Lessons from Idlib for the EU : In the Twilight of a Ceasefire
“We challenge the EU to open a forum on an alternative program for refugees.”
In the twilight of an unsteady ceasefire in Idlib, and while borders shut down during the pandemic (against W.H.O. recommendations) we will not wait for the power-holders to shock us with their next move.
DiEM25’s #StoptheDeal campaign condemns the EU’s bribery of Turkish officials to facilitate mass deportations since March 20, 2016. But we do not stop there. Idlib showcased how the European Union hired paid gatekeepers against refugees in the Mediterranean, leading to yet another state intervention into the complex and ruinous state of affairs in Syria.
A democratic EU foreign policy should put an end to multibillion-euro mercenary financing schemes for Mediterranean police states in the region — like the Egyptian, Libyan, and Turkish militaries. Yet the EU has failed to take responsibility for the refugee crisis, and has instead delegated many of the decisions that they should be accountable for.
We challenge the EU to open a forum on an alternative program for refugees, and to stop the easy short-term solutions (easy for Brussels) of ‘deterrence’ when it comes to migration policy. The EU’s politics of ‘deterrence’ is simply the proxy repression of the ancient and predictable human behaviour of migration during war.
We recognize the refugee “flow”, which Turkey has been delegated to suppress as the human consequence of imperialist wars and national conflicts currently engulfing Syria, Libya and Afghanistan.
Syria’s civil war only intensified, thanks in part to the NATO member states’ investments in proxy warfare (such as the support of the “Syrian National Army” militia). These actions were based on a speculative understanding of the region, and on profit prospects for European weapons and munitions industries.
DiEM25 calls on the world’s progressives to join the Progressive International. Progressive movements can propose a New Deal on immigration. Progressive International supporters around the world can invoke Universal Jurisdiction against war criminals (including those NATO endorses) to be tried in court.
Turkey has agreed to ‘absorb’ Syrian as well as Afghan refugees. Therefore, we ask for EU cooperation with the International Criminal Court’s freshly opened investigations of NATO war crimes in Afghanistan, by preserving the lives of potential witnesses to these crimes among Afghan refugees — as well as the lives of all who are stranded between Greek and Turkish waters today.
3.6 million refugees currently inhabit Turkey. Hundreds of thousands in Idlib (Northwest Syria) became vulnerable in the crossfire of a Turkish-Russo-Syrian war last December, while fearing the presence of Al Qaeda fighters moving from other areas of Syria, Northwest into Idlib.
Atrocities on all fronts further inflame the Syrian conflict that began with civil war, after a tragically thwarted popular uprising nearly a decade ago.
We watched the conflict intensify once again, with the involvement of proxy-militias backed by the US, EU member states, and other NATO allies. Sanctions contribute to inflaming the already dire conditions of the Syrians.
Whether power-brokers acknowledge it or not, the recent Turkish intervention in Idlib further set the stage for confrontation in the current Orwellian struggle of Great Powers, pitting NATO against Eurasia (Russia-China-Iran). In violation of the 2018 Sochi agreements, Turkey deployed troops alongside terrorist militias like the al-Qaeda-affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria.
Inevitably, Syria’s Ba’athist military regime retaliated, backed by its Russian ally, as Moscow strove to halt the “Domino-effect” pattern of regime changes, imposed by NATO members in Russia’s immediate vicinity.
US senator Lindsay Graham gloated “I very much appreciate Turkey’s intervention in Idlib” calling for a no-fly zone—thereby echoing Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign promise to declare a “no fly zone” over Syria, egging for war with Moscow. Joe Biden, recent winner of a Pyrrhic victory against our Comrade Sanders, pledges similar vows.
We encourage the EU to more boldly reiterate its condemnation of US withdrawal (later mimicked by Russia) from the INF treaty in the nuclear arms race.
As an internationalist, anti-war, anti-imperialist political movement, DiEM25 joins this call of progressive Turkish organisations and our comrades in MeRA25.
The EU has sufficient power to persuade the Turkish State to keep to the Sochi agreement and out of Syria, beyond mere ceasefire and the recent lockdowns (which obstruct humanitarian aid to Syria).
DiEM25 reiterates that Europe must put an end to its unbridled arms trade, and reallocate the profits of arms sales made to Syria factions and open aid passages to refugees, instead of paying more hired guns.
Refugees should not be reduced to blackmail capital, Trojan horses or bargaining chips in the hands of the Turkish oligarchy or other hired hands. DiEM25 calls for pacification of all currently closed borders, while redirecting the multibillion euro salaries of client regimes towards a European solution for the flux of war-tired refugees.
We condemn the farcical Munich Conference, where German “Defence” Minister Krampp-Karrenbauer stated Germany’s eagerness to imitate the United States’ egregious amplification of the defence budget at the expense of social programs.
DiEM25, by virtue of being an anti-austerity movement is also an anti-war movement and, thereby, an ecological movement that opposes plagiarizing EU officials who talk of a “Green Deal” whilst investing in feeding the flames with jet fuel.
Neo-conservative security regimes in place since 2007 have failed.
We call on EU governments to replace economic sanctions with arms embargoes and to reopen diplomatic passages to Syria, Russia and Turkey; whilst also opening a forum and opportunities for civil instruments.
Opportunistic strategies have not only failed refugees, but also our humanity. If EU President Ursula Von der Leyen continues to invoke migration-panic and a “European way of life” to justify funding regional police states, that too makes us complicit in suppressing Turkish citizens’ democratic aspirations. Such vain endorsements inevitably unravel Europe’s own democratic integrity.
Join DiEM25’s Progressive International to help us start the conversation on proposing a New Deal on immigration.
A lack of imagination among centrist politicians has led time and again to a failed Realpolitik response to immigration in the 21st century. This issue can only be settled within an international platform of solidarity that challenges Neo-Conservatism, the IMF, as well as the EU’s deportation-bureaucracies.
A dialogue of mutual understanding can end the propaganda wars around migration, and reconcile divides between local workers and the ‘exiled’ such as refugees and immigrants — those who currently feel excluded from centrist debate, and are lured by the bait of nativist parties’ disinformation into the ‘Nationalist International’.
A New Deal on immigration can promote the experiences and insights of progressives around the world: those inside and outside Europe, those confronted by the pressures and dilemmas of whether to join Diasporas or remain in their homelands.
