Amazon whistleblower Chris Smalls on DiEMTV for International Workers Day
In previous episodes of DiEM25 TV, Slavoj Žižek and Srećko Horvat have called for more “much more whistleblowers” or ‘citizen spies’. On International Workers Day, we have the honor to welcome Amazon whistleblower Chris Smalls on our DiEM25TV programme to talk about the working conditions at Amazon.
Chris Smalls has been outspoken about the conditions at Amazon warehouses throughout the pandemic, and is supporting an Amazon-wide May Day strike. The fired worker has denounced, along with other workers, Amazon’s unsafe working conditions, including their inability to benefit from sick leave.
Workers state that although the company touts that they abide by health and safety regulations, including a ‘6 feet apart’ rule, it is not enforced. Chris Smalls notably states that the company has a complete disregard for the wellbeing of their workers: “They don’t care what we have going on at home, our families, our livelihoods.”
As we face yet another delayed quarantine timeline, and ‘essential workers’ continue to put their lives on the line for low wages and little protection from the virus, this may be one of the most important May Days in history. Today, we must unite in solidarity with precarious workers everywhere and shed light on the injustices that continue to plague working society.
Apart from supporting Chris’ inspiring work in the USA, we will follow his example and call for people to come and speak out against bad practices in their companies (Amazon but also any large corporation) in Europe! Together with workers like Chris Smalls, and allies across the world, we will build a network of resistance against such practices in Europe.
DiEM25 TV Programme for May 1st
During this ‘quarantined’ May Day, we invite you to come along to our very special programme on YouTube and support workers around the world. Join us and ask questions for the Q&A by registering below!
Friday Night Special, May 1, 15:30 CEST
Amazon whistleblower Chris Smalls and Mehran Khalili: “Taking the power back”
In this episode of DiEM25 TV we speak to Amazon whistleblower Chris Smalls, the ex-Amazon employee who exposed the corporation’s unsafe practices on COVID. Chris is now at the centre of a growing movement in the US and spreading fast, that’s aiming at Amazon and other corporations who are failing to keep their workers safe in these precarious times.
Interview and Q&A
[Register HERE]
Friday Night Special, May 1, 20:00 CEST
Srećko Horvat: “Virus Mythologies”
Inspired by Roland Barthes, this series explores the various myths around the COVID-19 virus. The coronavirus crisis goes beyond the physical, and into the symbolic space, as Srećko shows us. How is the crisis affecting semiotics? How is it infecting or affecting the system of signs — the way we produce meaning and understand different concepts? How is the coronavirus itself being referred to by different terms (Italian Virus, Chinese Virus) as it travels through different political spheres?
Interview and Q&A
[Register HERE]
DiEM25 TV goes local! May 1-11 Program
Members & local groups throughout Europe are contributing to DiEM25 TV’s programming — check out this version of DiEMTV by and for Grassroots members! Notably, it includes a kick-off of the Green New Deal for Europe, now in German.
Register below to attend and send your questions!
Tuesday, May 5, 18:30 CEST — ENGLISH
Healthcare as a business, the law of the common goods and future generations rights
Ugo Mattei & Antonella Trocino (DiEM25 Italy)
[Register HERE]
Wednesday, May 6, 18:00 CEST — ITALIAN
The economics of education policy
Lorenzo Fioramonti (former Minister of Education, University and Research) & Stefano Vergari (DiEM25 Italy)
[Register HERE]
Thursday, May 7, 18:30 CEST — GERMAN
Presentation of the Green New Deal for Europe
Claudia Trapp & GNDE Germany team
[Register HERE]
Monday, May 11, 18:30 CEST — ITALIAN
Economy, healthcare & GNDE in Italy & Lombardy
Andrea Di Stefano (director of the Valori magazine) & Stefano Vergari (DiEM25 Italy):
[Register HERE]
Check out more of our DiEMTV programming here.
Watch previous episodes of DIEMTV on our YouTube channel.
Coronavirus crisis shows our collective failure to tackle tax evasion
In these difficult weeks, with european hospitals overwhelmed by coronavirus cases, tax dodgers should feel a profound sense of shame.
Experts say the urgency of unemployment benefits combined with the additional burden on health systems should call for a more forceful tax response to the crisis internationally. But now that governments are facing an economic meltdown due to the Coronavirus crisis, they are facing a dramatic reality: more than six hundreds billion in tax revenue is lost globally every year (estimates that do not take private assets into account).
Bolstering our public services starts with fighting tax evasion more promptly and rigidly. Enduring and efficient public responses to national crises require administrative capacity and tax resources. Tax avoidance and global tax competition across Europe limit the ability of countries to address important issues in time of need. However, the price of our government’s failure to tackle tax evasion and tax avoidance is not limited to the cost of protecting our economies. Health systems around the world are crumbling under the heavy pressure of COVID-19, making clear how much they depend on solid and reliable public services.
The Italian case
Italy, which became ground zero of Europe’s coronavirus crisis, has a 30% evasion rate. In 2016 it lost $118.5 billion to tax dodging and under reporting, according to government estimates. In the past couple of years, several amnesties brought in additional and limited tax revenues but also nurtured the idea that non-compliance with tax laws could be fruitful in the end thanks to a large discount on the real amounts due. This era should be over.
The Italian national health service, which has suffered cuts of more than 37 billion euros with a significant reduction of ICU beds together with a progressive privatization of health care, especially in the North, at the expense of grassroots medical care, was not ready for the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a growing number of doctors who have died as a result of the virus. In Italy, for instance, over 140 health-care professionals have died so far. A critical situation accentuated by a lack of protective equipment.
The inability to accommodate a large number of patients falling gravely ill at the same time is strictly linked to the scarcity of doctors and nurses, and even the Pope said that Italy tax dodgers should take the blame for the national health services’ difficulty to cope with the virus outbreak. Governments struggle to provide enough health-care workers in order to make intensive therapy units work.
The Coronavirus paradox
That’s the paradox: companies that can make a profit from the crisis are receiving huge amounts of public subsidy despite paying no taxes in recent years. For this reason, the shift to remote working for large parts of the population calls for a radical reform of digital taxation. Those who stand to benefit from this crisis by increased market share should contribute to its recovery when the lockdown is lifted.
As ordinary citizens experience their public services collapsing, those profiting from tax avoidance remain largely protected from the economic effects of the virus. They will still be able to pay for private healthcare and avoid areas where contagion is most likely, such as public transport and the workplace. The wealthy’s experience of the pandemic will be completely different from that of the majority.
