DiEM25 stands in solidarity with the working people of Albania
The Diber miners’ struggle to have their voice represented in the upcoming Albanian parliamentary elections is not merely a local issue. It transcends borders and languages in order to bring to the fore a burning matter: the rights of those who work for a living and fight for a just society.
In the midst of a pandemic that has hit hardest the weakest in our societies, it has been the workers – alongside doctors – who have paid the highest price. During lockdown, while the rest of us were sitting comfortably in our homes, it was the miners and factory workers who were being crammed like cattle in closed workspaces, to produce goods that were non-essential to the needs of the society, but absolutely vital to the profits of their owners.
Evermore in our societies we are witnessing the implementation of laws that destroy trade union rights, collective bargaining and women’s rights at work. Evermore we attest to the rise of a business elite that operates above the law and generates unprecedented wealth for the few, while imposing destitution for the many – socialism for the rich, austerity for everyone else.
The candidacy of Elton Debreshi is not a simple attempt at political representation, but the roaring voice of an active majority that has been silenced for too long. This is not the end, but a stepping stone in the long struggle for trade union organising and workers’ rights – a struggle that must be embraced by workers around the world.
If democracy is to flourish everywhere, democratising the workplace will be absolutely critical.
This is a joint statement by DiEM25, MeRA25, Elton Debreshi – United Miners of Albania Trade Union (SMBB) and independent candidate, and Redi Muçi – Organizata Politike
My Carnation Revolution will always be like this
I can’t remember a 25th of April without carnations or without a parade at the Av. da Liberdade to celebrate the 1974 revolution. Ever since my dad’s passing, that is the flower I offer him when I celebrate it. However, it wasn’t through my dad that I discovered the reason for such a strong connection to this day.
A day that defined the lives of mine and so many other parents, grandparents and children, of those who witnessed the end of the Salazar dictatorship, the Revolution of the 25th of April and the decade of the 1970s, such a special decade.
It was only today, April 23 2021, that I got Vasco Lourenço, an April Captain, and the Colonel João Andrade da Silva to confirm the truthfulness of these facts.
It goes like this. The Armed Forces Movement, the ones that sparked the Revolution of the 25th of April in Portugal, secretly organised missions that led to the imprisonment of commanders. In a meticulous plan, it was established that the secret signals to activate these missions would be encapsulated through the radio at times and in places agreed in advance.
The first signal broadcast on the radio would become a landmark in Portuguese history and culture with a song that today is still recognised, even by little children. To me, that song strikes a different note.
The first mission was to take place on the 24th April, at 10:55 p.m., at the Escola Prática de Artilharia (EPA), in Vendas Novas. At this time, João Paulo Diniz, radio announcer at the Emissores Associados de Lisboa radio station, declared: “It’s five to eleven. I leave you with Paulo de Carvalho’s E Depois do Adeus (“And After The Farewell”), from the Eurovision Song Contest, 74.
My father’s brother, the then Lieutenant Pedro Manuel Lopes de Sales Grade, was at the Escola Prática de Artilharia (EPA), in Vendas Novas. His bedroom had been chosen by some of the movement’s military officers to wait for the signal: the song E depois do Adeus.
Maybe my uncle, known as the most pacifist amongst the Portuguese army, would want to stay: feeling the importance of his bedroom being chosen as a safe haven for these officers who would become known for the arrest of the Commanders. However, he was exposed to a moment of truth: and he took a risk.
It just so happened that, due to the last minute absence of one of the officers, my uncle was selected to be part of the group of officers who would arrest the two Commanders present.
Thus, it went down in history that Lieutenant Pedro Manuel Lopes de Sales Grade arrested Lieutenant-Colonel João Manuel Pereira do Nascimento, Second-in-command. At the sight of him, the Second-in-command expressed surprise by saying “A Sales Grade is in this as well?!”. My uncle replied: “Circumstances so require, my Commander!”. By some accounts, such an attitude was justified by my uncle’s yoga practice and refusal of any type of violence.
From left to right: Brigadier José Sales Grade (grand-father), José Sales Grade (father), Maria Luísa Sales Grade (grand-mother), Lieutenant Pedro Sales Grade (uncle)
My dad would always tell me a story, one that I can’t dig deeper into with historical facts. According to him, an attempt was made to arrest my grandfather, who was, at the time, a Brigadier. But someone soon realised: “It’s Sales Grade’s father!” And that’s how my grandfather, at the time an already assumed man of the left, managed to escape prison.
No other day can muster up so many emotions as the 25th of April does: the conquest of freedom, of democracy, the beginning of the fight for a fairer society. Such values are ever present in my daily life in family. Having spent years not knowing this story, it would make each and every minute of the 25th April a moment of pride, not just for my uncle, but also for everyone that had the courage to be part of the change, regardless of the risks this entailed.
It is largely that same courage that we live here, at DiEM25.
P.S. My uncle practices yoga to this day, at 74.
Nadia Sales Grade is a member of DiEM25 currently living in Portugal. She’s also the co-coordinator of DiEM Voice, the arts and culture platform of DiEM25.
DiEM25’s Alternative Security Conference: Security for whom?
Contrary to its own proclamations and their reiterations in the Western media, the Munich Security Conference is not a venue of populations at large and their security concerns, but of corporations which dominate the world and the political and doctrinal managers that shape and present it in their interests.
If the security concerns of people however are to be taken seriously, it is clear that the existing bodies of decision making power and discussion (like the Munich Security Conference) have to be pressured into doing so and alternative bodies have to be formed which by their own virtue take them into account.
It is this which DiEM25 proposes to do from the 27th to 29th of April 2021, by hosting its first ever Alternative Security Conference.
In a variety of formats with speakers from different professions from around the world we will seek to deconstruct the predominant discourse of security policy, rooted in state and corporate power, and offer some alternatives which seek to accommodate people’s interests instead.