The authors extend their warm gratitude to DiEM25 Izmir 1DSC, for their valuable support and to all comrades from Turkey who have provided contributions in the drafting of this article.
This article was written in collaboration with Mohammad Khair Nahhas and is the outcome of participative deliberations that took place on the issue of the EU-Turkey Treaty and migration policy between several DiEM25 DSCs.
Orbán’s dictatorship: the EU must act decisively
Eurocracy, Budget-cracy, or Democracy? On Viktor Orbán’s dictatorship and EU hypocrisy.
On March 30th, Viktor Orbán obtained the indefinite recognition of special powers from 2/3 of his parliament. Meanwhile, the European Union seems guilty of inertia in the face of this coup de main. The state of exception of the ‘coronavirus’ does not hide the authoritarianism of Viktor Orbán’s centralizing maneuver. We called this a “Pan-demia” precisely because, across the planet, it has already affected 209 countries; including all European countries. The Hungarian “emergency” is no different to that of other states.
Throughout history, maneuvers such as that of Orbán have been done precisely when the public is not attentive.
The measures Orbán has been implementing do not concern the health of the populace. One of his first decrees concerns the ‘unblocking of construction sites’, and forces the opening of three construction sites that was previously put to a halt by the mayor of Budapest. Citizens had already opposed these constructions, as they wanted to prevent the changes in the public city park, and demanded greater protection of the environment.
These emergency powers now allow Orbán to legislate by decree, without any intervention from his citizens or political cabinet.
In our history, governments that have consisted of a single ruler, with the power to legislate and dictate their thoughts, have been referred to as dictatorships (and sometimes also tyrannies). In fact, the term emerged in ancient Rome in reference to periods of state emergency or crisis under which one leader was appointed with absolute power for a temporary period. The excuse of a ‘marked majority’ in the Hungarian legislative and constitutive structure cannot defend Orbán’s coup de main.
Hitler and Mussolini also began with decrees similar to that of Viktor Orbán.
Mussolini consolidated his power through a series of laws. He transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship using legal means, too. Hitler also came to power legally: he established his dictatorship by implementing a decree on ‘special powers’, similarly to Orbán. In their early stages, both social-fascism and national-socialism rose to power legally and in seeming ‘respect’ of its existing constitutions. Otherwise, we would speak of a “military coup”.
In 2020, the true democrats in Europe, are stunned and dumbfounded in front of a European legislation which assigns absolute power to a ruler within the European Union. The specific formula of ‘Suspension of Parliament, without time limits’ is chilling — it is not a temporary measure at all. Even the United Kingdom’s Telegraph, they write: “the European Union has its first dictatorship”. With this provision, the Magyar president will be able to suspend any existing regulation, govern by decree and postpone the elections.
The Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25) is at the forefront of this battle to protect democracy.
In the our post ‘Hungary becomes the first dictatorship in the European Union’ we declared that:
“The European Union in its majority parties for years has ignored the authoritarian involution of the Orbán government. (…) By continuing to admit Fidesz (his party) to the ranks of the European People’s Party. Ignoring any preconditions for reaffirming Hungary’s rights and democracy. Once again, the EU demonstrates a double standard: on the one hand, intransigence in respect of austerity policies, on the other, lack of interest in the rights and freedoms of its citizens.”
But let’s find out the background.
DiEM25 is a transnational movement with members in many states, such as the United Kingdom, Turkey, Portugal and Hungary and there is also a local collective in Budapest. Our members from Hungary, and with hungarian expertise speak directly below.
It is usually difficult to start a political conversation with Hungarian friends. In recent decades the nation has been burned by the corruption of governments of all kinds — even progressive candidates of the previous decade. For many decades, and before the border opening of 1989, public speaking about politics was forbidden. As a result, people have become disaffected with politics and are uncomfortable talking about it. Notoriously, in the city crossed by the Danube, there is no public talk about money or politics.
As writer Stefano Bottoni writes, Hungarian culture emphasizes that they are ‘folks who follow the leader’ with a high respect for those in positions of responsibility. Even in the capital city, it is difficult to find someone who speaks for or against Viktor Orbán. In these hours, working and teaching often, with my courses and classes in Budapest, I have been able to contact my collaborators in Hungary for their comments on these news.
The secrets of Orbán’s propaganda
Viktor Orbán: a sovereign and therefore anti-pro-European, a xenophobic and therefore racist, a right-wing and therefore authoritarian, has been in power since 2010 — a decade now.
His narrative is that of a surrounded people; he depicts Hungary as a nation that must be protected from ‘external dangers’. He is against migrants, against refugees, against foreign countries. In his words: “Africa wants to kick down our door, and Brussels is not defending us. Europe is under invasion already. The countries that don’t stop immigration will be lost.”
It is a narrative as effective as that of Benjamin Netanyahu’s nationalist zionism. The narrative of a country ‘under invasion’. In Hungary, this leverages many centuries of struggle against outer military powers.
From ‘500 to 1956, many war defeats have been written in local history. We must also add to these a long list of recent attempted revolutions (1703, 1735, 1848, 1918, 1956), all lost with defeats. And so is the list of enemies from the ‘surrounding world’: Holy Roman Empire, Republic of Venice, Mongols, Ottoman Empire, Habsburg Monarchy, Great Britain, Napoleon’s Kingdom of France, Russian Empire, Austrian Empire, Prussia, Romania, the winning Allied Powers of both the World War I and World War II, plus the recent Soviet Union.
The consequence is that in 10 years the only moment when his right-wing party Fidesz lost the elections was at the municipal offices of last year. In 2019, in 10 of the country’s 23 most important cities, the opposition, united in a single group to oppose Orbán’s tyrannical tendencies, won. The recent blow to Orbán’s authoritarianism was the loss of the capital of the ‘kingdom’. Budapest, the monopolistic center of culture, politics and (above all) the economy of the whole nation, has wounded the control of Orbán’s party, electing the candidate of the union of the oppositions, an environmentalist, democratic and progressive (Gergely Karacsony).
Similarly to Donald Trump’s performance in New York and Los Angeles, and Boris Johnson’s performance in London, Viktor Orbán failed to conquer the majority of the population in Budapest. However, his ascendance remains, and in Budapest at least 2 out of 5 people who have voted for him. This defeat in the capital only motivated the authoritarian ruling party to increase its dose of institutional aggression.