Of course, it’s too late to retrieve the money that was lost, but from now on we should consider that there is a dramatic human cost due to tax evasion and tax avoidance.
Some countries, such as Poland, Denmark and France, have already refused to let companies registered in offshore tax havens access financial aid from their coronavirus bailout schemes. As the Tax Justice Network pointed out last year, 40% of today’s cross-border direct investments reported by the IMF (roughly $18 trillion in value) are being booked in just 10 countries that offer corporate tax rates of 3 per cent or less. Large companies that regularly dodge their obligations shouldn’t expect to get bailed out when things go wrong. That is essential in ensuring that large relief spending is going in the right direction and other Eu member states should follow suit.
Billionaire, pay your share!
For these reasons, DiEM25’s “Billionaire, pay your share!” campaign will be crucial for the coming months. We are calling for progressives and democrats to unite in the struggle to secure our future from the greedy and corrupt. Tax avoidance is not a just national problem: it’s a capitalist problem, and we need to fight against it as Europeans. Europe has the responsibility to stop the greed and excess of billionaires and corporations by adopting adequate measures to make them pay their fair share.
DiEM25’s vision of Europe for the Post-Pandemic Era: Some personal thoughts
DiEM25 was created in February 2016 because Europe was disintegrating as a result of a pseudo-technocratic takeover of the EU that was imposing austerity everywhere in response to the financial crisis caused by the EU pseudo-technocracy’s controllers. Today, now that a mindless virus has placed European capitalism in suspended animation, it is time to re-assess our analysis and to re-purpose our policies.
Our 2016 Manifesto offered a pertinent analysis of why Europe was disintegrating, why the xenophobic Nationalist International was rising, how the nationalists and the EU technocracy were, essentially, the opposite sides of the same coin. A year or so later, to give policy substance to the Manifesto, DiEM25 put together, with the help of countless Europeans, our Green New Deal for Europe. In the May 2019 European Parliament election, along with political allies, we run in several countries promoting this Green New Deal policy agenda.Bankers and fascists never let a ‘good’ crisis go to waste. They unite across borders and pursue their putrid agenda transnationally.
This time round progressive Europeanists must not waste the opportunity to come together under a common analysis and policy agenda reflecting the new facts on the ground. The last thing we should want is a return to normality. If DiEM25 was right, there was nothing ‘normal’ about what was happening in Europe, and indeed the world, prior to COVID-19. Just like the great wars, so too the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, all epidemics force humanity an opportunity to re-think its ways. The powers-that-be will do their utmost to force us back to business-as-usual. We must ensure they do not get their way. For two reasons: Business cannot go back to its usual ways, even if we all wanted it to. Secondly, those ‘usual ways’ were inefficient and detrimental to the interests of humanity.
Last year, in May 2019, a week or so before the European Parliament elections, DiEM25 published a delightful edited book entitled A Vision of Europe (edited beautifully by David Adler and Rosemary Blecher). A second volume is now ready since the past twelve months demanded of us to re-think our Vision of Europe, even though it was fresh of the printers. Last week I had to write the introduction to A Vision of Europe Vol.2. It quickly turned into an exercise in re-thinking DiEM25’s manifesto and policy agenda for the post-pandemic era.
Over the next few months, DiEM25 will have to revisit its foundational texts and main policy papers. Already from last November, at our Prague get-together, we set a course toward a more radical agenda. The following thoughts are, in this context, intended to warm up this discussion both within DiEM25 and also with progressives out there interested in a dialogue on what must be done in Europe and beyond now.
“Europe will be democratised. Or it will disintegrate!”, was our prognosis in 2016. Well, Europe did not democratise its EU institutions and is now disintegrating. What should we now say and do?
The European paradox at the heart of the EU’s disintegration
A year is a long time in politics but would, ordinarily, be too short a time to make a difference to our vision of the future. Alas, last year was no ordinary year. By ensuring that the future no longer is what it used to be, the last twelve months made necessary a revised Vision of Europe. You are now, dear reader, holding the result.
In the May 2019 European Parliament elections, our Green New Deal for Europe, the Manifesto based on our Vision of Europe, was comprehensively trounced. Even though DiEM25 and our European Spring allies managed to gather one and a half million votes, we failed to elect a single MEP. Judging by that sorry result, some might plausibly say that our Vision of Europe sank like a lead balloon, at least electorally.
One explanation of our electoral failure is, indeed, this: Our analysis and policies were poor or at odds with Europe’s electorates. However, there is a second explanation: Even though many Europeans are ready to adopt DiEM25’s analysis and to support our policy agenda, Europe’s politics reproduces the dominance of unpopular institutions and the power of its functionaries. Judging by the evolution of conventional wisdom, especially among younger Europeans, this second explanation seems quite plausible. Indeed, since our electoral defeat in Germany, France etc., both the analysis in the Vision of Europe and the policies in DiEM25’s Green New Deal for Europe have gained incredible traction.
This paradox lies at the heart of Europe’s disintegration; a process that began in 2010 with the euro crisis, accelerated in 2015 with the crushing of the Greek Spring, gathered pace with Brexit’s triumphs in 2016 and 2019 and was turbocharged in 2020 by COVID-19 and the European Union’s pathetic response to the pandemic. The structure of the paradox is easy to dissect.
On the one hand, there is the widespread consensus that the European Union’s monetary and economic union is not merely flawed but the source of unnecessary recessions, environmental degradation, and avoidable pain for a majority of Europeans. On the other hand, Europe’s politics guarantee that this consensus is paid lip service by the dominant political forces while being kept brutally and ruthlessly away from Europe’s decision-making centres.
DiEM25’s Manifesto, our Green New Deal for Europe and, yes, the first volume of A Vision of Europe acknowledged this paradox as well as its capacity to undermine the European Union and progressive, radical Europeanism more broadly. However, I believe now that our language, our texts and the way we phrased our campaign speeches were far too timid. It was simply not enough to say “Europe will either be democratised or it will disintegrate.” Though correct as a prediction, our political campaign needed something more powerful than a prediction: It needed a more radical statement of what was happening and what we should be about.
What we are really up against
Re-reading A Vision of Europe recently, I realised that it was missing something crucial: A class analysis of the true reasons Europe’s establishment are turning down sensible, moderate policies and institutional changes that would be mutually advantageous across Europe.
If I am right that DiEM25’s Green New Deal for Europe, including its smart public debt and investment financing technical proposals, would lift all boats at once (German and Italian, Dutch and Greek) why were the German and Dutch governments so hostile to the idea?