Programme
The Alternative Security Conference seeks to do everything that the Munich Security Conference does not: Give an analysis of international hegemony (forwarded by multinational corporations and governments which act in their interests) spearheaded by the United States and its allies in the Western world and elsewhere and offer a different kind of hegemonic and security framework where people’s interests and not those of corporations and states are prime.
Tuesday, April 27, 18:30 – 19:30 CEST: Session 1 “What is Security”
What is meant by security when we read about it in the mainstream press? What do our leaders mean when they speak of our security? Is it the security of us citizens, as they claim? Or is it another kind of security that they allege to protect?
Speakers: Francesco Strazzari (Scholar of international relations at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa), security policies, political violence and extra-legal governance)
Moderator: Mohammad Khair Nahhas, DiEM25 Task Force for the Alternative Security Conference
NB: Prof. Strazzari’s contribution was recorded as the Conference program was still being finalised. He wishes to note that he should not be associated with the speakers present at other sessions of this conference.
Tuesday, April 27, 19:45 – 21:15 CEST: Session 2 “Counting the Money”
We assume that the defence/security industry is actually producing more insecurity and that profit generation plays a main role in this trend. During this session we will try to answer the following questions: What are the threats that justify a security industry? How is unjustified fear produced? And how can we disrupt that problematic production of fear?
Speakers: Stephen Semler (Co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute), Shana Marshall (Researcher at the Institute for Middle East Studies (George Washington University and the author of “Middle East Armies and the Global Military-Industrial Complex”) and Mark Akkerman (Researcher at “Stop Wapenhandel” and the “Transnational Institute”)
Moderator: Mohammad Khair Nahhas, DiEM25 Task Force for the AlternativeSecurity Conference
Wednesday, April 28, 17:30 – 18:30 CEST: Session 3 “The Ecological Crisis“
A discussion on the global ecological crisis. Its perception in the West. It’s reality. And what people can do about it.
Speakers: Martin Lukacs (Canadian journalist for the Guardian and The Breach and the author of “The Trudeau Formula: Seduction and Betrayal in an Age of Discontent”), Ridhima Pandey (Indian climate activist, one amongst 16 children to file a complaint with the UN in 2019 for violations of its Convention on the Rights of the Child due to the climate crisis). Further speakers to be announced
Moderator: Tom Stopford, DiEM25 Task Force for the Alternative Security Conference
Wednesday, April 28, 19:00 – 20:00 CEST: Session 4 “Cyber Security”
A workshop on how the threat of cyber-war can be mitigated and ended in the future and how such efforts should be grounded in international law.
Speakers: Allison Pytlak (Curator of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom), James Shires (Cybersecurity scholar and Assistant Professor at the University of Leiden) and Evelyne Tauchnitz (Senior Researcher at the ‘Lucerne Graduate School in Ethics’, specialisation on digital technologies, peace and conflict transformation).
Moderator: Amir Kiyaei, Task Force for the Alternative Security Conference
Thursday, April 29, 18:00 – 19:00 CEST: Session 5. “Disarmament“
How the arms-race has been re-instigated and how this development can be averted.
Speakers: William Robinson (Professor of sociology at the University of California-Santa Barbara. Author of “The Global Police State” and “Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity”)
Moderator: Igor Mijatović, Task Force for the Alternative Security Conference
Thursday, April 29, 20:15 – 21:45 CEST: Session 6 “Woke Imperialism”
“Woke Imperialism“ explores the fairly recently adopted language of the Western foreign policy establishment post-Trump, and attempts to link this phenomenon to previous deployments of empire-justifying logic and rhetoric throughout history. During this session, we will discuss how the Western military, surveillance and financial establishments continue to extrapolate different formerly countercultural trends borrowed from identity politics, in order to airbrush a progressive aura onto their projects of 21st century global dominance.
Speakers: Aaron Maté (Freelance Journalist for The Nation, The Grayzone and Democracy Now!), Katie Halper, American comedian, writer, filmmaker, podcaster, and political commentator. Katie is the host of the podcast “The Katie Halper Show” and co-hosts the “Useful Idiots” podcast alongside Matt Taibbi, and Rania Khalek, journalist at Breakthrough News, producer and host at Soapbox, and co-host of the “Unauthorized Disclosure” podcast alongside Kevin Gosztola. Previously an associate editor at “The Electronic Intifada”, Rania has written for a number of publications including The Intercept, Al Jazeera, Truthout, and The Grayzone.
Moderator: Arturo Desimone, DiEM25 Task Force for the Alternative Security Conference
This information is also available on the event page.
Join us when we pose the question: Security for whom? For states and corporations? Or for people at large?
The Alternative Security Conference is organised by DiEM25. The views and opinions expressed in the conference are those of the speaker(s) and do not necessarily reflect DiEM25’s official policies or positions.
Albania’s general election: between desperation and hope
Albania faces general elections on April 25, under a “seemingly” tense and “crucial” situation for the country’s fate, common rhetoric used by the political forces throughout the 3-decade post-dictatorship electoral history.
The Socialist Party of Albania, led by Edi Rama, has been leading the country for 8 years, since 2013, when Albanian voters punished the Democratic Party — consumed by numerous corruption and misgovernment scandals — by massively voting against it.
Today the country is enduring a socio-economic crisis, worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, with a very high level of corruption and growing inequality as a result of neoliberal policies such as PPPs and the concentration of wealth in the hands of very few oligarchs and corrupted rulers.
Rama’s 8-year rule has been marked by countless scandals. In countries with minimal democracy, it would have been overthrown — or at least have faced strong civil resistance — through protests. Some of these scandals include extreme nepotism in making and enforcing laws, vote theft, money laundering, drug trafficking, police violence, suppression of democratic protests by force, discrimination of refugees by depriving them of basic rights and the deterioration of media freedom where alerts for violence and intimidation against journalists have increased.