The counter-move was similar to that of Erdogan in Turkey with the victory of the opposition in Istanbul. Orbán reacted by increasing the attempts to impose tyrannical authoritarianism. His party Fidesz wins thanks to votes taken in the province, in smaller cities and in the poorest countryside.
The hypocrisy of ‘anti-Europeanism’ but with the economy of Europe
Viktor Orbán’s advantage, at home and in Germany, is his own hypocrisy concerning his ‘anti-European’ stance.
It is easy for him to compare the European Union to the Soviet Union, accusing it of being just as liberticidal. However, not only does he not want to leave Europe, but he is also careful not to start a real discussion about a “Hungh-exit”. On the other hand, he makes full use of the Community’s financial channels to fully disburse European funds in the Magyar country and integrate it industrially with the German locomotive. In fact, the double-strand bond of Hungary as a natural inclusion in the automotive supply chain of Germany is strong.
As Alessandro Grimaldi, another great connoisseur of Hungary and author of the blog ‘Live in Budapest’, stated to me in an interview:
“5% of the Hungarian GDP comes from the German manufacturing industry. In Hungary there are 3 of the largest Audi and Mercedes-Benz factories for components thanks to two large multipliers: the low labor cost, a ‘Thatcherian’ economy and a local conservative right-wing labor code.”
In fact, the Hungarian labor code — especially if compared to the Italian Workers’ Statute of 1970 — is so conservative and right-wing that it would make Elsa Fornero, the previous Italian labor minister, happy. She was the one who reduced the ‘acquired rights’ of the Workers’ Statute in order to make individual layoffs for economic reasons during the crisis of 2012.
By virtue of this, the numbers are now in Orbán’s favor, with: “A GDP that registers a + 5%. An Eastern European economy that aims at an advantageous devalued Forint, compared to the Euro.”
The European Union has been guilty of silence and inertia in the face of every coup de main by Viktor Orbán
The European Union has been:
Silent, on the unification of research institutes and historical archives of the country in order to create the notorious “Veritas”. This body, under the direct control of the government, now promotes the rewriting of history in favor of the ideas of the right-wing party Fidesz.
Quiet, except for empty sanctions, on the discrimination of Roma, Gypsy and migrant communities, pushed to the margins of the country and to the margins of the schools, with reserved classes for their children and the inability to access extracurricular activities such as swimming pool and trips, (guaranteed to “residing” Hungarians).
Silent, on the movement of the statue of Imre Nagy, the 1956 revolution patriot, as part of the new narrative of a victim Hungary, defended by the Orbán patriot alone.
Silent, on the forcing of the Central European University to leave Hungary to move to Vienna.
Silent, on the maneuver of fake rationalization of the communication system which led to the complete allocation by the right-wing parties of the Hungarian newspapers and televisions.
Silent, on the centralization of the schools that (once municipal) have been gradually nationalized.
Silent, on the transfer of ownership of 495 news channels, passed under the control of a publisher loyal to the Fidesz party.
Silent, on the progressive impoverishment of the school, with a drastic lowering of the compulsory schooling and increasing its costs, as in the Anglo-Saxon style and the class-conscious drift.
Silent, on the liberticidal laws against journalists and citizens who publish what for the government are ‘fake news’, would face five years in prison.
The European Union’s stance on these issues calls into question its proclaimed humanitarian values. In practice, with the rule on ‘fake news’, or even proven truths, any statement that portrays the government in a negative light could be sanctioned with 5 years in prison. How could a humanitarian post-war Europe turn a blind eye to laws that the government can so easily interpret against personal freedoms?
On the European continent, this is a serious contradiction. This Europe calls itself ‘positive and benevolent’, but cultivates within its members a disrespect for the standards of liberal democracies. The European Commission and European Parliament’s immobility and hypocrisy have been highlighted for the umpteenth time.
The random order of national interests and policies
Of the 27 EU countries, only 14 have opposed Orbán’s initiative: Italy, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Holland, Portugal and Sweden.The outrage of European progressives has been limited to intellectual groups and associations, which have not resulted in any actions taken by the European Union.
The current European Parliament seems to have become a consortium of national interests rather than a parliament through which its mission of “supporting the fight for democracy, freedom of speech and fair elections across the globe” is achieved. It is made up of governments that sell weapons to third world factions, and extract gas and oil through fracking. In it, corrupt nations abide by the hand of Erdogan and various other dictators. Moreover, the European Union has done its worst in the past month in terms of national selfishness.
There has been a shameful denial of the tragedies taking place in countries such as Italy and Spain, which have declared the most deaths from COVID-19. The mutual accusations between countries, the closures of the borders, and the absolute discordance in the European anti-virus provisions, are not a coincidence. Each country has been left to its own provisions despite statements calling for ‘solidarity’. The lack of a European health service makes itself real. At the same time, there is a lack of a single European foreign policy and of a real, truly, European foreign ministry. The EU does not have common taxation, a common income, a common defense service, a common health care, nor a common pension provision. What can be expected from what is in practice only a budgetary union?
Is budget-cractic eurocracy really based on democracy?
The speed and aggressiveness with which Germany, Holland and Belgium attack anyone who only dares to verbally propose to question the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is high.
Do we remember what happened in 2015 with Greece?
The EU apparatus seems to only be interested in respecting monetary austerity. The commission seems to not care about democracy and the living conditions of the citizens of those states of Europe considered ‘minor’ and ‘peripheral’. Uncomfortable testimony to this ‘budgetary authoritarianism’ is DiEM25’s recent disclosure of the Euroleaks recordings. The recordings of the Eurogroup meetings showcase dialogues on the verge of blackmail and extortion against the Greek democratic referendum of 2015. They are evidence of a blind Eurogroup, a harmful European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and an obtuse Troika.
Rather than protect citizens from powers that undermine democracy and the rights of European citizens, the European Union has resorted to immobile laxity, shyness and superficial declarations. The comparison between the treatment of the Greece government in 2015, and the treatment of the Hungary government in 2020 makes us angry.
Let’s also remember Brexit.
This summer, the EU media reacted with outrage to the temporary — one month — suspension of the English parliament signed by Queen Elizabeth. In that case, billions of euros from Great Britain were at stake in the EU budget. Towards Orbán, the same media didn’t react with such sensationalism and acrimony. These comparisons showcase the EU’s hypocritical stance concerning its support of democracy and humanitarian values. .