A Vision of Europe did not answer the question, leaving it to the reader mistakenly to think that either we are wrong or that the political agents of the northern establishment are inane. Neither is true. Our analysis is correct and the northern establishment is pursuing its self-interest smartly. Can it be so? How?
The events of 2020 settled this question. For example, it is clear that even the most hard-nosed fiscal conservative living in Northern Europe can see that, in the face of a gigantic recession caused by the pandemic, leaving each member-state to fend for itself will lead, sooner or later, to the euro’s disintegration. They are certainly smart enough to recognise that, given Italy’s state of affairs, forcing Rome to borrow billions at a time of collapsing national incomes will lead to default and exit from the eurozone with a very high probability. Or, that it will, alternatively, cause such a depression that a neofascist government will rise up to do what the recession failed: Bring on a fatal clash between Rome and Brussels.
But, if I am right, why has the EU establishment killed off the only alternative to crippling increases in national debt; i.e. Eurobonds? Why have they ignored DiEM25’s technically astute proposal for a European Central Bank bond issue, an ECB-bond, of thirty-years maturity by which to raise €1 trillion in order to absorb the catastrophic rise in national debt that will, inevitably, cause Italy’s default, then Spain’s, eventually France’s etc.?
Given that the establishment running the EU knows full well that Italy and the rest of Europe’s South are great contributors to the surpluses of the North (e.g. by keeping down their exchange rate and the interest rates of their Treasuries below zero), why are they taking great risks with the euro’s disintegration? Why are they not using the pandemic as an opportunity to solidify the North’s advantages from Europe’s monetary union by embracing DiEM25’s proposals both for an ECB-bond and a large pan-European investment drive financed by an alliance of the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the ECB? Who would benefit more from such an investment program than, say, Siemens and Volkswagen?
The answer that A Vision of Europe Vol. 1 lacked begins with a realisation: Yes, the politicians representing the oligarchy-without-frontiers recognise all of the above as well as you and I, dear reader. But they also see something that most progressives don’t: That the architecture of the eurozone is unique in the history of capitalism in the way it has empowered the oligarchy that those politicians represent.
Having created a gargantuan central bank without a state to control or to support it, nineteen states (those using the euro) have been left without a central bank to support them directly. Once bereft of the power to control money and interest rates, soon these states hit the limits of their spending. Once on the fiscal ropes, no government, independently of its political and ideological colours, can do much in the sphere of income and wealth re-distribution.
Having removed control of money and interest rates from the states, the designers of the eurozone did something that had never been accomplished before: They robbed every democratically elected Prime Minister or President of the instruments by which to transfer significant amounts of wealth from the rich to the poor who constitute the majority – or, in Aristotle’s definition, the Demos. In short, they surreptitiously took the Demos out of European Democracy. Whether they did this intentionally or not is neither here nor there.
The only fact that matters is that, with the creation of the euro, democratically elected governments could no longer shift large quantities of value from the oligarchy to the majority. Future economic historians will surely mark this as a momentous development.
Compare and contrast the German Chancellor with the Prime Minister of the UK. Even though Germany is far richer, its trade surplus is enormous, and the country is better run than the UK, the German Chancellor, even if she wanted to, could not shift large amounts of income and wealth from rich to poor Germans. Why? Because she is constrained not to run large deficits and has no control of the central bank. In contrast, the UK’s Prime Minister, backed by the Bank of England, can run large deficits in pursuit of public investment or even simply to transfer large amounts of wealth to poorer residents, e.g., in Northern England.
We are now ready to see what we are up against. Yes, the EU oligarchy can see that the implementation of our Green New Deal for Europe would do wonders to end the euro crisis that began in 2009 and which turned ballistic, courtesy of COVID-19, in 2020. They can see as well as you and I, dear reader, that their profits would rise, not fall, as a result. However, they also realise that DiEM25’s policy proposals usher in new instruments, like ECB-bonds and a Green Investment Fund empowered by an EIB-ECB alliance.
These new instruments will, surreptitiously, re-enable elected politicians in Germany, in France, in Italy etc. to re-distribute large chunks of income and wealth from the European oligarchy to poorer people living both in Europe’s North and South. Is it not understandable that this is not something the oligarchy will consent to lightly?
In summary, A Vision of Europe erred in not explaining to the reader two key points: First, that our proposed policies for transforming Europe are policies that even the oligarchs see as mutually beneficial for Europeans in Central, Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe. Secondly, they don’t care. Understandably!
Indeed, the oligarchy-without-borders fears European disintegration far less than they fear the instruments of public finance that we propose because of their potential to re-distribute some of their ill-gotten wealth. They are, thus, prepared to push Europe to the brink rather than allow these instruments to be forged.
Why not just accept that this EU must end?
We are faced by an EU oligarchy willing and able to push the EU to the brink rather than acquiesce to financial instruments that democratically elected governments can use against them and in the interests of a majority of Europeans in every EU member-state. A Vision of Europe failed sufficiently to stress this reality, letting readers surrender to the mistaken belief that our task was one of persuasion. How can you persuade all-powerful people already convinced by, but wholly uninterested in, your argument?
No, our task was never to persuade the powers-that-be. It was to confront them. No, our task was never to reform the EU by winning arguments in the Eurogroup or the European Council. It was to transform the EU through fierce confrontation taking the form of, what at DiEM25 we refer to as, Constructive Disobedience: Constructive proposals like our Green New Deal for Europe coupled with a readiness to say NO, to disobey, until the cows come home.
Lexiteer friends, leftists who have given up on the EU long ago and campaigned in favour of existing the EU, have been admonishing us for the ‘constructive’ part of our Constructive Disobedience and our refusal to campaign for exiting the EU. “Why make pie-in-the-sky proposals that the EU establishment will never consider?”, they ask us. “Why maintain the false hope that this EU can be transformed?”, they continue. “Why not do the honest thing and campaign to bring our countries out of this toxic EU?”, they conclude.
Our answers were, and remain, solid for at least three reasons:
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- Any campaign to exit the EU, even if it is meant for good progressive reasons, will alienate middle-of-the-road, relatively apolitical, Europeans that progressives must attract. They will ask: “Won’t the dissolution of the EU, however terrible the EU might be, come at a huge cost for common people?” “Won’t the end of the EU boost nationalism thus jeopardising peaceful coexistence on our Continent?” The only honest answers to both questions are affirmative.