The latest failure of the government is the management of the COVID-19 situation, a failure which the government has described as “a success”, but investigations by various journalists have proven the opposite.
In the upcoming elections the Socialist Party faces a united opposition, composed of the Democratic Party plus The Socialist Movement for Integration. These parties, even whilst facing an arrogant and heavily consumed adversary, remain unable to convince the broad mass of voters to rotate massively in their favour, partly because the pre-2013 scandals involving both parties are still fresh in the collective memory of Albanians.
A significant fact that marks the true opposition spirit in Albania is the high number of people who do not want to vote or are undecided, which now stands at 17% according to various polls.
While in the centre the situation seems hopeless, with no alternatives and with the concept of voting for the lesser evil, in the periphery hope has been born. A miner from the town of Bulqiza, named Elton Debreshi, is running as an independent candidate in the Dibra district, 114km away from Tirana.
Debreshi’s candidacy has a broader background. In November of 2019, Debreshi together with his colleagues, decided to create the Union of United Miners of Bulqiza, a crucial moment for the mining town ruled by oligarchs and criminal gangs. The miners created a joint organisation, breaking away from the old corrupt unions.
Immediately after that, the AlbChrome company owned by the infamous oligarch Samir Mane, decided to fire Debreshi with an illegal and arbitrary decision. This forced the miners to go on strike. But then the company fired the members of the Trade Union Council, Beqir Duriçi, Behar Gjimi and Ali Gjeta.
This is where Debreshi’s inspiring and meaningful journey begins. Starting from specific class interests seeking the approval of the Miner Status, he has now become a symbol of the working class struggle in Albania. The Miner Status had been promised for many years by various politicians, but today remains an unfulfilled promise.
Although his candidacy is viewed with scepticism, since he is running as an independent candidate, the arrival of an honest worker in the Albanian parliament filled with corrupt elites and bandits, will not be only a simple political innovation but a very important historical moment.
In a country with a fragile trade union culture and where the rights of the working class are suppressed on a regular basis, Elton’s victory would be a key and decisive step in building a concrete basis for developing a systemic counter-attack against the rotten political caste and oligarchy in the country.
The working class of Albania, for years excluded from the participation spheres of the country’s society, has its candidate, and after April 25 its possible representative in parliament. The enthusiasm and solidarity felt in his campaign give hope for the future. It shows a significant example of democracy in a country where the conception of rights is lacking and deficient. After so long, Albanians now have a clear example of how social and political rights are never bestowed but won at all costs.
The unification of the workers, the downtrodden and all who are victims of social injustices, would be the first step in creating a movement that has at its core the radical change of the society. An alternative socio-political movement that focuses on anti-capitalist change and the fight against social inequality.
Join DiEM25 to develop this alternative model for Albania!
Photo (c): EPA-EFE/MALTON DIBRA
Why the Netherlands needs a Green New Deal
Halfway through 2019 Dutch society had alarm bells ringing because it had reached its hard Nitrogen-emissions limits. This prompted the Dutch Parliament and Cabinet to freeze all nitrogen-emitting activities which brought an abrupt and near full halt to Dutch society.
This all stemmed from the 2015 Nitrogen Law passed to monitor and issue permits to farmers and other businesses that emit Nitrogen containing substances. But these emissions are souring the soil in nature reserves that are part of the European Union Natura 2000 program. So, when the Highest Civil court in the land, the Raad van State, ruled the legislation to be unlawful in its assumption that future emissions would be reduced, a crisis ensued; 18,000 permits were suspended or denied. This made the Cabinet look for answers.
Parliamentarian Tjeerd de Groot (D66) thought he had one. An amendment to cut the Dutch Nitrogen emission levels in half by 2030 and by 74% in 2050 after a commission led by Johan Remkes concluded that clearer goals were needed.
When de Groot was asked in an interview not much later how that would be achieved, he stated:
“By cutting the cattle population in half, farmers produce way too much emission on a post stamp of land this is devastating our nature reserves. Farmers either quit voluntarily, are forced to quit by the revoking of permits or commit to forming circular agricultural practices.”
This started a farmer’s resistance to this law and amendment. Especially after interest groups like the arable farmers and horticulturists organisation LTO (Land- en Tuinbouw Organisatie) were ignored following their statement that “…this will not go over well with our 35,000 members.’ You’re asking farmers to do more and give more with stricter rules on manure, fertiliser, pesticide and fuel use. Farmers had already cut their GHG- and NOx-emissions by 70% since 1990.
When the amendment and ideas around it were announced and D66 (one of the governing coalition parties) called for halving the cattle population, the farmers were fuming. There was little to no discussion about privileges given to KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines), Schiphol airport or to the shipping industry. They continued to enjoy little to no taxes at all on fuel. The chemical industry was also spared.
Farmers were angry about bottom prices being forced on them for their products while maintaining strict guidelines on quality leading to lots of waste. Simultaneously, farms — especially the smaller family farms — have increasing difficulties staying afloat and finding people to take on their companies. This constitutes a terrible loss to the countryside leading to widespread abandonment of buildings and poverty because of disinvestment.
Indeed, in most places around the country farmers are leading the charge to make sure local produce is being locally sold. This saves a lot of pollution in the Netherlands because there will be less transport of goods throughout the country.
These radical two years have left their mark on the Dutch political landscape. Since then, every political party developed agricultural policies to appeal to farmers. What Dutch politicians should learn is that a Green Revolution isn’t just about banning bad things but also about stimulating good things. The following neo-liberal grievances sparked the protests:
- Monopolisation: for example, Ahold, parent company of supermarket Albert Heijn, DelHaize, online store Bol.com and liquorstore Gall&Gall saw a massive rise in its sales.
- Extortion: By large intermediate suppliers and supermarkets asking wildly low prices and forcing investments on farmers, eating into their profit margins leaving both larger and smaller farms in financial trouble.