The EU is not a people’s government (demo-cracy), but a budgetary government (budget-cracy)
DiEM25 has long denounced the need to reform the European Commission to make it a ‘demo-cratic’ institution rather than a ‘€uro-cratic’ one.
As the journalist Corrado Formigli denounces: “Orbán’s Hungary must leave the European Union if this question is not immediately resolved.” If the European Union does not immediately react to this dictator, the European Parliament will be exposed in its uselessness. Dictatorships are a clear existential threat to the European Union and its people. If the mission of the European Parliament is to protect democracy, fair elections, and free speech and human rights, then it must take a stance now.
The EU must act decisively, firmly and immediately against Orbán’s dictatorship.
Ivan Alberto Larosi is a member of the National Collective in Italy and Spain.
Selective solidarity in Brussels
“It’s not ‘we don’t need’ or ‘we cannot handle’, it’s ‘we don’t want’.”
On Saturday morning 21 March, I read the following on the twitter feed of Alain Maron, the Brussels minister for social integration and health: “#Transmigrants without housing are particularly exposed to the #corona pandemic. A housing solution was urgently required!” He triumphantly announced a two-tier solution: a Brussels hostel would make available 120 beds and citizen-run shelter La Porte d’Ulysse would start welcoming 350 people both during the day and at night.
Since then, the Brussels municipalities of Etterbeek and Forest have also requisitioned hotels and relief organisations Samusocial, Doctors without Borders and the Red Cross will together soon provide about 184 beds for people without homes who suffer coronavirus symptoms. This is all great news indeed — due mainly to the admirable efforts and investments of private individuals and NGOs. But what good is a couple of hundred places when thousands of people in Brussels are estimated to lack a roof over their head, their living conditions making them particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus?
On Friday 13 March, a day before federal measures came into force to stop the spread of COVID-19 in Belgium, Doctors of the World already warned that these measures were utterly incompatible with the reality of people who simply do not have a home in which to self-quarantine. On Tuesday 17, Le Petit-Château, the Brussels registration centre for asylum seekers closed until further notice. Since then, people wishing to apply for asylum in Belgium can no longer register. No emergency accommodation was provided.
Organisations such as the NGO coalition 11.11.11, Amnesty International Flanders, Human Rights League Belgium, socio-cultural movement Orbit, the Anti-Poverty Network and Flemish Refugee Action denounced a government which “in these uncertain times abandons vulnerable people like asylum seekers and the homeless, while at the same time calling on the general public to show solidarity with each other.”
Because nobody can currently be deported, on Thursday 19 March the Belgian Immigration Office decided to remove 300 people from detention centres. Once again, no emergency accommodation was provided. The same day, Brussels police, assisted by dogs, chased about 100 people without housing from the Maximilien Park for violating the assembly ban. Volunteers were fined for offering accommodation and distributing food.
After several years of research into EU border and mobility management, I am no longer surprised by the lack of political realism and decisiveness when it comes to people whom the state does not recognise as citizens (and who therefore are not entitled to civil rights, but only to non-binding ‘universal human rights’). Western countries like Belgium have a long history of cloaking such impotence under a veil of humanitarianism.
The reports of the 1938 Évian Conference speak volumes. This very first ‘refugee summit’ in Europe took place a couple of months before the November Pogroms of 1938, which saw hundreds of Jews murdered and thousands of Jewish houses, stores, synagogues and cemeteries destroyed. At the conference, all delegates first bent over backwards to recount the lamentable fate of German and Austrian Jews, only to later explain in the finest detail why their countries were currently not in a position to accept refugees.
A headline in the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter sneered: “Keiner will Sie haben” [Nobody wants them]. 80 Years later this headline echoed through a scarcely candid interview I did with an anonymous asylum and migration official working for an EU institution: “We no longer want those refugees. It’s not ‘we do not need’ or ‘we cannot handle’, it’s ‘we don’t want’.”
The overcrowded camps, the bilateral agreements with authoritarian regimes and the condoning of illegal pushback operations are no aberrations, but precisely the core of our EU border regime, in which violence and humanitarianism invariably go hand in hand.
In this respect, the Belgian federal and regional governments’ calls for ‘heart-warming solidarity’ among citizens do not contradict their utter lack of adequate care for people whom they do not recognise as citizens. This hyper-selective interpretation of the notion of ‘solidarity’ again became blatantly clear to me when I tried to register as a volunteer via the recently launched platforms ‘Flandershelps’ and ‘Brusselshelps’.
However indispensable, most categories of volunteer work available are reminiscent of the middle-class sentimentalism that permeates social media these days – from balcony operettas (which require a balcony to begin with) and window applause in support of aid workers (whose work has been all but economised out of existence) to self-reflexive isolation diaries (authored in a second residence in the countryside). On ‘Brusselshelps’, the category of voluntary work that is at the forefront today with over 450 subscriptions is the walking of dogs whose Brussels owners can momentarily not leave their homes.
Nowhere does the webpage mention the people who queued up in vain at a closed registration centre, who were chased from a public park or removed from a detention centre. When will we, as citizens and governments, start showing genuine solidarity and take full responsibility for the situation? Or are we really going to wait until it explodes into the next humanitarian crisis?
Until we can once more fill our newspapers with the paralysing, lamentable images of the endless suffering of people?
People who — we fail to recognise — are not wandering around homeless in Brussels for some abstract, contextless reason.
People whose fate — we fail to recognise — is inextricably linked to ours, through our colonial histories and the postcolonial power relations that inform our EU border policies and international visa policies.
People who — we fail to recognise — are on the losing end of a structural inequality which we collectively maintain in these times of ‘heartwarming solidarity’.
Thomas Bellinck is artist and doctoral researcher at KASK / School of Arts of University College, Ghent.
This article was originally published in dutch on the 26th of March 2020 on Knack.be.
UPDATE 31/03/2020: Since this text first appeared, another Brussels hotel has made available 250 more beds, while the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region has now earmarked €4 million to temporarily support the homeless sector.
Taboos are being broken during the COVID-19 crisis
by DiEM25 member Johannes Bohun
All across Europe, we are beginning to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on our political landscape, economy and health. Initially, the government measures introduced in the past two weeks may have seemed a little excessive to some people. But for most of us, it soon became clear: these measures are necessary in order to — at least in theory — ensure that we have a chance of containing this novel viral threat. Lo and behold: right here and now we are finding the answer to the existential question: “What is more important – profit or survival?”. At least in Europe, for now, the answer falls in favour of survival. A reaction that demonstrates an almost unheard-of exception in our political culture.
