Thread by @SMiltim

@videotroph As a Southern European I have come to realize that the EU project is a project that, by design, relegates our economies to a subservient role in the international division of labor. We are limited to providing holiday resorts and low value added assembly in the automobile sector.

@videotroph No industrial policy is allowed within the limitations of the treaties. State led initiatives are watched with suspicion. Deficit rules make investment in science and technology a luxury that we cannot afford.

@videotroph In the 1980s South Korea and Spain were similar nations in terms of population, GDP and degree of technological development. Then Spain joined the EU which was part of a "modernization" project.

@videotroph Today South Korea is a success story, Spain is one of the World champions of unemployment.

SK pursued an active industrial policy. Spain was forced to dismantle most of its industry.

fundacionsistema.com/otro-modelo-de…

@videotroph Most of Spain is suffering population loss & demographic ageing. Industries and services are shutting down. Only areas that are linked to German industry value chains, tourism & some financial services still thrive.

@videotroph But tourism is a terrible industry: it destroys the landscape, it is environmentally unsustainable and it creates low quality, poorly paid, temporary jobs. This article shows the social disaster it has created in the Canary Islands. blogs.publico.es/kaostica/2019/…

@videotroph Spain cannot afford to consider a Green New Deal. Any response to the climate change challenge will come in the form of pigouvian taxes and industry subsidies that will contribute to create more social exclusion, loss of jobs and a decline in the living standards of most people.

@videotroph The most talented youth are leaving the country. My own children have already left the country for the UK. Probably without a return ticket. Youth here only get poorly paid jobs or are unemployed.

@videotroph MMT helps understand why monetary sovereignty matters. We could push for a European fiscal authority. But I WILL NOT.

@videotroph The EU, even with a fiscal authority, will never be a democratic institution. It will always be at the service of capitalist oligarchies. The common people will never have an audible voice in the Brussels of powerful corporate lobbies.

@videotroph I will fight for getting out of the Eurozone AND the EU. I know that years of propaganda have made the EU popular in Spain and that my position is a minority one.

@videotroph But for me regaining monetary sovereignty is national liberation project. It's about providing good, decent jobs to everyone.

@videotroph My position is very distant from xenophobic jingoism. I simply cannot regain any sympathy for a multilateral organization that has created enormous social suffering, intentionally.

@videotroph I observe that all the major political parties who uncritically support the "European project" are infested with Neoliberal economists. They cannot and will not change the idiosyncrasy of the EU.

@videotroph A new political party inspired by MMT with serious GND, industrial policy and R&D programs and a radical social agenda is needed. This party cannot be in favor of reforming what cannot.

@videotroph And this party can never be Europeanist. It has to be internationalist. We have to develop our strong links to Europe, yes, but also to Africa, the Middle East, America, the Philippines. Global cooperation and solidarity with all the peoples of the Earth.

@videotroph The European project is a creature of the cold war and American imperialism of the post war era. It has evolved into a Neoliberal Monster that spawns racism, far right ideology and inequality. It has also become an imperial project. It needs to be dismantled.