- Disinvestment: for the past forty years the governments’ investments were largely focused on the urbanised part of the country from Alkmaar in the north to Rotterdam, Arnhem and Nijmegen in the south, most of the industrious centre of the country. This has left the rest of the country starved from infrastructure, job opportunities and facilities like hospitals, doctor clinics, schools and quality internet access.
Solutions: Sustainable land practices
The Green New Deal for Europe (GNDE) offers us a solution. The GNDE is an 85 point policy plan to transform society to make it future proof.
- First point #68: rewarding farmers for good practices such as rewilding of their lands.
- Second point #69: sustainable land practices like putting a stop to unnecessary tilling, pesticide use by using for example, natural enemies of pests which restores the natural balance in the ecosystem, promoting carbon retention/absorption by submerging peatlands, planting trees and circulating animal herds so the grasses have time to grow longer absorbing more GHG and Nitrogen into the soil.
Also by giving more space, a longer life and more locally grown food to at least 50% less animals. In other words, free-range farming or pioneering food forests in the fruit tree or arable land farming industries that work with nature instead of against it. Yielding better quality products with less emissions and less strain on the small pocket of land we are.
Investment in Fishing
A first opportunity for a G.P.W. would bet: fish-farming mostly on open water. These farms farm kelp, fish and crustaceans; a sector that is struggling in the Netherlands but can be made sustainable easily.
An example of how this could look is the Schelde estuary nature reserve, where the water quality is suitable for a diving experience thanks to oyster, mussel and lobster farms helping the local ecosystem tremendously while also rising to be a national, and profitable, source of pride.
Breaking supermarkets Monopolies
Another policy point is #58: Making supermarket chains and intermediaries pay their fair share giving a fair percentage of profits straight to the farmers and producers of food products, so they have the money for the Green transition.
Throughout the GNDE DiEM25 wants to level a higher corporate tax and utilise the European Investment Bank (EIB), investing these revenues directly in society to create Green Public Works (GPW).
For example in the countryside; repairing broken roads, improving internet access, providing opportunities to youth by investing in social life, start-up farmers or aspiring farmers to perpetuate their parents’ business in a green way. Whilst providing the older generation with a decent pension, elderly homes and medical facilities.
Increasing biodiversity via Green Corridors
Another example of a GPW would be connecting all Natura 2,000 reserves with green corridors, so that animals can roam across the country boosting biodiversity and opening up eco-tourism opportunities.
The COVID-19 pandemic showed that a lot of people have needs for greenery — parks, estates and trails have been full with visitors when the weather is pleasant. The police have had to close off most of them every time since the safety and health of both humans and nature could no longer be maintained.
By connecting these parks, we can create a lot of space for planting trees for the Green Transition of the Netherlands to live up to its ancient Germanic name again Holland: land of woods.
We have a lot to do in very little time. We need to diversify our diet, lessen the amount of meat we eat, plant trees, let nature regrow, and help it capture every bit of GHG and Nitrogen we can in every way possible. Otherwise, we will bear the continued consequences of the climate crisis — increasingly devastating natural disasters, and more.
What Europe Must Now Do — our Progressive European Policy Agenda for the 2020s
COVID-19 has unveiled the EU’s lack of institutions that can address a public health crisis.
It has also confirmed that the EU continues to lack the institutions necessary to reduce the economic imbalances which undermine the Union, suppress investment and cause preventable economic failures that undercut the life prospects of the majority of Europeans. Lastly, the EU has failed to make Europe safer.
By refusing to terminate its reliance on fossil fuels, the EU has reinforced geopolitical tensions, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean.
That’s why, as Europe’s pioneer transnational movement, we must step up and effect change before it’s too late.
DiEM25 is now proposing a Progressive Agenda focusing on Public Health, Shared Prosperity and Green Peace. Our Agenda comprises policies drawn from DiEM25’s comprehensive Green New Deal for Europe as well as policy initiatives honed at the outset of the 2020 pandemic.
We will collect the amendments, lay out a revised version back to you and collect a final round of amendments before putting the final document to an All Member Vote.
All DiEMers are invited to add their amendments to the text. Please keep the amendments on-topic; policies on other topics should be contributed to the relevant policy papers. Established DiEM25 groups that have counter proposals to specific parts of the document rather then amendments should send an email to [email protected] stating this.
Decent Public Health, Shared Prosperity & a Green Peace
Public Health
European public health can no longer remain within the ‘competence’ of nation-states. The pandemic demonstrated that, unless the EU provides basic health services (e.g. vaccines) to all its citizens equally and efficiently, the Union is unsafe – some would say pointless.
The pandemic demonstrated that the EU must guarantee its citizens equal access to facilities that provide free testing, free vaccines and free primary care. Basic goods (e.g. test kits, vaccines, protective equipment) must be procured centrally and sizeable stocks must be in place everywhere within well-functioning public health systems and networks.
Mindful of Europe’s duty to non-European countries in its neighbourhood and beyond, the EU must also donate such basic public health goods to developing countries far and wide. All these basic goods are to be paid for using the ECB’s monetary firepower, not the member-states’ stressed budgets.
In the interest of civil liberties and to ensure its citizens the basic privacy rights that Europeans have earned the hard way over centuries of struggles, in times of health emergencies, like the present one, the EU must tread carefully. DiEM25 supports digital technologies which can facilitate an effective track and trace system during a pandemic while safeguarding anonymity. However, DiEM25 is utterly opposed to the exploitation of such emergencies in the interests of corporations and states seeking make citizens transparent, while they remain opaque. In this context, DiEM25 opposes all vaccination certificates or passports which open up a Pandora’s Box of civil liberty violations by insurance companies, employers and state agencies.