The economy is standing still, and people are staying at home. They are forced to take unpaid leave, have their hours reduced, and work from home, or even pushed into unemployment. Others, whose professions are deemed necessary to keep the system going are expected to heroically persevere.
As the stock markets groan, the planet breathes a sigh of relief. Each individual — or even society as a whole — is now forced to pause for a moment and look at reality from a new perspective. The streets are unusually quiet, while the economic machinery stands largely still, and the government is busy putting together huge aid packages on a level with the Marshall Plan.
We are indeed experiencing a drastic paradigm shift: survival is now officially more important than the hum of the mega-machine, more important than profit and returns. And further still: political elites basing their actions on scientific facts may have just become the new global norm – at least for a while. Facts are prioritized over political guidelines – without keeping one eye on the prospect of re-election. Like dominoes, the taboos are falling, one after another.
“Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.”, wrote Fredric Jameson in 1994. COVID-19 has opened a door for the collective imagination to envision alternative possibilities. The temporary freezing of the status quo suddenly proves to be absolutely feasible, even necessary, to prevent a pandemic catastrophe. The overwhelming part that ideology plays in our day-to-day global operations becomes apparent.
The four Machiavellian commandments, so to speak, which form the core of neoliberal ideology, have been broken at lightning speed in recent days — for the benefit of the general public.
#1 Zero deficit is priority no. 1
The fetish of zero deficit is now history. Suddenly the rule is: money may be printed when it is needed. Concerned voices wondering how the money should be paid back, is to be answered as follows: Monetary and fiscal systems are not God-given, but man-made. For the first time in the history of capitalism, these could be redesigned to be democratic and centred around living beings – in this sense, COVID-19 offers an opportunity which, if missed, could have unforeseeable consequences for survival on this planet.
Why? Because a pandemic has done what millions of climate activists failed to do: it has been able to stop the profit mega-machine in the name of survival.
#2 There is no such thing as society
Margaret Thatcher’s dogma is now also being proven wrong: never before has solidarity and self-restriction for the common good been so globally decreed by the state. These are the same drastic changes in everyday life that will be inevitable if the climate crisis is to be overcome. Only through limiting our consumption of biocapacity will it be possible to achieve climate justice. Never before has it been so obvious: the individual good and the common good are two sides of the same coin. Because: we do not have three planets, but only one.
COVID-19 teaches us: There is such a thing as society, a society consisting of people both weak and strong, healthy and unhealthy. The strong and healthy are now encouraged to limit their own freedom (to move as they please) in favour of the freedom of the weak and sick (to survive).
Now, more than ever, an entire culture is being offered the moment to recognize:
- that a life without consumption as a leisure activity can certainly be a life worth living,
- that society exists not only nationally, but across all borders,
- that consideration must be given to the vulnerable and sick not only within national borders, but also across them,
- that one’s freedom ends where the other’s begins.
COVID-19 teaches us that the Iron Lady’s sleight of hand no longer works. Because there is and there always will be a society.
#3 Don’t believe the science unless it is costing you money
Suddenly, scientific facts take precedence over market economy dogmas. The whole world is desperately asking the United Nations health organisation WHO for advice on how best to deal with the Corona crisis. This also means, above all, an answer to the question of how to deal with an exponential curve. Because all of a sudden, ministries and the offices of the state suspect that such an exponential curve can be something quite dangerous. And according to the logic of an exponential curve, it is not only corona viruses that multiply, but also all those things that blow greenhouse gases into the air:
Global GDP, primary energy use, global freight transport, CO2 in the air, temperature on the Earth’s surface, loss of rainforests, decline in Biosphere — they all show the same steep upward curve that characterizes the increase of the coronavirus infection rate.
“When you’re dealing with exponential growth, the time to act is when it feels too early,” as Paul Graham states.
If our trust in science does not survive COVID-19, the climate collapse will be inevitable. We must take the advice of the IPCC as seriously as we take the advice of the WHO.
#4 Always deny the power of the media
Without the persistence of the media, in many countries drastic measures would probably have come far too late. Indeed, the media can have a decisive influence on the way in which wars are exposed or covered up, human rights crimes are revealed or forgotten, abuses come to light or glossed over. Whether it is the Iraq war, the Panama Papers or Nestle’s child labourers. Even if they don’t readily admit it, it is part of the craft of successful policy makers to make effective use of the media apparatus.
In the case of the climate crisis, at any rate, the media have been much less united in recent months than in the case of the COVID-19 crisis. Much of the media, after Corona, “exaggerate” the need for drastic measures against the exponential growth and climate deterioration curve, just as they warned against the exponential corona infection curve. It is now more likely that the triangle of forces comprising committed civil society, insightful representatives of the people, and persistent media, will be strong enough to confront the impending climate collapse with the same determination and fact-based and clear-sightedness as they have done in the face of the COVID19 crisis.
This is an abridged and translated version of an original post (in German) in the DiEM25 forum, by member Johannes Bohun. Translation and editing by Yolanda Leask and David Schwertgen.
Picture credits: Don´t panic by Michael Kowalczyk (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Why capitalism's 'wealth is health' argument is failing people
The abundance of wealth means superior health: the true nature of capitalism during the COVID-19 outbreak.
With 208 countries and territories being affected, the coronavirus can be considered a major threat to life as we know it. Health and safety should be the primary concern of European governments during a pandemic. But governments have been trying to keep the economy stable without taking adequate measures, which has, in turn, caused more long-term economic repercussions.
In spite of the fact that the virus is a worldwide phenomenon causing harm to those living in affected areas, some are feeling its damaging effects harder than others. As many health outcomes like life expectancy and diabetes can be closely linked to economic disparities, it shows us how wealth is an important factor in a person’s wellbeing and that we are in fact in a continuous state of crisis, as the system allows selective groups to be able to have better health conditions than others. Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once said ‘The first wealth is health’ — but in a world drenched in capitalism, it looks like the first health is wealth.
The history of social rights in western Europe
In times of the Industrial Revolution, the working-class could be described as Karl Marx would say: “mere owners of their physical and mental capacities, exploiting their own bodies for wage labour”. They would find themselves trapped in a dishonest relationship with an employer who owned the means of production. Within the informal or formal contracts formed between the two parties, the wage of the worker had to be kept low to maximize the accumulation of wealth and profits. As the state had no or little power to intervene in company rules, people had to face shifts up to 16 hours in inhumane circumstances, resulting in perilous life conditions for the worker.
