I disagree that we should try to replace GDP with one metric. The world is too complicated for that. What we should do instead is look at multiple metrics and have targets for each of those metrics. Doughnut economics is a pretty decent framework for that. It uses consumption limits in form of cliamte change, chemical pollution, biodiversity, land use, water consumption and so forth on one hand and on the other site targets like food security, life expectancy, equality(GINI, but also race and gender), energy, water access and so forth. This is much better as it can be much more easily adapted to changing dangers and the situation. Water is for example much less of a problem for a country like Norway, then for say Iraq. So they would focus on different metrics.
UBI means everybody gets a certain amount of money no questions asked. It does not mean wage work is illegal. In fact most actual plans presume a payment, which is just about enough to cover the basics. So if you want more, you have to work for it. The big advantages is that people are not forced into jobs they hate and it allows everybody to take more risks in terms of say art, starting new companies or working as an independent contractor.
Metrics is one problem. However UBI solves another very real problem. When you shrink GDP, you reduce the material wealth available of the group. UBI makes sure everybody has a certain minimal standard of material wellbeing, so cutting GDP does not hurt the poor, but only the rich. This is one of the differences between degrowing an economy and a recession.
Most living things stop growing at a point or do so much slower. There are systems which do not, like cancer for example. However killing the system you feed off is a bad strategy, if you only have a single one.
Donut economics is maybe a better term for what degrowth wants to achieve. Namely that would be limiting enviromental impact to stay within planetary boundaries while providing a good quality of life for everybody. Other terms are wellbeing economy and so forth trying to grow different more diverse indicators. That is certainly an improvment over using basically only GDP.
As for talking about growth, the key has to be to frame it in a different way. Instead of calling for lower consumption, call for less work instead. Obviously less work leads to lower production, which means lower consumption. However it shows a direct practical advantage which everybody feels directly in their life. In practical terms that would be calls for earlier retirment, shorter work weeks, more vacation time and so forth. That really falls into the problematic framing of the enviromental footprint and consumption. Obviously that is part of the problem, but it pretends that consumers have all the power, when in fact production is mostly controlled by capitalists.
Speaking of capitalists, we always see these statistics comparing countries and then blaiming the wealthy countries for destroying the enviroment. However the much indicator of enviromental damage caused by an individual is their income, rather then their country of origin. That is to say an Indian billionaire is worse for the enviroment then a French mechanic. Obviously wealthy countries have more rich people. However when you have 1% of the global population responsible for 16% of emissions, we know were to start. That is btw more then the share of emissions of the US at 14.6% and a bit more then twice as much as the EUs at 7.9% in 2019, for 77 million people. The top 10% are responsible for 50% of global emissions. Besides some micro nations not country has a majority of its population being a member of the global 10%.
Economic models are bad at predicting the exact time of a recession, but basically all economist can agree that we will have a recession in the future. We had enough of them in the past.
However the point in the article is that we live on a planet with limited resources and resource consumption and the size of the economy are linked. So the idea is that we run out of resources. A good example of that is climate change. We have a limited somewhat save carbon budget and are on the edge of moving past it. This is why we see a massive heat wave in India right now, for example. That heat wave is really bad for the economy. This is one of the ways civilizations have collapsed in the past.
Especially technological investments can very much mean a higher population as well. Say we find a way to easily cure cancer for example. That means people live longer and that means a higher population.
Correct on a per capita bases Portugal has been growing much much faster then Germany. The simple truth it that Germany is not benefiting from austerity either. What should happen is that the German government massively increases spending. This would turn Germany from a net exporter, to a net importer. That allows the PIIGS to export products to Germany paying down the debt, but it also stimulates the economy. Germany profits from the increased spending as well.
The simple truth is that German life expectancy is declining since a couple of years(being below Spain, Italy and Portugal btw). Median wealth of Italy, Spain and Portugal is higher then that of Germany, which is only slightly higher then that of Greece. Real wages in Germany have gone up by 3.8% over the last decade(not annually but the entire decade).
The only ones who really profit from this austerity are the super rich. Other then that it is as bad a policy for Germany as it is for Italy, Portugal, Spain or Greece.
Spain has grown faster then Germany for most of the last decade(besides 2020). Out of PIIGS Portugal and Ireland also have done pretty well. Greece got hit hard and Italys economy has problems since the 90s(aka not a EU/Euro problem).
If only Germany would not be willing to recognice Palestine, then this might happen, but that is not the case. France and Italy the two next most powerfull countries do not recognice Palestine either.
Germany is usually fairly happy with the current state of the EU. The things Germany wants to change are usually also supported by Spain and that means blackmail is harder. The only exaption to that is finance. However Spain is not going to let billions go to waste to have Palestine recogniced. That is just more of a symbol, rather then massivly important.
Also Germany leaving the EU would cause some massive problems in other EU countries as well. They would hardly be cheering for it.