Shared Prosperity
During the Covid-19 pandemic, compared to the US, China and the UK, the Eurozone suffered the largest drop in investment, the greatest capital flight, and the largest increase in its output gap (i.e. difference between potential and actual production). Moreover, Europe’s internal imbalances (which were the cause of the massive Euro Crisis) have grown exponentially. Despite this, Europe has administered the smallest stimulus in the developed world and has done the least to bolster investment – relying almost entirely on a so-called Recovery Fund that is macroeconomically insignificant and politically poisonous. As a result, the 2020s are shaping as a second Lost European Decade.
To prevent this, and to give shared European prosperity a chance, DiEM25 has proposed – and is doing so again – four policies:
- ECB-Bonds to lessen the strain on member-state budgets: All primary budget deficits since March 2020 to be financed by means of 30-year bonds issued by the ECB (ECB-bonds), ensuring that the new pandemic-induced national debt does not weigh down already overburdened national budgets. The 30-year-long maturity of the ECB-bonds will function as an added incentive for a proper democratic political union to emerge within three decades. Additionally, we envisage perpetual ECB-issued bonds, to be exchanged with member-state bonds, for the purposes of restructuring even deeper the debt burden caused by the outbreak of the Euro Crisis in 2010.
- Solidarity Cash Payments: The ECB injects a €2000 European Solidarity Cash Payment to the primary bank account of every European resident. This can be repeated whenever necessary, replacing all ECB corporate bond-purchases.
- European Green Recovery & Investment Program: The EU to direct the European Investment Bank (EIB), and its subsidiary the European Investment Fund (EIF), to issue annually EIB-EIF bonds approximately equal to 5% of the EU’s GDP, to be backed in the bond markets by the ECB. The monies will fund a new European Green Works Agency whose remit is to build up the EU’s necessary Green Energy Union and to fund the EU’s Green Transition
- Rescinding all post-2010 austerity conditionalities: The EU countries worst hit by the pandemic also happen to be the ones worst hit by the savage austerity and privatisation programs that the troika imposed upon them directly or indirectly since 2010. All these ‘conditionalities’ now act as a drag upon the whole of the EU and must be rescinded immediately.
Green Peace in Europe’s neighbourhood
In 2020 the EU officially endorsed a so-called ‘Green Deal’. Regrettably, it was endorsed “more in the breach than in the observance”: No real funding was ever put aside for this ‘Green Deal’ and, worse still, the EU continues to pursue the extraction and distribution of fossil fuels in a manner that increases geopolitical tensions.
In particular, plans to extract oil and gas in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean are causing geopolitical tensions that only benefit arms dealers and the financial vultures who profit from ‘securitising’ fossil fuels and gas pipelines and that will, most probably, not even see the light of day. They also fuel the pre-existing migration crisis by turning Turkey against the EU and vice versa. Meanwhile, in Europe’s North East, Nordstream2 is causing new tensions and new dependencies on regimes and industries that have nothing good to offer the majority of Europeans. For Peace’s sake, and for the sake of European security and sovereignty, this must end.
DiEM25 proposes an EU initiative to bring Peace and Shared Green Prosperity to all the peoples of the Mediterranean. We are campaigning for the EU to call a Peace and Green Energy Mediterranean Summit. The idea is for all Mediterranean countries to sit around the same table with a view to achieving the following:
- Encourage all participants to declare the Mediterranean a fossil fuel free zone (i.e. no new drilling and no new gas pipelines) and to work towards building a joint Green Energy Union
- Mark, on the same map, each country’s claim regarding its sea borders (e.g. continental shelf, economic zone)
- Agree collectively to take any remaining competing claims to the International Court at the Hague on condition that the Court’s decision will be accepted as final by all participants
- Provided the above have been achieved, the EU will fund, via the European Investment Bank and other investment vehicles (e.g. see 2.2.3 above), the lion’s share of a Green Energy Union incorporating the EU, the Middle East and Northern Africa.
Summary
The EU will either unify to confront the prospect of another lost decade, or it will perish. DiEM25’s Progressive European Policy Agenda for the 2020s offers the only path toward unification. The three sets of policies we propose are immediately implementable and consistent with the letter of the EU Treaties. They promise:
- To share the burden of safeguarding public health across Europe
- To extend this duty to developing countries in recognition of the pandemic’s main lesson, namely that viruses respect no borders
- To share the pandemic-induced public debt burden between EU member-states, while rescinding the institutionalised austerity left over from the Euro Crisis
- To deliver the public green investments necessary for a sustainable Europe
- To pay for Europe’s recovery and health using existing monetary financing tools which, currently, fund the oligarchy instead of public health, public goods and programs in the public interest
Only DiEM25’s Progressive European Policy Agenda for the 2020s offers Europe a chance to become a genuine, democratic Union. The only other option is disintegration.
Appendix: DiEM25’s post-Pandemic Progressive Policy Agenda in bullets
- PUBLIC HEALTH
- The provision of basic health goods becomes an EU duty
- A new EU Network of Public Primary Health Care Centres easily accessible to every EU citizen offering:
- free testing on demand
- free vaccinations on demand
- general practice care free at the point of delivery
- Centralised procurement for:
- test kits
- vaccines, including the purchase of patents so as to facilitate local production
- basic medicines
- protective equipment
- EU commits to providing to developing countries, free of charge, as many test kits, vaccines, basic medicines and protective equipment quantities as it has procured for Europeans
- Direct funding of 1.2,1.3&1.4 above utilising ECB instruments (e.g. ECB bonds, EU perpetuals to be purchased by the ECB)
- Vaccination passports and/or certificates are banned, to protect basic privacy rights. Instead, the EU funds the development of applications (Apps) that allow for an efficient track-and-trace system, securing anonymity, to be incorporated in the EU network of public primary health care units mentioned in 1.2 above.