With the passage of time, working conditions in Western Europe did improve significantly. Not because of the good-heartedness of the employers, but because of the strong presence of European union movements and other social movements that fought for social rights. This triggered demonstrations that demanded a 40-hour week as well as a higher pay and caused the active implementation of universalistic social regulation on matters like healthcare, and social insurance.
Although we should cherish these achievements, we should also keep in mind that these social structures that have been put in place have already been eroded due to the rise of neoliberalism within the European continent. The recent ITUC Global Rights Index 2019 showed that the rights of European workers to “establish or join a trade union” has drastically deteriorated since the last census in 2018.
The widening gap between rich and poor
While research shows that there has actually been a reduction in socio-economic inequalities between the 1930’s and 1970’s in Europe, since the mid 1970’s it has once again significantly increased. The precarization of labor has created insecure working conditions for most people due to a rise in zero-hour and part-time contracts. Labour market deregulation and ‘economic modernisation’ are the main causes of this trend, leaving lower-paid workers in more uncertain situations with less social benefits to support a decent standard of living. The occurrence of the 2008 financial crisis only accelerated the deterioration of working conditions causing increasing stress at work, wage cuts and wage freezes.
These existing health inequities are further exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis and its economic impact. Celebrities and politicians are using their money and influence to attempt to secure ventilators amidst the shortage, whilst already-disenfranchised groups — such as prisoners or the homeless — are more likely to suffer from health issues that would make them vulnerable to COVID-19.
In the United States, the state of Michigan’s reporting of the racial breakdown of coronavirus cases shows that African Americans are not only more likely to get the virus, but also to die from it. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on April 3rd, “the chronic toll of redlining, environmental racism, wealth gap, etc. ARE underlying health conditions. Inequality is a comorbidity.” In Europe, it has also been reported that determinants of health are multifaceted and require a holistic approach — health and social policy must be combined with economic policy in order to make an impact.
As we can observe, socioeconomic inequality had already worsened in Europe before the arrival of the COVID-19 virus. It is precisely through this uneven fertile landscape that it has spread and become increasingly lethal. It is a fact that people with a lower income have a harder time saving up money, and have less benefits attached to their jobs such as health insurance or paid sick leave. As a result, these individuals barely have money — or no money at all — to support themselves during crises and thus are less flexible in warding off the by-products of the outbreak.
The indispensability of the working class
Ironically enough, it’s the people with vital yet low-wage jobs like cashiers, nurses, delivery personnel, bus drivers and workers who are risking their health to keep on providing essential services for their fellow citizens, forcing us to rethink who is ‘dispensable’ in the midst of this crisis.
Whilst it is often claimed that CEO’s are irreplaceable, aren’t they as ‘replaceable’ as the people who are now finding themselves at the frontline of the pandemic, doing everything in their power to tackle the outbreak? Is it fair that a CEO in Europe at times earns 171 times the amount of what a nurse, bus driver or worker makes?
In times like these, the only distinction in between jobs lies between the difference in income, socio-economic benefits and the damaging economical and physical effects on lower-paid workers in contrast to these effects on high-income earners. In the world after the coronavirus, we’ll have to learn out of these experiences by continuously demanding more social justice for the lower classes through organizing ourselves on a regular basis, as has been done in the past.
The next steps
As we keep these realities in mind, we’re now clearly seeing the fragility of our economic system.
The ‘European Pillar of Social Rights’ says: “Everyone has the right to timely access to affordable, preventative and curative health care of good quality.” Yet, numerous countries in Europe are now struggling to counter the novel coronavirus and are now experiencing the devastating effects of neoliberal austerity measures imposed on public healthcare throughout the last decades, from the decrease in recruitment rates to the frozen or even reduced salaries of nurses.
We won’t forget the shortcomings of our healthcare systems, exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic — last month, our movement called for “free, universal, public healthcare for all!” But above all, an urgent and radical restructuring of the EU is necessary. For this reason, DiEM25 proposes a 3-point plan to fight recession, and future crises, effectively. The plan consists of: 1) issuing €1 trillion in ECB-Eurobonds, 2) the injection of a €2000 European Solidarity Cash Payment to every European giving them the capability to boost economies around them and 3) the introduction of a European Green Recovery & Investment Program to avoid more austerity, less investment and the diminishment of quality jobs.
The steps mentioned above are only the first steps towards changing a Europe overtaken by greed and the capital of multinationals, but with these first steps a new Europe will arise.
10 years ago today WikiLeaks released 'Collateral Murder'
Exactly 10 years ago WikiLeaks released a US military video depicting the slaying of over a dozen people in Iraq.
Today is April 5. Exactly 10 years ago WikiLeaks released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in Iraq – including two Reuters journalists and injuring small children. It was called Collateral Murder.
The killers in the video are running free whereas Julian Assange, the publisher who revealed the crime, has been politically persecuted and deprived of his freedom for ten years now.
He is currently under pre-trial detention at a high-security prison reserved for those suspects of murder, threatened by extradition to the US, and highly vulnerable to the Coronavirus, after his humanitarian bail request was rejected.
“[Assange] stands for something. And his eventual further imprisonment, condemnation, and so on, will be a clear signal. Signal in what? In what is today — apart from ecology and refugees — maybe the crucial war: the war for digital control of our lives.” — Slavoj Žižek
“I believe that Julian Assange should have never been placed in prison. The charges against him in the United States represent some of the most far-reaching and dangerous legal assertions ever made on the question of press freedom. Whatever anyone thinks about Julian Assange one thing is absolutely clear: Julian Assange provided a public service the citizens of the US and the world in helping to create wikileaks and by publishing documents that demonstrated in clear raw form the crimes that the US government commits around the world on a daily basis as well as other countries. The only reason the Julian Assange is in prison right now is because the United States wants him dead.” — Jeremy Scahill
“It is fascinating what you can find about Ebola, SARS, Swine Flu, Avian Flu, released by Wikileaks. If we had such a person today — in China, in the United States — like Julian Assange, we would be in a better situation. But what the governments are doing; they are actually leaving him to die in a cage.” — Srećko Horvat
We must prevent the extradition of our Advisory Panel member and co-founder Julian and demand his release!
