New York.- The leader of SYRIZA, Greece’s left-wing parliamentary opposition party will address the future of Greece and the Eurozone during a seminar at Columbia Law School on Jan. 24 organized by a coalition of students groups.

SYRIZA head Alexis Tsipras is at the forefront of Europe’s debt crisis. He and other top members of SYRIZA are in New York to speak about the party’s plans for national governance. During a May 2012 interview with The Guardian, Tsipras described the financial crisis as “a war between peoples and capitalism, and Greece is on the frontline of that war.”

In addition to Tsipras and his colleagues, leading international experts in finance and economics will also comment on SYRIZA’s proposals during the public seminar.

The event is part of the Modern Money and Public Purpose series presented by a consortium of Columbia student organizations, including the Columbia Workers’ Rights Student Coalition. The series was conceived and developed by Columbia Law School students M. Jonathan Brice ’14 and Rohan Grey’ 14 as a way to present new perspectives and progressive policy proposals on a range of contemporary issues facing the U.S. and the global macroeconomy.

“SYRIZA has stated that it rejects austerity but embraces European solidarity,” said Grey about the upcoming event. “We look forward to discussing how the party plans to maintain this delicate balance while improving the economic situation in Greece.”

The SYRIZA event is co-sponsored by the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College; the Institute for New Economic Thinking; the Columbia Law School Center for Global Legal Transformation, directed by Professor Katharina Pistor—a panelist; the Columbia Richman Center for Business, Law and Public Policy; and the Columbia Hellenic Association.

The event will take place Jan. 24 at 6:00 p.m. in room 102 of Jerome Greene Hall, Columbia Law School. It will be streamed live on the web at: http://bit.ly/UNAFo1.

For more information, please visit http://www.modernmoneyandpublicpurpose.com/special-event-syriza.html

For press registration, contact Rohan Grey at rlg2143@columbia.edu.

The SYRIZA event is co-sponsored by the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College; the Institute for New Economic Thinking; the Columbia Law School Center for Global Legal Transformation, directed by Professor Katharina Pistor—a panelist; the Columbia Richman Center for Business, Law and Public Policy; and the Columbia Hellenic Association.

THE PROGRAM

The Columbia University Hellenic Association, Levy Economics Institute, Institute for New Economic Thinking, Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law and Public Policy and Center for Global Legal Transformation  Proudly Present:

Special Event: An evening with syriza on greece and the eurozone

Part of the 2012-2013 Seminar Series on Contemporary Issues in Law and Political Economics organized by the Workers’ Rights Student Coalition

Time & Date: 6.00pm, Thursday January 24, 2013.

Synopsis: An evening with top leadership of SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left), Greece’s leading opposition party, to discuss the challenges facing Greece and the Eurozone and SYRIZA’s vision for economic and financial reform. This event builds on the series’ earlier seminar, Design Defects and Policy Failures: An Institutional Analysis of the Eurozone Crisis.

Location: Room 102, Jerome Greene Hall, Columbia Law School.

Cost: Free

Registration: Please pre-register here. Pre-registration is required but does not guarantee attendance in the event of oversubscription. For press registration, please email Rohan Grey.

Participants: More information can be found here.

Broadcasting: The seminar will be live-streamed here, and live-tweeted by @thepublicmoney under the hashtags #mmpp and #syriza.

Program

6.00pm-6.05pm – Welcome

Rohan Grey (Moderator), J.D. Candidate 2014 & Co-Organizer, Modern Money and Public Purpose Seminar Series

6.05pm-6.15pm – Introduction

Alexis Tsipras MP, Leader of the Opposition in Greek Parliament, Leader of SYRIZA and President of Synaspismós

6.15pm -7.30pm – redesign: structural solutions to the eurozone crisis

Panelists:

Rena Dourou, Member of Greek Parliament (SYRIZA); Critic of the Opposition for the Foreign Relations and European Issues

Yiannis Milios, Economic Advisor, SYRIZA, Member of the Political Secretariat of Synaspismos and Professor of Political Economy, National Technical University of Athens

Mathew Forstater, Professor of Economics and Director, Center for Full Employment and Price Security, University of Missouri – Kansas City

Katharina Pistor, Professor of Law and Director, Center for Global Legal Transformation, Columbia Law School

Thomas Ferguson, Director of Research Programs, the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)

7.30pm-7.35pm – Break

7:35pm-8.50pm – Next Steps: A progressive agenda for greece’s economy

Panelists:

George Stathakis, Member of Greek Parliament (SYRIZA), Critic of the Opposition for the Economy and Professor of Political Economy, University of Crete

Yiannis Milios, Economic Advisor, SYRIZA, Member of the Political Secretariat of Synaspismos and Professor of Political Economy, National Technical University of Athens

Rania Antonopolous, Senior Scholar and Director, Gender Equality and the Economy Program, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research

Helen Ginsburg, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Brooklyn College, City University of New York and Co-Founder, National Jobs for All Coalition.

8.50pm-9.10pm – discussion

Alexis Tsipras MP, Leader of the Opposition in Greek Parliament, Leader of SYRIZA and President of Synaspismós

9.10-9.15pm – Concluding Remarks

Jonathan Brice, J.D. Candidate 2014 & Co-Organizer, Modern Money and Public Purpose Seminar Series