- SHARED PROSPERITY
- ECB-Bonds to lessen the strain on member-state budgets: All primary budget deficits since March 2020 to be financed by means of 30-year bonds issued by the ECB (ECB-bonds), ensuring that the new pandemic-induced national debt does not weigh down already overburdened national budgets. The 30-year-long maturity of the ECB-bonds will function as an added incentive for a proper democratic political union to emerge within three decades
- Solidarity Cash Payments: The ECB injects a €2000 European Solidarity Cash Payment to the primary bank account of every European resident. This can be repeated whenever necessary, replacing all ECB corporate bond-purchases
- European Green Recovery & Investment Program: The EU to direct the European Investment Bank (EIB), and its subsidiary the European Investment Fund (EIF), to issue annually EIB-EIF bonds approximately equal to 5% of the EU’s GDP, to be backed in the bond markets by the ECB. The monies will fund a new European Green Works Agency whose remit is to build up the EU’s necessary Green Energy Union and to fund the EU’s Green Transition
- Rescinding all post-2010 austerity conditionalities: The EU countries worst hit by the pandemic also happen to be the ones worst hit by the savage austerity and privatisation programs that the troika imposed upon them directly or indirectly since 2010. All these ‘conditionalities’ now act as a drag upon the whole of the EU and must be rescinded immediately.
- GREEN PEACE
- The EU to call a Peace and Green Energy Mediterranean Summit involving all Mediterranean countries for the purposes of
- declaring the Mediterranean a fossil fuel free zone
- working towards joint EU-Mediterranean Green Energy Union incorporating the EU, the Middle East and Northern Africa
- delineating each country’s claim regarding its sea borders (continental shelf, economic zone)
- agreeing to take any remaining competing claims to the International Court at the Hague for binding arbitration
- The EU will fund, via the European Investment Bank and other investment vehicles the lion’s share of the EU-Mediterranean Green Energy Union a Green Energy Union.
‘The Austerity Doctrine in the Time of Coronavirus’: with Brian Eno, Yanis Varoufakis, Stephanie Kelton and Naomi Klein [video]
In the third episode of Let’s Talk It Over, Naomi Klein, Stephanie Kelton, Yanis Varoufakis, Brian Eno and Frank Barat discuss what impact the coronavirus crisis as had on the world economy and how it has been used to further entrench world inequality.
Here are some of the questions tackled in the program:
- Austerians for years told us that all hell would be unleashed on us if the government spent a little more. But, during the pandemic the same politicians/bureaucrats printed trillions. Where did all that government money come? Does it need to be repaid via higher taxes
- Has the pandemic ended the reign of austerity as policy and mindset?
- Or is austerity lurking in the shadows of the various stimulus plans, ready and willing to continue its destruction of human prospects and ecosystems?
And here are some basic points that everyone must grasp regarding austerity:
What is austerity in practice?
It is a policy of cutting government spending as a means to reduce the budget deficit so as to slow down the built up of public debt – or even to run budget surpluses in order to reduce it.
What is the fallacy on which austerity policies are founded?
The failure to recognise that, unlike a person, family or company, the government cannot bank on its income being independent of its spending. You and I, if we choose not to spend money on new shoes, will keep that money. But not the government. If the government cuts spending during periods of falling private spending, then the sum of private and government spending will decline faster. But this sum is national income. So, austerian government spending cuts mean lower national income and fewer taxes. Thus, unlike you and I, when the government cuts its spending during tough times it is cutting its income too!
What is austerity in essence?
Austerity is hidden class war and war against the environment. That’s what austerity is. Recall that austerians, whatever they say in words, are never against government spending as such – as long as the money is spent on the rich and the polluters (Republican tax cuts, money for weapons, subsidies for fossil fuels). No, their gripe is with money spent on the weak and on maintaining priceless values, like clean air or public libraries.
Why do the powerful adore austerity and despise public debt?
If you ask them, they will go on and on about the perils of inflation and the fear of public debt. While it is true that the rich do fear inflation, a force that eats into the real value of their mountains of cash, and while it is also true that they do not want to be taxed so that poor kids can have health care or a good education, there is another explanation of their love of austerity: they like austerity because they want little people to have as few survival options as possible.
Why? Marx has the answer here in the form of the lovely true story of Mr Peel. Back in the 1840s, sensing that a massive economic crisis was on the cards, Mr Peel bought a number of ships, filled them with food, seeds, equipment and 300 persons of the working-class, men, women, and children. But soon after their arrival in W. Australia, Mr. Peel’s plan was in ruins. What had happened? The transported labour force abandoned Mr Peel, got themselves nice plots of land in the surrounding wilderness, and went in ‘business’ for themselves. The workers’ access to alternatives meant that Mr Peel, though he took with him money, equipment and a workforce, could not take capitalism with him.
Capitalist bosses understand this. They and their political agents fear, above all else, that public spending may give the little people too many alternatives. The more alternatives they have the lower the capitalist class’s hold over them. It is the fear of losing power, like Mr Peel, that lures them to austerity – even when austerity-induced depression depresses the capitalists’ capacity to find customers. After all, when that happens, the powerful can always depend on the money tree, the central bank, to mint money for them – never, of course, for the little people.
In short, austerity helps the Mr Peels of the world reproduce themselves as capitalists.
Is austerity dead in the water in the time of coronavirus?
President Biden is pushing trillions of new government spending though Congress. PM Boris Johnson has distanced himself from austerity. Even the EU is paying lip service to the need to suspend austerity. Is this the end of austerity? Listen to Stephanie Kelton answer this crucial question… Meanwhile, note that the fact that government spends more during bad times does not necessarily mean that austerity is on hold. For example, if during this pandemic a previously austerian government only replaced lost incomes, yes, its spending went up but its fiscal stance remains one of structural austerity – in the sense that, the moment the pandemic passes, government spending goes back to its earlier stingy levels. If new investments are added to replaced incomes, yes, that would spell the end of austerity. In that sense, the jury is still out on Joe Biden and Boris Johnson – while it is clear that the EU remains stubbornly wedded to austerity.