- Any campaign to exit the EU will devastate activists in Germany and other surplus countries where the conservative establishment is unassailable. I recall happily the excited faces of audiences of young activists in Hanover or Hamburg every time I recite DiEM25’s call to unity across the continent, not as Germans or as Greeks, but as progressive Europeans forming a transnational movement aiming at a transnational European Demos that will eventually construct a genuine European Democracy. Do you know, dear reader, what these same young Germans would feel if the message was “To hell with the EU, let’s all go back to our nation-states and collaborate via our governments”? Let me tell you how they would feel: Devastated! They would immediately think to themselves: “We are alone. Us and the ironclad German oligarchy!” No, this is not something I would ever do. The call for a transnational movement to build a transnational European Democracy was right and, given the existence of this EU, uniquely consistent with progressive politics.
- Any campaign to exit the EU, even if motivated by a left-wing agenda, will only be appended by the Nationalist International which will lose no time weaponising the tumult caused by the EU’s rupture to build tall walls, to demonise foreigners, to turn European peoples and communities against one another, and to reinforce the alliance between an increasingly authoritarian state and an unfettered oligarchic corporate cartel.
DiEM25 was, for the three reasons above, right to reject the Lexiteers’ strategy of calling for a campaign to disintegrate the EU via Brexit, Grexit, Italexit, Fraxit etc.
Moreover, DiEM25 was not at all naïve to put forward a Vision of Europe that begins with specific policy recommendations for the short and medium term – our Green New Deal for Europe which provides a sensible, moderate blueprint that could, tomorrow morning, and under the current EU rules, cure all sorts of ills: the public and private debt crisis, how to fund the Green Transition, a job’s guarantee scheme to end precarity, a universal basic dividend to deal with inequality and automation etc.
No, DiEM25 did not naïvely think that the EU establishment would be so impressed by our Green New Deal for Europe that they would begin to implement it under the pressure of its logic. We knew full well that they would rather blow up the Continent than allow its implementation. So why promote it as an EU-healer when we knew that those in control of the EU would prefer the EU’s disintegration to our policies’ implementation? The answer is: Because it is the only way to win the hearts and minds of a majority of Europeans.
Let’s be clear on this: There are two types of Europeans. A large minority ready do become convinced that this EU must end, people we are bound to lose to the Matteo Salvinis and Boris Johnsons of Europe. And a majority comprising people who know that there is something rotten in the EU but who, also, roll their eyes when hearing progressives repeat empty slogans such as ‘Another Europe is Possible’, especially when we tell them that this ‘Other Europe’ will come only if we end the existing EU. If we tell them “this EU must end” all we achieve is to make them feel oddly sympathetic to the EU functionaries. To abandon their apathy and to withdraw their tacit consent to the EU establishment’s ways, they need first to experience rational rage against the EU establishment.
How do we instil rational rage in the majority’s souls and minds against the EU establishment? First, we need to answer their legitimate question: “Precisely how could things be done differently within the existing institutional framework?” If we do not provide them with a definitive, convincing answer, we shall lose them either to the racist Nationalist International or to the illiberal establishment. In particular, telling them that nothing good can happen within this EU is the death knell of every progressive political force. Euro-TINA (the doctrine that there is no alternative within this EU) is a right-wing, reactionary mantra that DiEM25 sensible rejected from Day 1; that is, on the 9th of February 2016 when we founded our transnational movement, the first ever, in Berlin.
DiEM25’s analysis was right: The only way to generate rational rage amongst Europeans is to demonstrate to them how easy it is to end every single crisis destroying the life prospects of most Europeans. To show them how much good could be done to so many even within the awful rules and Treaties of the EU. Once they see that, they will automatically ask the pertinent question: “If all that good could be done today, why are those in power not doing it?” Since the only answer is that the authorities are in the pockets of an oligarchy ready and willing to destroy not only their lives but the EU as well, helping them ask this question is the first step to making possible generalised civil disobedience to the EU’s rulers. That’s the essence of DiEM25’s Constructive Disobedience: Demonstrate what could be done and let even the politically apathetic feel rational rage that it is not being done.
In conclusion, DiEM25 rejected, and continues to reject, Lexit because there is no point in campaigning for the end of the EU. Progressives, we believe, must take a leaf out of the EU oligarchy’s manual. Look at the oligarchy’s political agents: They wrap themselves up in the EU flag pretending to be Europeanists so as to exploit the gut feeling of most Europeans that the EU’s disintegration will cost common folk dearly and, also, help hatch the serpent’s egg in every country. But, at the same time, they are ready and willing to destroy the EU to serve their interests. We should do something very similar on behalf of the suffering many.
What should we do? Like the oligarchy, we must remain tuned to the prescient gut feeling of most Europeans that ending the EU will inflict most costs upon the weakest while, at the same time, strengthening only the neofascists. This rules out a Lexit campaign. However, like the oligarchy, we must be prepared to take the EU to the brink in pursuit of the minimum policies that are necessary to serve the interests of the many against those of the oligarchy. To put it bluntly, just like the Dutch and German finance ministers, we must be prepared to blow up the EU in order to protect the interests of our people; i.e. the vast majority of Europeans.
Re-reading A Vision of Europe, my self-criticism is that we put too much emphasis on the ‘constructive’ part of Constructive Disobedience and not enough on the ‘disobedient’ part – and the necessity of contemplating, and even planning for, the EU’s ending.
The obvious case-study: Brexit
COVID-19 hit hardest people living in countries, like Italy and Spain, with the least capacity to spend the monies necessary to save lives and jobs. Faced with the EU’s determination to insist on lending the victims money, with interest, instead of accepting the logic of fiscal union as a prerequisite for a stable and civilised monetary union, I wrote in The Guardian the following:
“The message today to Italians, Spaniards, Greeks etc. is: Your government can borrow large amounts from Europe’s bailout fund. No conditions. You will also receive help to pay for unemployment benefits from countries where employment holds up better. But, within a year or two, as your economies are recovering, huge new austerity will be demanded to bring your government’s finances back into line, including the repayment of the monies spent on your unemployment benefits. This is equivalent to helping the fallen get up but striking them over the head as they begin to rise.”
On 25th March 2020, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported in The Telegraph on a conversation we had thus:
“The Greek socialist said he had always tried to keep the European faith – even in his worst clashes with Brussels – but has finally given up. “I don’t think the EU is capable of doing anything to us other than harm. I opposed Brexit but I have now reached the conclusion that the British did the right thing, even if they did it for the wrong reason,” he said.”
