divided eurozone and aim towards greater consolidation. We must change this process of pitting one nation against another, and renew the momentum of integration and unification," the new minister said. He added that he would not be there talking about the Greek crisis if the EU had been federalised.

Yanis Varoufakis blames the EUs incomplete federal integration on the fact that its founding fathers, including the pillars of European politics Franois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, did not believe in their power to create a United States of Europe. They established an economic and monetary union in the hope that cooperation between the states would get closer over time, and they thought the political union would come about naturally in a time of crisis.

"But the opposite has happened. The crisis that hit Europe means that it is now more difficult to convince the states to move forward. The crisis did not bring us together, but pulled us apart. If we tried to form a United States of Europe today, we would fail. But I think we need to modify the treaties and try to change this situation," the professor said.

How would the federation have responded?

The Greek finance minister argued that a federal Europe would have reacted differently to the crisis, which brought about debt, the collapse of the banking system, under-investment, and an explosion of poverty.

He said that member states' debts were preventing them from making the investments necessary for their future, but that strategic interventions from the European Investment Bank (EIB) could help.

Excerpt from:
Varoufakis steals the show at economic forum