Watch the full event below!
Don’t Let Them In!
On May 4, Madrid, one of Europe’s most influential capitals is to hold early regional elections. Below DiEM25’s Coordinating Collective’s proposed recommendation to DiEMers and progressives in Spain.
Background
Last month, in an opportunistic political move as the COVID-19 crisis continues to hit hard Spain’s capital, the region’s president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso (People’s Party) launched her bid to consolidate her leadership. Ayuso justifies her move in terms of saving the region’s ailing economy. A stronger People’s Party representation, she claims, will also ensure better management of the health crisis.
“Communism or freedom!” is the choice Ayuso says voters must make at ballot boxes next month, as she continues to blame the central government for anything that has gone wrong in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic. For her, the health restrictions imposed by the Socialist-Unidas Podemos minority coalition government are destroying the country’s economy, not the health crisis.
In reality, however, the Ayuso government has only exacerbated the region’s health crisis. Effectively, the ruling People’s Party in Madrid has, among other “freedom”– seeking actions:
- Mismanaged the health crisis by refusing to limit mobility;
- Given mobility privileges to richer neighbourhoods;
- Recruited volunteers instead of paying proper staff to identify infections and administer vaccines
- Favoured the private healthcare system by shutting down neighbourhood primary healthcare centres during the first months of the pandemic, hence ensuring the collapse of public hospitals.
And a few days ago, sidestepping national and EU authorities, her government acknowledged unilateral exploratory meetings to negotiate the purchase of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine.
With ultra-right VOX polling well enough to enter the region’s government, and the chameleon Ciudadanos party facing the real prospect of having no representation in the regional parliament, the stage is set for a catastrophic conservative-extremist political leadership taking over Spain’s central region.
Sadly, the progressive alternative has also taken the opportunist path ahead of the upcoming Madrid region elections.
In a surprise move, Unidas Podemos’ leader and Spain’s deputy vice-minister Pablo Iglesias dropped his post in the central government to join the Madrilenian regional race. The left in the region is now split self-indulgently between the Socialists, Unidas Podemos and Más Madrid, the political party the Podemos co-founder Iñigo Errejón launched after the party split a few years ago.
DiEM25’s Recommendation: Don’t Let Them In!
While it saddens us that Spanish progressives continue to miss every opportunity to link arms and step up to the monumental challenges Spain and Europe continue to face, we can only recommend to our Spanish members and sympathizers that they vote for any of the three left-wing options of their preference to avoid an essentially fascist government taking over the region.
The Unidas Podemos-Socialist coalition represents a landmark in Spain, for it is the first-ever coalition government to hold power in the country since well-before the dictatorship ended half a century ago. But the hope for a real forward-looking agenda for Spain and for Europe under such a pioneering political, partnership of the left is rapidly vanishing due to the iron grip of “old politics” and “business as usual”.
Thus, we call upon DiEMers to say to their progressive candidates: “We’re not voting you in, we’re voting the extremists out. If we manage to succeed, we demand – and will campaign – for you to unite behind a true progressive, green agenda for Spain and Europe: “What Europe Must Now Do – DiEM25’s Progressive European Policy Agenda for the 2020s“.
Photo (c) Ondacero
The German Government is blocking the reunification of a family — we mustn’t stand for it
For a brief moment in February 2020, all seemed right with the world for Ahmedin M. He had just received the news from his wife, Hawa: “We have the visas! We can join you in Germany!”
Before that, Ahmedin M. had suffered the agony of a typical Eritrean escape story. First, he emigrated to Sudan with his wife and son, Sallah, because life in Eritrea had become almost impossible. Opposition parties, independent media, civil society organisations and unrecognised religious communities were prohibited from any activity. The rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly were severely restricted. Military service was mandatory and often extended indefinitely. Thousands of nonviolent political prisoners and other dissidents were arbitrarily detained under extremely poor conditions. Torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment were commonplace. Large numbers of Eritreans continued to seek refuge abroad as the economy was in tatters and people were unable to feed themselves.
In Sudan, it was also impossible for the M. family to build a safe life. So, despite Hawa’s pregnancy, they made a momentous plan: Ahmedin would try to make his way to Europe. He wanted to settle there and then fetch his family. He fought his way through the Libyan desert, he survived the boat trip across the Mediterranean, he crossed Italy and finally arrived in Bornheim – a small town near Cologne – in Germany.
That was in September 2015. Many Germans showed solidarity with refugees and welcomed them; Chancellor Merkel took selfies with refugees, and the mood was good. For Ahmedin, it was a happy arrival. Everything became even more perfect when Ahmedin was recognised as a so-called “subsidiary protected person.” Subsidiary protection is granted to people who have not been given refugee protection or eligibility for asylum in the asylum procedure, but who are at risk of serious harm in their country of origin, due, for example, to war or civil war.
Hawa, however, first had to travel from Sudan back to Eritrea because they could not sustain themselves there without male support and it was safer for her to give birth at home. She was thus in the very country where Germany believed that persons were at risk of serious harm. Under European – and therefore German – law, a serious risk exists in the case, for example, of the imposition or execution of the death penalty, torture or inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, or a serious individual threat to the life or integrity of a civilian as a result of indiscriminate violence in the context of an international or internal armed conflict.
Understandably and also justifiably, Ahmedin was very worried about his family and wanted to bring them to Germany. So Hawa first made her way to Cairo, Egypt, with the baby and her firstborn, since a distant relative and other acquaintances live there and she hoped to reach Europe more easily from Egypt.
Then came the big setback for Ahmedin’s family: In March 2016, the German Bundestag passed a law suspending family reunification for people with subsidiary protection. So the family was stuck in Cairo. It was not until the end of July 2018 that applications for family reunification were allowed again by the German authorities. By this point, Ahmedin had already been separated from his family for three years, and he had yet to meet his youngest son.