Those were, I can confirm, my words. Interestingly, they impressed immensely many Brexiteers who welcomed my ‘conversion’. Some Lexiteers went further by mixing approval of my ‘new’ stance with scorn that it took me too long, that when I was finance minister I had not enacted Grexit, that DiEM25 had wasted energy by sticking to a Remain-and-Reform agenda.
Did I have a Road-to-Damascus moment after the EU’s COVID-19 moment? No, I did not. For decades I have admonished the EU with strong arguments exposing its vicious misanthropy. Since the euro crisis began, I spoke of its ‘fiscal waterboarding’ practices (that were recently referred to as ‘torture devices’ even by Heiko Mass, the current German Foreign Minister). I even referred to Brussels as a democracy-free zone. So, telling Evans-Pritchard that the EU is only capable of dishing out pain to our people was nothing new.
What was new was my assessment that, in the end, by opting for Brexit Britons made the right choice for the wrong reasons. This is a statement that requires some unpacking if only because it has an important bearing on, at least, my vision of Europe.
First, let me explain why I said that Britons were, in the end, right to get out of the EU. The eurozone is often described as a union within a union, or a club within a club. While this description is formally correct, it fails to capture the centrifugal forces that the euro’s creation unleashed. Once the single currency was created, in the designed absence of common debt instruments and a common banking system, the EU train was put on a track leading inexorably to a junction. There, it could turn sharply toward unification or continue on the same route until, running out of track, it disintegrated. That junction was reached with the euro crisis but the EU establishment, for reasons explained earlier, are resisting unification – thus forcing the EU off its rails. Under these circumstances, it is not wrong for the people of Britain to bail out of this slow-motion train wreck.
Secondly, why did I say, seemingly condescendingly, that the British got out for the wrong reasons? That should be obvious to progressives: The lies about the billions of pounds that would be saved and re-channelled to the National Health Service; the demonisation of EU migrants as having been the cause of stressed social services (when it was all down to Tory austerity); the jingoistic projections of a liberated free-market Britain sailing the oceans of enterprise and re-constituting its Empire; the role of dark networks of disinformation targeting those vulnerable to hate speech.
Thirdly, and most importantly: Have I regretted that DiEM25, and me personally, campaigned against Brexit? No, I have not. Anyone who witnessed our 2016 campaign will realise that it was two-pronged: Against Brexiteers who were blowing, willingly or unwillingly, fresh wind into the sails of nationalism. And, with equal ferocity, against Remainers who were portraying the EU as the best thing since sliced bread.
As for the charge of my British Lexiteer friends that, when I was Greece’s finance minister, I was not prepared to pull the trigger and exit the eurozone, this is simply a lie. I was prepared and I would have done it, if my own government had not buckled. Indeed, the reason I was so hated by the EU establishment was that I was not a Lexiteer but that would not (and the troika knew this well) stop me from pulling the trigger and issuing a new drachma. Had I been a Lexiteer, they would have not minded me, since the majority of Greeks would not have followed me. What made 2015 a moment when the EU establishment feared for its dominance, even only for a few short months, was that they were facing a Europeanist foe ready and willing to do as they did: To take matters to the brink by being ready even to blow up the euro, the EU itself, rather than betray the interests of his people (i.e. the majority of Europeans, not just of Greeks).
Our Vision of Europe demands new radicalism, new alliances, new ruptures
Our constantly evolving Green New Deal for Europe is crucial. But it is not enough. COVID-19 has created new facts on the ground. The sums our Green New Deal proposed for funding the Green Transition (€500 billion annually) were ridiculed in 2019 but, today, appear utterly understated.
Capitalism has been, temporarily, suspended. Our Vision of Europe can no longer rely only on the constructive proposals that are the ‘constructive’ part of our Constructive Disobedience strategy.
This is the time to envision a Post-capitalist Europe. In this context, the Green New Deal must be recognised as the first stepping stone to a vastly different future. We must now inspire people with a vision of what follows both capitalism and our Green New Deal.
What should that Vision be? Here are some ideas: An economic democracy where companies are ran on a one-person-one-non-tradeable-share-one-vote principle; where there are no private banks but, instead, the central bank provides free digital accounts to every citizen; a society that grants a trust fund to every baby born.
Turning to alliances, the original A Vision of Europe got it right when warning xenophobes and crypto-fascists that we shall fight them everywhere. But it was remiss when it failed to warn the remnants of what was once social democracy that we shall treat them too as toxic agents of a recalcitrant establishment. Let’s be clear on this: The social democratic establishment forces have done the most damage to the progressive cause in Europe.
Who gave the EU’s oligarchy the greatest effective support and legitimacy over the past decade? No, it was not the conservative parties. It was the German and Austrian SPDs, the Socialists in France, the Democratic Party in Italy, Greece’s PASOK and SYRIZA parties that signed up to every piece of troika nastiness, the new socialist Eurogroup President from Portugal etc. etc. While many progressive people are still entangled in the poisonous web of those parties, and need to be rescued, our Vision of Europe will only stand a chance if DiEM25 has nothing to do with their leadership.
In contrast, the rift between us, DiEM25, and Lexiteers must now end. We must agree to disagree on whether the right tactic is to demand an exit from the EU or, as DiEM25 believes, to continue to envision a democratic union. But we must move beyond this disagreement and plan ahead for an internationalist, post-capitalist Europe. DiEM25 is about bringing European progressives together independently of the EU. Europe, we must scream from the rooftops, is NOT the EU. Like bankers and fascists unite across EU and non-EU borders, so should we.
Finally, to make our Vision of Europe consistent with our internationalism, we need to embed it within the Vision for the World – exactly as DiEM25 is currently struggling to do by building the Progressive International together with wonderful progressives from all over the planet.
There is no doubt that to make any of this remotely feasible there is a lot of work to be done. Work that is physically exhausting, mentally gruelling, emotionally destructive. But work that, nevertheless, we can’t even imagine giving up on. The best way to carry on is to take breaks during which to develop further our Vision of Europe, our Vision of the World.
Berlin Diaries: “Abnormal Normality”
Week Five 12/04/2020 – 19/04/2020
“I don’t want to be remembered as a hero. I want my death to make you angry too. I want you to politicize my death.” — nurse Emily Pierskalla
“Merkel moves ahead with gradual return to normality in Germany” – “Britain has weeks to go before normality returns” – “Italy, Spain to gradually return to normal” – “Canadians should expect weeks or months before life return to normal” – “France plans a different path back to normality” – “When Will Life Return to Normal? The Answer From Europe Is Emerging” – over the past few days, mainstream media headlines have been filling up search engines with thousands of such and similar entries from virtually every corner of the world.
