Yanis states that

1) Barcelona has a big budget surplus. It does not. It had a big cumulative deficit because of in three years following the crisis but had turned the corner by 2013. In 2015, the surplus was pretty small but 2016 was better. However, increase uncertainty is likely to reverse the picture over the next couple of years.

All this has nothing to do with Brussels. 2009 was a deficit year for Barcelona. Thus it couldn't have been the fault of 'mishandling on the Eurozone crisis' in the subsequent year.

2) The EU somehow 'effectively banned' any reduction in surplus. Yet in 2015, the surplus fell by a lot. What Varoufakis is talking about is an accounting impossibility and has no relationship to the facts.

3) Ada Colau built 'excellent housing facilities' for 15,000 refugees. This is not true at all. Some extra 2000 housing units for the indigenous homeless is a realistic claim. Had Colau built 15,000 units there would have been a deficit not a surplus of the 2016 level.

4) EU officials have not demanded the removal of elected officials. Varoufakis thinks the head of the Eurogroup is an EU official. He is wrong. It is an informal group- none of its members are EU officials. That is why it was able to meet without him. He complained but actual EU officials told him that the Eurogroup was not an official EU body at all. A Dutch politician can tell a Greek politician anything he likes and vice versa. Informal groups can function informally. Why does Varoufakis still not understand this? After all, he was once a member of the Eurogroup. But he wasn't an EU official was he? No. He was a Greek politician- an incompetent one, who resigned and didn't stand again for election.



Let us now look at Varoufakis's proposals.

1) EU Treaties should be amended. Surely it's a good thing to amend Treaties? The answer is no. A Treaty which is constantly being amended guarantees nothing. It does not decrease uncertainty. It adds noise to signal. Furthermore, the procedure for amendment requires unanimity, which means rent-seeking by hold outs, and even in its 'simplified form' is subject to precisely the sorts of 'conditionality' which Varoufakis has been fulmining against.



2) Amended EU treaties should enshrine the right of regional governments and city councils, like Catalonia’s and Barcelona’s, to fiscal autonomy and even to their own fiscal money. They could also be allowed to implement their own policies on refugees and migration. Wow! So if a city council, has a high concentration of a particular ethnic minority or religious or ideological sect, it should have the right to recruit itself through migration. Suppose, the Nazi Party takes control of a particular City Council. It should be allowed to bring in Nazis from all over the world. It should also have right to 'fiscal autonomy'- punitive taxes on Jews or non Aryans, for example- and also its own 'fiscal money'- featuring Swastikas and images of Adolf Hitler.



3) EU should have 'a code of conduct for secession. For example, the EU could stipulate that it will sanction an independence referendum if the regional government requesting it has already won an election on such a platform with an absolute majority of the voters. Moreover, the referendum should be held at least one year after the election, to allow for a proper, sober debate.' Wonderful! So the EU suddenly gets the power to sanction referendums does it? From where? Either the country affected vetoes it or else the EU is irrelevant because the country wants the secession to go through.

What about this notion of 'proper, sober, debate'? Is there any evidence that referendums have ever, anywhere, been associated with any such thing? What is to prevent a liar and a fantasist from contributing to the debate? Or should the EU have a 'gag Varoufakis's ilk' Law preventing 'improper, un-sober, debate'?



4) In Varoufakis's plan for Europe, there will be a lot of new states, which the new states which 'should be obligated to maintain at least the same level of fiscal transfers as before. Rich Veneto could secede from Italy, for example, as long as it maintained its fiscal transfers to the South. Moreover, the new state should be prohibited from erecting new borders and be compelled to guarantee its residents the right to triple citizenship (new state, old state, and European).' A 'should' statement is only meaningful if the thing 'could' be done. What Varoufakis is talking about is infeasible. The EU has no machinery to force fiscal transfers. All it can do is make them itself out of its own budget. But the burden of these transfers will fall upon all areas of the continent which pay in more than they take out. There is no way to force Veneto to pay more than some German or French area with a similar Economic structure.



Why was the EU set up? Was it so that Nation States could be dissolved? No. It was so that Nation States could grow stronger by reason of no longer having to worry about loss of territory. Catalan separatism shows that poorer European countries have misplaced their faith in Europe. That is why the Visegrad states are on a collision course with Merkel and Macron. pan-European Democracy may sound good but, in practice, it would mean a revival or irredentism, Balkanisation and relatively prosperous 'City States' going their own way. This is a return to the Middle Ages.



A pan-European Democracy means anarchy unless Europe has the monopoly of legitimate coercion- i.e. an Army and Police stronger than any possible hostile combination- in which case it would have a Rule of Law. But, without such an Army and Police force, there might be some sham appearance of a pan-European Democracy- people like Varoufakis making silly speeches- but there would be nothing but gangsterism and anarchy on the ground. Soon enough, economic collapse would put an end to the sham. Genuine gangsters- not Bankers- will pick up the pieces.

A Europe 'worth saving' is a Europe which saves for a rainy day- instead of handing out money to stupid, corrupt, profligates on any excuse. Varoufakis has got it into his head that rich areas can somehow be hoodwinked into handing over cash to poor areas. Things don't work that way. Rich areas pretend to give money to poor areas while exploiting them remorselessly. In practice this means taking the smartest of their young people like a modern Pied Piper leaving behind demographic and infrastructural collapse.