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While progress towards a more resilient financial system has undoubtedly been achieved at EU level, it remains nonetheless much too incomplete. The challenge is all the more significant as our system, more than ever, remains dominated by banks that are too big or too interconnected to fail and therefore too dangerous to exist.

The analysis and publication by journalists of previously confidential data from known tax havens – widely known as “Offshore Leaks” – has excited media interest around the world.

If we want to put finance on a leash with smart regulation, Greens must take the wind out of their opponent’s sails by having policies that simultaneously unleash finance and restore lending into the real economy and, above all, into a green industrial transformation.

The idea that the peripheral countries were the authors of their own destruction continues to exist at European level. However a closer examination of the facts shows this is not the case, and an urgent reprioritisation of EU policies is needed.

In Autumn 2013 the Green Party of England and Wales voted to adopt a motion that would remove the power of banks to create money, and return that power to a democratically accountable part of the state. But what is money?

The ongoing crisis, caused by excessive global debt, saw only financial institutions being protected. For life to come before debt we need to build an alternative to this out-of-control financial system.

An interview with David Graeber, who was in Brussels last October at the invitation of the Committee for the Cancellation of Third World Debt to present the translation of his latest book: Debt, The First 5,000 Years.

In the dismal reality of the deepening financial crisis in the European Union, exploiting the natural environment is seen by troubled member states as a quick-fix solution for rapid economic recovery. Following decades of massive spending on an unsustainable economic and development model, the EU’s policy response is essentially a recipe for a much deeper and longer-term environmental crisis.

Over the past decades, markets have invested in damaging industries such as fossil fuels and financial speculation. This has contributed to unsustainable development, and may well be creating an enormous ‘carbon bubble’. However, there are steps we can take to stop this bubble turning into another subprime-style crisis.

The topic of greening the economic and financial system is broad and daunting. However breaking it down into a few key questions can highlight the steps that we as Greens must urgently take to reign in the financial industry.