The pattern is obvious and so is its intention — giving some hope to the millions that are unemployed and stuck at home in self-isolation whilst providing trading initiatives for speculators, gamblers and criminal manipulators at DJI, FTSE, DAX and other stock markets. It also sets the ground for the global ‘return to normality’ that everyone is apparently craving for. However, is ‘getting back to normal’ an act that we should cheer and feel hopeful about or is it an act that we should fear and indeed take as a threat?
If ‘normal’ signifies lack of deviation from the average, then we can easily conclude that the recent discussions, forecasts and announcements of a ‘gradual return to normality’ can only mean one thing — a slow but certain return to our previous way of life and the world as we knew it before the coronavirus pandemic struck.
In this regard, a potential ‘return to normality’ does not only mean a return to some degree of control over COVID-19-like crises, but also to the continued exploitation of the working class across the world.
Most importantly, such a return would also be coupled with an enhanced severity of global class inequality due to the economic meltdown caused by the pandemic. It would undoubtedly translate into far more ‘zero hour’ contracts in the West and far more slave labour In the East, significantly increased unemployment figures, greater household debts and largely expanded global poverty levels. Getting back to ‘normal’ would mean the further underfunding of health and social services, further privatisations, deregulations and general pillaging of many by a few.
Over the last few years it became perfectly ‘normal’ for any remotely progressive figure, movement or a party to get targeted and suppressed by the establishment with the usual help from the mainstream media. Generally speaking, all available means are used to silence and eventually eliminate any progressive and socialist idea from the political stage. For example, in the case of South America, it is safe to say that there isn’t much left of the ‘Hopes and Prospects’ Noam Chomsky so passionately wrote about not that long ago. The Occupy movement in the US is long gone, and so is Syriza in Greece. Jeremy Corbyn and his vision of the Labour Party in the UK experienced similar faith and, only a few days ago, Bernie Sanders was defeated for the second time in four years by a corrupt neoliberal Democratic Party. None of this is surprising since such developments have become the norm of our collective reality.
Similarly, not many were surprised and revolted by the fact that Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning were prosecuted and that Edward Snowden is on the run – all for speaking and exposing the truth of what is being done to us and others in our name. On the other hand, criminal bankers who caused previous economic crises and the misery of millions of people, not to mention the war criminals, are all free and richer than ever – this is also not surprising. After all, any other outcome would go against the ‘normality’ of the world we are living in!
Until recently, it was ‘normal’ to live in polluted cities, swim in polluted rivers and seas and breathe polluted air just like it became ‘normal’ for the imperialists to wage unprovoked, aggressive wars. As soon as we got used to one, the next war usually followed. It became ‘normal’ to disregard international laws and have dysfunctional international bodies. It became ‘normal’ to see a war criminal promoted to the position of a peace envoy just like it became ‘normal’ to have a regime guilty of most horrible human rights violations preside over the Human Rights Council. Initial shocks and rage triggered by horrendous crimes based on lies and half-truths were expressed by various peace activists and movements across the US and Europe. But as time passed on, the majority of people got used to the permanent state of war turning slaughter into yet another segment of our sick ‘normality’.
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” – and then some since this famous quote from Orwell’s 1984 is well out of date by now and as such it only begins to describe the state of affairs in our world. Is this the ‘normal’ key political figures and the media are talking and writing about and if so, do we really wish to ‘gradually return’ to it? This is an urgent question in demand of an urgent answer.
There are fundamental differences between cautiously good news in regards to numbers of dead and infected going down across the world — of ‘flattening the curve’ and ‘passing the peek’ of what is probably just the first wave of the pandemic — and the insidious plans for ‘gradual back to normality’ the plutocrats are already moving with. Good news we should cheer – of course! – but we should fear a possible return of the ‘old normal’ and be ready to fight such prospects with everything we got!
Over the coming weeks, the ruling class and the mainstream media will almost certainly ramp up the use of words ‘back’ and ‘return’ in connection with ‘normal’ and ‘normality’.
They will undoubtedly play on and use human (sub)conscious short-term selfish desires to get people back exactly where they were a few months ago, with a fake smile, illusionary hope and no change whatsoever.
An amazing and inspirational open letter was published a few days ago by Emily Pierskalla, a nurse fighting the local outbreak of Covid-19 in Minnesota. She was outraged with her government’s response to the pandemic, emotionally overwhelmed with the scenes of suffering around her and in fear for her own life, Emily wrote:
“If I die, I don’t want to be remembered as a hero. I want my death to make you angry too. I want you to politicize my death. I want you to use it as fuel to demand change in this industry, to demand protection, living wages, and safe working conditions for nurses and ALL workers. Use my death to mobilize others. Use my name at the bargaining table. Use my name to shame those who have profited or failed to act, leaving us to clean up the mess.”
If we fail Emily and indeed millions of others in the same situation, we will fail the world!
This barbaric and destructive ‘old normality’ — the one set and imposed upon us by the neoliberal establishment — should be urgently challenged by progressive political voices and, ultimately, with progressive policies for a greener, sustainable, egalitarian, peaceful and international ‘new normality’. Almost everything that was considered to be ‘normal’ yesterday should be turned upside-down today. There is no other way to cure the madness and there is certainly no normality to go back to. Carpe diem and no pasarán!
Learn more about the Progressive International, launching soon!
For previous and future articles written by Ognjen Ogy Vrljicak, you can visit his blog.
DiEM25 TV goes local!
Members & local groups throughout Europe are contributing to DiEM25 TV’s programming — check out this version of DiEMTV by and for Grassroots members! Notably, it includes a kick-off of the Green New Deal for Europe, now in German.
Register below to attend and send your questions!
21 April, 18:30 CEST — ITALIAN
The Pandemic : The only thing I know is that I know nothing
Discussion with Marco Manca (scientist from Geneva CERN and advisor at WHO-OMS ) & Ivan Alberto Larosi.
[Register HERE]
25 April, 18:30 CEST — FRENCH
From Municipalism to the Green New Deal
Roundtable with Anne Sophie Olma, Alenka Dakain, Caroline Forgues (French municipalist candidates) & Brice Montagne, actor & activist.