What followed was a difficult walk through government agency procedures. The embassy requires national passports from all visa applicants, and for a visa based on family reunification, a marriage certificate as well as all birth certificates. The marriage certificate had to be issued by state authorities; this is extremely unusual in Eritrea, where almost all couples marry traditionally.
As a rule, a “settlement tax” must be paid for valid national passports, an insurmountable problem for destitute people. The mother had to organise the children’s birth certificates four times: The first time, they were not accepted by the Eritrean Embassy in Cairo; the second time — this time issued by an authority in Eritrea — a birthdate was wrong; the third time, a stamp was missing; and only on the fourth attempt did the German Embassy accept the certificates.
Each time, Hawa had to establish an arduous, time-consuming line of communication with her family of origin to try to organise valid documents for her and her relatives, fugitive citizens who, in principle, the Eritrean state does not even want to be abroad and settle there.
Some good news?
Then, on February 6, 2020, finally the redeeming news: Hawa was granted a national visa of category D, “family reunion,” for herself and the children! They borrowed €1,000 for the plane ticket.
On March 22, 2020, EgyptAir flight MS785 was scheduled to land in Frankfurt am Main at 2:10 p.m. But four days earlier came the next shock: The European Union had closed the borders due to the coronavirus pandemic.10 Flights from third countries were no longer allowed in, and only certain groups of people were allowed to enter.
There was a great deal of chaos. Which groups of people, exactly? The Frankfurt Federal Police confirmed that family members of third-country nationals with residence permits were allowed to enter. However, the embassy refused to include these persons on the emergency return flights organised by the Foreign Office, arguing that these persons were not allowed to enter. In fact, a growing contradiction developed between the Foreign Office and the Ministry of the Interior.
While the former consistently denied the possibility of entry, the Ministry of the Interior most recently confirmed, in an e-mail dated May 13, 2020: “According to this, there is an important reason for travel for the Eritrean wife and the two minor children, taking into account family aspects.” The problem at this point: in the meantime the visa had expired.
The family exercised patience. Certainly, it was a special situation, but eventually the pandemic would pass. By telephone, the embassy had promised that as soon as entry was possible again, the mother and the children would get a new visa without any problems. On July 1, 2020, the entry ban was relaxed. The Ministry of the Interior wrote in a mail to the embassies:
“Third-country nationals whose D visa would have entitled them to enter Germany after March 15, 2020, but for whom the visa could not be used to enter Germany due to the travel restrictions and the visa subsequently expiring abroad, may apply for a so-called “Neuvisierung” (new visa) at the German mission abroad responsible for the initial issuance as soon as the travel restrictions have been lifted to that extent. A period of one month is granted for the application for a new visa. The deadline begins when the possibility of submitting an application is announced on the website of the diplomatic mission or consular post. After the expiration of the deadline, the person concerned is free to submit a new visa application. In principle, there is no processing fee for a new visa.”
Embassy problems
However, the German Embassy in Cairo has never published the possibility of applying for a renewal. Not until today. Mails were written, attempts were made to get a temporary order to grant an appointment, Mrs. Hawa M. personally asked for admission on the spot — in vain. However, it was not the case that the embassy did not grant appointments at all: for example, an Egyptian student was granted an immigration permit as part of a special appointment, and another family also received a new visa, but not the M. family.
In Germany, the issue of family reunification is highly controversial. In coalition negotiations with the SPD at the start of 2018, Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer warned that up to 300,000 family members would want to come to Germany if family reunification with beneficiaries of subsidiary protection were made possible again.
Saxony-Anhalt’s Interior Minister Holger Stahlknecht even spoke of the fact that “up to 800,000 more people could come” when it comes to the reunification of beneficiaries of subsidiary protection; one must also think about social peace in the country and must not overburden the population (German Press Agency). In the far-right political spectrum, even larger numbers were cited: In October 2017, the chairman of the AfD’s parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Alexander Gauland, predicted “a migration wave of around two-and-a-half million people to Germany in 2018 alone” as a result of “unrestricted family reunification for refugees.”
In fact, family reunification for beneficiaries of subsidiary protection does not involve millions, nor hundreds of thousands, but, according to currently available figures, a total of less than 50,000 people.
Eighteen months after the regulation came into force, it is clear that exactly 20 percent (one fifth) of the pledged visa quota has not yet been filled. After 18 months, German missions abroad have issued only 14,404 visas out of the 18,000 potential visas politically pledged by the end of January 2020.
Article 6 of Germany’s Basic Law states: “Marriage and the family shall enjoy the special protection of the state. The care and upbringing of children is the natural right of parents and a duty primarily incumbent upon them. The state shall watch over them in the performance of this duty.”
Article 9 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child declares: “States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will.”
Neither of the above changes anything. Nor does the Christian self-image of the party currently represented in the government: “Family policy is a matter close to the heart of the CDU. In our family policy, we rely on respect instead of paternalism. Families should be able to decide for themselves how to shape their lives. They deserve our full support for this. And we still have a lot of plans to make everyday life easier for families.”
Families from foreign countries are not equal in Germany. Or is this a European problem? Ahmedin understands nothing about European or German politics. For him, it is a painful fact that he still has to be separated from his family. In the meantime, Egypt is tightening its treatment of foreigners without the right to remain; there is a risk that Mrs. Hawa M. will have to go back to Eritrea before she can get a visa for Germany.
Ahmedin M. has exhausted his psychological reserves — he does not know what to do. Hawa no longer receives any support from the UN, which had been taking care of her as a refugee. Everyone hopes this nightmare will soon come to an end.
This campaign is part of DiEM25’s Campaign Accelerator project, a project where we support individual activists to make targeted campaigns on local issues they feel passionate about!