Varoufakis: 'Prepayment of business tax must be abolished, so investments may return'

MeRA25 party leader Yanis Varoufakis said that both "New Democracy and SYRIZA are tied up to the lenders-set primary surplus targets, who persist in them to perpetuate the charade that (Greece's) public debt is sustainable," speaking to Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) on Sunday.

He argued that "unless the full prepayment of business tax is abolished, the recession, the migration of people and businesses will not stop and real investments will not arrive."

On university asylum law, which the New Democracy just amended, he said "the government is not interested in public universities, otherwise it would have accepted MePA25's proposal to set up a University Asylum Protection Agency, which would be accountable to the university community."

He claimed that Greece's health-social insurance system is unsustainable and proposes boosting it with resources coming from the conversion of the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (TAIPED) into a New Development Bank, taxing banks 0.2 pct on loans they receive and increasing minimum wage, in combination with the abolition of the prepayment of business tax.

Referring to his party's cooperation with the British Labor Party, Varoufakis said the problems of Greeks "are common to other people's: non-serviceable loans, low wages, under-employment, poverty, climate change," and said these issues require (wider) co-operation. The MeRA25 leader noted this collaboration will be expanded in the context of the Progressive International, a global organization bringing together left-wing activists and initiatives, launched by the Sanders Institute and DiEM25 last year in the US.