This weekend, DiEM25 returned to Berlin to celebrate its second birthday. Since its launch in February 2016, DiEM25 has grown into a network of thinkers, activists, and political challengers fighting for democracy across Europe. The Berlin birthday celebrated this progress – and set out an agenda for building on it in the run-up to the 2019 European elections.
Over the course of the weekend, we partied, held workshops, conducted panel discussions, and – of course – had brunch. Below is a brief recap of these events.
Thank you to all those who could make it, and we hope to see the rest of you at a DiEM25 event soon!
We began by celebrating our 2nd birthday on Friday night at Kreuzberg
The day after, Saturday, we hosted six workshops on the following topics:
1) Creative Resistance
2) Urban movements
3) Green Transition
4) Liquid Democracy
5) Electoral Wing
6) Democratic Technologies
The goal of the workshops was twofold: to learn together about how to build a new, democratic Europe, and to build ties across our movement. The workshops were open and informal, allowing participants to come together around these core themes and strengthen the links between DiEM25 members and local citizens.
The topic of the event “Future Structures” gathered a lot of interest, in particular, feeding into discussions on how to build DiEM25’s the ‘electoral wing’.
Our Coordinating Collective-members, Lorenzo Marsili, Agnieszka Wisniewska and Srécko Horvat and DiEM25’s Volunteer Coordinator, Judith Meyer, presented their ideas.
They stressed that the Electoral Wing is only possible with the insight of all our members in different countries, who help establish the right solutions for the different political landscapes.
The ‘electoral wing’ aims to bring our ideas to a broader audience. The European Parliament elections in May 2019 offer us a chance to ‘hack’ the space.
As Lorenzo Marsili put it: “We want to change the common sense in Europe, instead of sending some random people to the European Parliament”.
In the evening, we welcomed Meral Cicek, member of the Kurdish liberation movement, for a panel discussion.
She spoke about democracy, internationalism and feminism within the Kurdish movement.
When asked what we can do in Europe to support the region, she underlined keeping the connection between pro-democracy movements around the world.
She also said that Europeans should concentrate on their own struggles.
Srécko picked up on this, reminding everyone of how European and especially German weapon exports fuel Turkey’s military offensive in Afrin.
The weekend came to a close on Sunday morning with brunch at Technical University Berlin.
Sebastian Eis, the event’s principal organiser reflected: “It was an inspiring and enlightening event.”
Indeed, the event was a great success and another step in the right direction of our long and ambitious journey.
The workshops and discussions were recorded and will be published soon!
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