[Register HERE]
Sunday, 26 April, 18:30 CEST — GERMAN
The Shock Doctrine of the Left
Presentation and by Q&A of Graham Jones’ book (The Shock Doctrine) with Eric Meyer & Samuel Kressner.
[Register HERE]
Monday, 27 April, 20:00 CEST — GERMAN
Green New Deal for Europe Kick Off!
Presentation and Q&A of 6 chapters of the GNDE Blueprint (Finance, Housing, Green Jobs, Migration, Decentralized Energy and Covid19-3-point-plan) with 6 speakers of the GNDE Germany Team, and featuring Claudia Trapp and Utz Gundert.
[Register HERE]
Thursday, 30 April, 18:30 CEST — ENGLISH
COVID-19 in Hungary
Discussion between Stefania Romano & Istvan Teplan.
[Register HERE]
DiEM25 on tonight’s European Union Council decision (Yes, we know what, & how terrible, it will be!)
Later today, Thursday 23rd April, the EU Council will meet to discuss the common European response to the Great New Recession caused by the pandemic.
Their agenda should comprise one, and only one, item: How to ensure that the necessary increase in public deficits will not show up in the fiscally stressed member-states’ national budgets, so as not to boost already non-viable public debt levels. If the EU Council fails in this task, the result will be massive, cruel austerity (e.g. pension and wage cuts, new taxes etc.) for the Europeans worst hit by the pandemic.
Tragically, since the 9th April Eurogroup already killed off the necessary common, European response (i.e. Eurobonds), today, the true purpose of the EU Council meeting will be quite the opposite of what is needed: How to pretend that they are implementing the common, European response that they have already made… impossible!
It is not just that Europe’s leaders are acting in a manner that strikes at the heart of Europe and its people. It is also that they are pathetically predictable.
The common, European response that they will, supposedly, agree to tonight will be no more than the following subterfuge: They will announce some Grand European Fund for Post-Pandemic Recovery & Reconstruction by which to impress the natives. They will announce some impressively large euro sums that will, in theory, fund it. However, in reality, what they will do is this:
The over-indebted EU member-states will guarantee loans to be taken out by the European Commission that the European Commission will then extend to the member-states as… loans. In short, monies borrowed by the member-states that are added to the debt of member-states will be funneled via the European Commission so as to pretend that the European Union is playing a role!
In summary, having killed off Eurobonds two weeks ago, the ruling oligarchy will facilitate the leaders of South-Western Europe, who were hitherto demanding Eurobonds, to fib to their voters – to tell them “We achieved, if not all we wanted, something important” and that “We made a good start in agreeing to a common, European response.”
The only thing that truly matters about tonight’s EU Council agreement is that the ruling oligarchy will impose upon Europe’s most vulnerable new national debt that guarantees massive new austerity.
Everything else is just thinly disguised propaganda.
Remember this, as our Lilliputian leaders exit the EU Council full of smiles and in celebratory mood: They are celebrating an awful agreement that allows them to funnel new national debts via Brussels before they fall on the shoulders of the weakest Europeans.
This is why DiEM25 is calling upon all Europeans to rise up against the EU Council’s latest crime against logic and, yes, against Europe.
For DiEM25’s 3-point plan that the EU Council should adopt, but refuses to, click here.
We need resilient cities to face health and ecological crises
On resilient cities and the Green New Deal for Europe
As we all find ourselves shut away from the world, the numbers of deaths from COVID-19 keeps rising and as of April 21st, there have been 175,474 deaths worldwide, the majority of which have been city dwellers. The virus is a wake up call for all of us and this is not a temporary rupture in an otherwise stable equilibrium. The crisis we are living through is a turning point in history with an oncoming economic depression and an eventual planetary breakdown which will make COVID 19 seem slight by comparison. While the crisis is still immediate, many amongst us are now starting to turn their attention to the question: “where do we go from here?”
DiEM25’s Green New Deal for Europe answers that question with its 10 foundational pillars containing a holistic and ambitious policy programme. As part of the deal for Europe, there will have to be a major focus on its cities and urban areas as that is where the majority of its citizens live and work.
Building cities and urban areas that are more durable, more humanly habitable and more resilient than those in the past is essential to ensure they can survive and thrive in the face of any kind of crisis.
A multifaceted approach is needed, and this article will introduce three essential ingredients to the Resilient city.
Firstly, we need well designed, compact urban spaces that promote cohesiveness and sustainable lifestyles with innovative approaches to construction using new localised materials and practices, such as ultra strong timber towers and biophilic design. For too long, grey and concrete urban expansions have plagued our cities that cause the urban heat island effect, accentuating the effects of heat waves and causing thousands of excess deaths. All of this should be supported a shift towards active travel and public transport to remove the dominance of the car from our lives, freeing up more space for the people.
Secondly, the economy of a city needs to become increasingly locally owned and diverse, allowing everyone to prosper and flourish. COVID-19 has exposed our interconnectedness and vulnerability, and has demonstrated the precedence of the everyday economy over the financial and of the absolute indispensability of essential workers and the local state. Community wealth building by the CLES comes to mind, which seeks to “provide resilience where there is risk and local economic security where there is precarity”. Alongside this, there needs to also be an exploration of moving past economic growth for growth’s sake towards potential stabilization of sections of the economy to prevent the trespassing of environmental boundaries while keeping the size of economies large enough so that minimum conditions for human well being are maintained. This has been thoughtfully demonstrated by Kate Raworth and her ‘Doughnut Economics’.
Thirdly, good governance, involving multiple stakeholders is essential. A postmodern understanding of resilience has demonstrated how it can serve as a style of governance that promises “transformative possibilities” with more localised participatory, collaborative citizen and community culture of engagement. Local communities understand their cities better than anyone else and are essential to building the resilience of the neighbourhoods of a city which has been demonstrated by proliferance of volunteer networks and food bank operators in the UK. This localised and decentralised approach to the governance of cities is essential to allow the voices of those who have traditionally been excluded to be heard in opposition to the top-down approaches beloved by the neoliberal establishment.
One advantage of the quarantine is that it allows us all time to think about how we can ensure that our cities are ready for the upcoming health and ecological crises. During a time when the governments are dominated by the feckless far-right, this thinking will be invaluable to the future survival of us all.
Find out more about the Green New Deal for Europe Campaign.