Here are three things that you can do today in order to help:
- Sign our petition against the extradition of Julian Assange
- Spread the following message on Facebook and in your chat groups: Press freedom is under attack. Ten years ago the #collateralmurder videos were revealed by @Wikileaks. The DiEM25 Advisory Panel member and journalist Julian Assange has been politically persecuted and deprived of his freedom for nine years now. He is threatened by prosecution, extradition and the #coronavirus. Today Julian Assange needs our support. Sign this petition https://internal.diem25.org/en/petitions/1 now and spread this message!
Or you can use the following message on Twitter: “If war can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth”. After 10 years of #CollateralMurder, we demand the freedom of Julian Assange, publisher, @WikiLeaks founder and @DiEM_25 Advisory Panel member #JulianAssange. https://collateralmurder.com/ - If you want to join our campaign against the extradition of Julian, stay informed in this Telegram channel: t.me/dontextraditeassange
To learn more about Julian Assange’s extradition case, read more here.
You can also watch last night’s DiEMTV special with Jeremy Scahill and Srećko Horvat on YouTube, where they discuss Assange and the important role of Wikileaks in global politics; or Slavoj Zizek’s DiEMTV presentation where he calls for more ‘citizen spies’ like Assange.
DiEM25 TV goes local!
Members & local groups throughout Europe are contributing to DiEM25 TV’s programming, and a number of conferences will be held in April & May, in different languages. They will be touching on varied topics such as agency and the internet, the importance of whistleblowers, and how municipal campaigns can strengthen the movement.
Come along and register below for our upcoming events!
Thursday, April 9th 18:30 CET — French
Internet & personal freedoms – discussion with Emeric Tourniaire (computer science professor at Lycée Henri IV)
The Internet is the world’s largest information network, used by more than three billion people. However, its functioning is often poorly understood: internet or web? What are cookies? Can the internet break down? The Internet is also a terrain of political conflicts (censorship, surveillance, freedom of expression, etc.). This presentation therefore presents an overview of the technical functioning of the network, and the stakes involved in its control.
[Register]
Sunday, April 12th, 18:30 CET — English
Media & the COVID-19 crisis – discussion with Mine Gencel Bek (researcher at the University of Siegen) & Germinal Pinalie (communication professional & lecturer at Paris-Descartes)
In this conference, we aim to start a debate on how journalists could cover this crisis; how their working conditions should be; and how the citizens may help in disseminating news in a more responsible as well as participative way. We would also like to address the situation of the whistleblowers in these complex times, and the role of democratic movements in this complex political period. The debate can be framed, more broadly, as civic right to access, disseminate, circulate and consume news and knowledge. In this broader perspective, all workers involved in health and information issues may be included, preferably comparatively, by considering both the similar and differing political economic contexts.
[Register]
Wednesday, April 15th, 18:30 CET — French
Interview with Nathalie Robilliart (first elected DiEMer in France)
Nathalie is the first DiEM25 member to be elected in France. She ran with the united left in the city of Mons-en-Baroeul (near Lille, 20.000 inhabitants) and is now part of the municipal council. In this interview, she will tell us about the electoral campaign, relationships with other left parties active in her cities, how they managed to build a coalition, and a successful campaign.
[Register]
More are coming, in German, Spanish, Italian, English, French, and more! Explore more upcoming events in our events calendar.
Stay tuned on our website.
New DiEM25 local collective in Novi Sad, Serbia
DSC Novi Sad 1
The DIEM25 movement is open to all citizens of Europe, regardless of whether they live in countries that are formally members of the European Union. One of the most active local collectives, DSC Belgrade 1, was founded in 2016. Since then, the citizens of Novi Sad, as well as citizens of different parts of Serbia, have joined the movement.
The first contact was made with DSC Belgrade through social networks and via DiEM25’s forum. Then we gathered, met, and finally, on February 13, 2020, formed the second local collective in Serbia, DSC Novi Sad 1. The same day, we had our first joint activity; together DSC Belgrade and DSC Novi Sad organized a panel discussion at the Youth Center CK13 (Crna kuća). The panel was accompanied with the exhibition “We are millions”, dedicated to Julian Assange.
Iva Vučićević and Valerija Majus Marinković (DSC Beograd 1) presented the key ideas of DIEM25 through a discussion with the audience: How can the economy work for everyone? Why do we need a Green New Deal for Europe? Are austerity measures the right answer to the economic crisis? How can we run a guaranteed job program for everyone, instead of laying off workers? Those were some of the questions that were appointed during the talk.
One of the main outcomes of the discussion with the audience that followed was the confirmation of that which DiEM25 is fighting for. Namely, members spoke of an authentic, green and sustainable Europe, with democratized workplaces and prospects for a wholesome and dignified life for the many and not the few. In order to achieve this, we need a strong progressive transnational movement. There is no time to lose. We have to seize every day as if it is our last chance.
When the pandemic is over, yet another neverending crisis will hit hard and the current system will not be able to take that hit. The Europe we know is disintegrating in front of us. The ones who will suffer the most are those already living on poverty wages, and those on the margins of our societies. If we — DiEM25 and other progressive forces — don’t act now, there will be no tomorrow for those already at-risk. It’s as simple as that.
If you want to volunteer for the DSC, you don’t have to wait until the end of the pandemic.
As the newly formed local collective in Serbia, DSC Novi Sad is open to anyone who wants to get acquainted with the DiEM25 movement and its basic ideas. CK 13 (Crna kuća) remains a gathering place for DiEM25 members in Novi Sad. Due to the pandemic, we cannot hold our regular meetings in person. However we encourage you to write to us: to share your thoughts, ideas, experiences and feelings.
We could use your help to organize an online action regarding a translation project in Serbia. In order to bring the spirit and ideas of DiEM25 closer to the people of Southeast Europe, we want to carry out an online action to translate some of the key DiEM25 texts into the languages of the Balkans. If you can help us with that and you believe that the things we are doing are right, do not hesitate and let us know!
Carpe DiEM!
You can join DSC Novi Sad 1’s Facebook group, or contact them through this email address: [email protected].
Make Europe capital of data sovereignty
Can the Universal Basic Dividend be both private and served by Central Banks?
While EU politicians clamour around old postures delaying the inevitable European bonds, we must use this time to reinvigorate the foundational European principles based on Human Rights. But how can embracing these 80 year old ideals bring relevance to the 21st Century? It is even more pressing to digest these considerations hastily, given the current pandemic stressing their sanctity. It’s exactly innovative ideas such as the Universal Basic Dividend (UBD) that should be embraced to riposte the assault on our privacy.
What is clear from recent weeks is that the catalogue of desperate measures has thrown out the rule book for good. The language of war is in the air, with all hands on deck – now, anything goes. But whilst this moment opens up the opportunity for progressive policy, it can also destabilize hard-won battles in citizen rights to agency and privacy.
In this climate, it is necessary to clarify and define the European privacy model. One that preserves all created ‘spores’ of data for the individual over cheaply giving it to anyone. Such an innovative shift has the potential to radically energise the economy; particularly because the technology industry remains one of the few whose market value has grown during the crisis. Decentralizing analytical abilities over data and encouraging new community-based environmental solutions would bring Europe out of its insipid stagnation and enhance its global relevance. Let’s call this ownership model individual data sovereignty.
With the Universal Basic Dividend being a central feature to a politics of equality, where better to start than with a liberating application of privacy. Interestingly, what recently crept into the US legislative melée during the bailout debates was the idea of the ‘digital dollar’. This surfaced in the Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act but was subsequently negotiated out by Republican Senators. This brief cameo in public represented a significant milestone in the digital currency space, as it signalled a viable option for quick distribution of emergency money, or indeed UBD.
News of this sent the cryptosphere alight as it promises to bring greater technological adoption generally. It also demonstrated that senators building support correlates with the Federal Reserve being structurally able to launch its own cryptocurrency or Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Despite not being the only central bank currently researching their own CBDC, this is a unique time to raise questions about how a UBD would be delivered.
This ‘new policy instrument’ (CBDC) would act as a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) under the purview of the Central Bank and therefore wouldn’t be anonymous. This is fundamentally different to Bitcoin because Bitcoin acts as an decentralized and independent accounting chains of blocks that record the movement of those blocks across the system. A decentralized system can have anonymity built in and work to financially liberate the user, whilst a centralized system needs to structurally impose privacy itself and clarify what kind of privacy they adopt.
In this instance, we are talking about a ‘Fedcoin’ or ‘EUROchain’ which acts as programmable money and has real advantages such as: lower transactions cost, higher speeds and systemic efficiency gains. The drawbacks could be significant however; there would be no financial or data sovereignty, and it would leave users exposed to digitized errors and account freezes. With the magnitude of these drawbacks, we should seriously discuss the delivery mechanism of the increasingly popular UBD.
Currently banks and central banks have been spending some years experimenting with incubated systems. Each institution is racing to be the first mover, hence the significance of the recent CBDC commotion. Christine Lagarde (ECB Head) is no stranger to Distributed Ledger Technology and has warned about it destabilizing the financial system during her IMF tenure. She called for greater Central Bank interest in Digital Currencies and now she is overseeing the ECB’s nurturing of a EUROchain. As top down monetary policy cannot uniquely tackle the pandemic induced dual crisis of supply and demand, policy makers are forced to consider “showering consumers with money to coax them back to shops.”
While traditional European bond politics continue, we must consider how the common data market has been consolidated.
If integration is key to European survival, the issue of individual data sovereignty creates an opportunity to break with the traditional model of overbearing surveillance capitalism. Europe should indeed go further than simply having nebulous GDPR regulations and levying a data tax on foreign tech platforms operating in the EU.
Currently, the EU is mulling a five year ban on public facial recognition technology and must seriously consider warnings from civil liberty groups that such technology is the “greatest threat to individual freedom.” For example, the much publicised projects such as Sidewalk Labs, Google’s Smart city venture, suffered inglorious resignations from quality staff concerned about building “urban surveillance technologies.”
As the pandemic rages and both medical and financial data is at stake we must neuter corporate technocratic governance initiatives that may crop up. For example, CBDC may become a public reality soon, medical identifiers may be required for work. This techno-invasion of privacy should be clearly and calmly resisted under COVID-19 and beyond.
The realities of COVID-19 demark a sharp contrast between Western and Asian adoption of technologies to test and contact tracing.
It has already been warned that Europe must stand up to the ‘slippery slope’; but desperately Germany has recently contracted Palantir to extend, on a voluntary basis, viral identification through bluetooth and Wifi tracking. This constitutes a dangerous mirroring of measures employed successfully in Singapore with a dubious American company active with intelligence services.
However, longstanding European hesitancy surrounding medical data accessibility can be turned into a unique strength. As China and the USA thirst for data and posture around strategic 5G technological infrastructures, Europe can take a unique position globally by shifting to a privacy based business model.
A case for the data sovereign individual.
Much ink has been spilled around fears of ‘cashless society’ and their surveillance implications. I suggest that a potential launch of the EUROcoin and a subsequent UBD could be the start of a reorientation of the economy around the data sovereign individual, which could bolster European economic inclusion, productivity and centre around a people based economy. Currently, the cumbersome GDPR legislation, although well meaning, has negatively affected smaller market participants and startups as firms reorient toward privacy-by-design. Legislation should be streamlined to encourage small business market access and an eventual CBDC should redouble efforts to centre individual privacy to facilitate this.
If we establish a European notion of privacy in digital currency, we would not replicate silicon valley’s double edged promises of convenience and efficiency over surveillance and platform reliance. California, the home of silicon valley, has implemented similar legislation to GDPR — showing we are going in the right direction but also not entirely shifting away from the surveillance model.
For sure, there are ‘moral hazards’ still ahead. Technically, in the event of banks collapsing, we could have citizens directly banked with the European Central Bank through the CBDC structure. Being linked directly with the ECB shouldn’t sit comfortably for Europeans despite the ECB’s promises of a rationed use of anonymity tokens. This is not nearly strong enough to allay basic privacy fears let alone shifting towards data sovereignty.
Despite this, blockchain and DLT technologies do hold potential answers to the critical issues of identity, privacy and data sovereignty. The pandemic has brought these concerns to the fore, but there are answers, and we must demand more from Central Banks if we are to build from the bottom up an economy that counters the current proposal from USA and China of centralized data pools to fuel the Artificial Technology and Internet of Things economy.
In this way, it would be possible for Europe to vigorously realign itself with the founding principles of Human Rights in a digital world with digital answers thereby making Europe relevant again. DiEM25’s UBD model already provides a framework through which to engage with the concept of a UBD for all citizens of Europe.