Without Eurobonds, the politics of Revanchism is back
Eurobonds and solidarity have been the watchwords for the last three weeks. Mediterranian countries have been especially loud on the need for the Eurozone to unite to fight the COVID-19 crisis efficiently. But the eurozone is more divided than ever, with a few countries, headed by the Netherlands and Germany, rejecting debt mutualisation (e.g., Eurobonds). Not only is the economy at stake; so is the political stability of the EU — with national pride sentiments gaining momentum amidst this internal confrontation. But is this a fight between countries, or a struggle of the classes, “corporatism style”?. The answer is no further than a quick, quarantine-proof trip to 19th century Europe.
Revanchism, a nationalist sentiment for revenge spread in public opinion, has been a major political tool in the old continent.
In the 1800s, the solution that was used to redeem loss of territory or influence was the inhumane ‘Scramble for Africa’. The French, humiliated by the post-revolutionary and Franco-Prussian wars, were ‘offered’ Algeria and Tunisia in order to appease its political leaders. The Italians were not happy with the Tunisian deal, so the English were always favorable to their conquest wars in Abyssinia. Germany’s colonization of Namibia and Tanzania was allowed in exchange for Bismarck’s sympathy with the British in Egypt. When there were no more pieces of Africa to negotiate, the Great War broke out.
This is a rather simplistic summary, but enough to make my point that, between 1871 and 1914 (43 years) Europe lived a long period of peace, strong diplomatic activity, and steady economic growth (deduced from GDP), similar to that we have experienced since the end of WWII. Looking at the history of the GDP per capita in England, we see that both periods (1871-1914 and 1945-2009) ended in an abrupt drop. We can conclude that 19th century Europe superficially resembled the days in which we were all born, both economically and politically.
In politics, there were election-winning technocrats that manipulated public opinion with the support of trade and industrial companies interested in acquiring new markets and goods in Africa. At the same time, colonial expansion was also made possible thanks to bankers ready to make a profit out of public debt growth. It happened the same way in Germany, Italy, France, Britain, or Portugal.
Today, as in the late 19th century, politicians are more similar to workers in a nail factory than to philosophers, to use Smith’s terms. At times, it seems like the trade of politicians consists in selling the power they gather from voters to the highest bidder. They make concessions to voters in order to get their support, but then use it to please big corporations with favorable deals such as market monopolies or reduced labor wages. Most of the time, politicians offer the voters a compromise or simply influence public opinion through the media.
When the German finance minister forces economically illogical agreements at the Eurogroup, or the French side acquiesces against its own interest, it is because their government needs to gather support from the wealthiest 1% to buy the vote of the virtually property-less 99% of the population. On the one hand, Germany’s Merkel acceptance of the Eurobonds might put an end to the fragile CDU coalition government, and likely defeat in the next elections, with the far-right waiting to take control. On the other hand, the reckless use of the European Stability Mechanism bailout fund to create a “rich EU” protectorate on Southern Europe (as in Greece or Portugal in 2011) will shred cohesion in the EU.
The point is, revanchism is completely useless. Dutch, Germans, Austrian, and Finnish are not heartless monsters because their governments reject to take an economically and morally just and efficient option (e.g., Eurobonds). Nor should the Mediterranian be regarded as defenders of the faith because of their chivalrous outcries for solidarity and justice.
The current impasse and incapacity to respond to the COVID-19 crisis and to prepare the reconstruction of European economy is not due to philosophic divergences among politicians, but rather to the lack of transparency and accountability in European politics.
The ‘economy’ — the wealthy speculators and monopolists — always gets the upper hand in Europe, mainly through their influence in non-elected informal meetings such as the Eurogroup (as has been reported by Euroleaks) and due to the European Commission’s opaque democratic processes. The Commission is the executive branch of the EU which holds, among other important roles, that of proposing legislation.
This “European government” indirectly depends on direct suffrage, but the overcomplicated election process leaves its composition to close-door negotiations between the heads of national governments (European Council). Take as an example the current president, Ursula von der Leyen, who was approved by the European Parliament without ever being a candidate. Moreover, despite the voluntary registration of lobbyists in the European Commission, the European Council lacks transparency at this level.
While this lack of transparency and accountability leaves the pledges of the European people unanswered, tensions between member-states are being used by far-right movements to project their power.
Nationalism thrives by giving simple solutions to complex problems affecting the front-line communities, as clearly laid on a recent essay about fascism. The masses, all across Europe, are being put at the risk of poverty due to the promiscuity between the political and the market economy spheres that has served as the basis of Western societies for many years.
In the EU, the common market and the common currency coexist with country-specific debt, with no European minimum-wage, or common fiscal policy. This reduces the power of national parliaments to tax and rule, and leaves a European legitimacy vacuum for big corporations to exploit, with serious implications for the masses. The Portuguese stock exchange provides a caricatural example of this vacuum, with the 20 most valuable companies featuring holdings with a seat in the tax-friendly Netherlands. This results from the lack of a commun fiscal policy in the EU, and the inefficiency of the most essential lobbying mechanism, the vote (as explained above).
In sum, the division in Europe is not only between the Italian and Dutch, or Greeks and Germans, but between the unchecked powers of big capital and the oppressed and voiceless people of member-states. The EU will not be saved through discussions within the Eurogroup or even at the level of the European Council. These are temporary, often fragile, and frequently condemned to failure (as in 1914). National pride and jingoism do not address the structural problems of the system, and only creates the perfect environment for senseless divisions to thrive.
The only way to put an end to the European crisis that has lasted since 2008 is to ensure increased transparency in the Union.
This will allow for a redistribution of wealth and rebalancing of European society under a truly democratic system. In order to survive the COVID-19 crisis and launch the basis for a true European Federation, the common market is not enough.
In the EU, capital moves freely and the labor market has no borders. Debt must therefore be common to all member-states. If the ECB issues Eurobonds immediately (Step 1 of DiEM25 anti-depression plan), all countries will be given equal tools to counter the consequences of the coming economic recession. If instead of having member-states bailing out their banks, the commission also injects money in peoples’ pockets (Step 2), the real economy will be protected and poverty will not spread. At last, Europe needs to prepare for the future (Step 3), not with a Marshall plan based on fossil fuels and speculation, but with an innovative green investment program.
While the subject of debt mutualisation still divides national governments, the idea has gained momentum with the European Parliament’s approval of a joint motion featuring a formal advice for the creation of European bonds. Although this is a non-binding proposal that implies limited shared risks, it highlights the important role of an elected institution in lobbying for progressive and ‘federalizing’ measures.
Either we fully embrace the European project, or our depleted and exhausted governments will embrace nationalism. History contains many testimonials of the disastrous consequences of nationalism and European fragmentation.