Euroleaks: Banal discussions, devastating consequences
‘Seemingly no understanding of the misery that this was going to cause Greek people’
In the late 90s my band traveled to France to play in a jazz festival. I remember that we had a bit of difficulty paying for our coffee in the airport. For some reason, this started a debate on the merits of the single currency. Britain had been part of the Exchange Rate Mechanism up until 1992 and was toying with the idea of joining the Euro. The vast majority of us thought at the time that joining the single currency was a good thing.
“What was the most difficult: the language or the money difference?” asked one of the band mates. While trying to buy a morning coffee the currency issue had indeed become more problematic than the language barrier. The general feeling among the band members, including myself, was that having separate currencies was foolish, and I despised the ‘Little Englander’ mentality that was so prevalent.
The issue of the single currency had racked the Conservative Party — their leader Margaret Thatcher eventually withdrew for this reason. This had started the ascent of the UKIP party; their party logo is still the £ sign to signify this issue. As we know, the euroscepticism that started with the single currency gradually led to the Brexit referendum decades later.
Looking back I think that I was a bit naive. In principle, I have nothing against a single currency. Unlike UKIP and the eurosceptics, I don’t believe that it is a problem for national identity. Ireland is not any less Irish for being part of the Euro and Italy is not more German. A currency doesn’t define a national culture.
Diversity of culture is one of the wonderful things about Europe and should always be maintained and promoted. The problem with a single European currency is that national governments don’t have the tools necessary to cope with a financial crisis. If you can’t change the interest rates you can’t deal with even a minor crisis. For a single currency to work, you also need a far more integrated and unified economy with distribution to poorer countries and regions. Without that, a single currency is a recipe for disaster. In comparison, the USA managed to handle their banking crisis far better than the Eurozone.
Listening to the Euroleaks, it becomes clear how bad of an idea the single currency is without the political institutions to run it. The Eurogroup doesn’t have the capacity to look after weaker countries. You now have a situation in which Germany, as the strongest economy, dominates its proceedings. A few times the Eurogroup members refer to their own electorates — for example, during the 24 February Eurogroup Teleconference.A representative asks Yanis Varoufakis to help keep the Greek public opinion ‘calm’ and avoid ‘pushing signals from Greece’; stating “we have electorates too in our countries.”
Decisions that are being taken by the Eurogroup do not consider the Eurozone as a whole, showcasing the fissures present in the European project. Instead politicians act on behalf of the interest of their own nations and engage in a ‘race to the bottom’ — see 27 June – Eurogroup in Brussels. Maria Luís Albuquerque states for example that she ‘fully respects the Greek decision to make a referendum’, but that the decision of the Greek people may not actually be taken into consideration by the Eurogroup: “bear in mind that whatever comes out of the decision of one country cannot presume decisions from all the other 18.”
The complete banality of such discussions is another issue made evident by the Euroleaks tapes. For example, a discussion about whether the last line of a letter is political or not takes up a huge amount of time — as can be seen in the 30 June Eurogroup Teleconference. Alexander Stubb states: “I agree, this is a political letter, not a technical letter, and we can discuss further, when we get a second letter, and I would also propose to do that at some stage, uh, tomorrow.”
A discussion around whether the Syriza government will implement the program keenly enough given their opposition to it lasts for another meeting. This is at a time when the Greek banks were shutting down, but there is seemingly no understanding of the misery that this was going to cause Greek people. No one seemed to think that it was possible for the Greek people to actually vote against the program. Apparently, that included the Syriza government who had called the referendum.
The Eurogroup response is as ineffective in addressing the coronavirus crisis and its impending recession as it has been in the previous crisis. We really need to think of how to approach political decision making differently. DiEM25 has been a proponent of the implementation of participatory democracy in Europe through the implementation of people’s assemblies, for example.
Take a look at the Euroleaks yourself! Have a look at our brief explainers, or listen to the YouTube audio as you follow the transcripts on the website. Feel free to tweet us your thoughts.
DiEM25 presents 3-point plan for dealing with COVID-19 depression
DiEM25’s 3-Point Plan for the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Step 1: Issue €1 trillion in ECB-Eurobonds
- Step 2: Inject a €2000 European Solidarity Cash Payment
- Step 3: Introduce a European Green Recovery & Investment Program
Introduction: Lives, Livelihoods and the Union on the brink
The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest test of the European project in the history of the Union — and we are failing.
Solidarity was meant to be a foundational principle of the EU. But solidarity is missing at the moment it is most needed.
COVID-19 has revealed a fundamental truth: Europe is only as healthy as its sickest resident, only as prosperous as its most bankrupted.
But the EU’s leadership is paralysed by its beggar-thy-neighbour – and now sicken-thy-neighbour – mindset.
The price of this failure will not merely be lives lost and livelihoods destroyed. It will be the disintegration of the Union itself.
In line with its Green New Deal for Europe, DiEM25 offers a 3-point plan to protect all European residents, avert an economic depression, and prevent the collapse the Union.
Four Facts
Our plan is premised on four basic facts.
- Public debt will, and must, rise: The precipitous fall in private sector incomes must be replaced by government expenditure. If not, bankruptcies will destroy much of Europe’s productive capacity and, thus, deplete the tax base even further.
- The wholesale rise in public debt must not divide us: The last euro crisis wrecked some member-states’ fiscal position while improving the fiscal position of others. The results are wildly different fiscal absorption capacities across the eurozone. If the rise in public debt is not a shared burden, the new euro crisis will destroy the last chance to hold the European Union together once the virus itself has been defeated.
- A Eurobond is essential, but the devil is in its details: Nine eurozone governments have rightly demanded the issue of a Eurobond so that the burden of rising public debt is shared. But the most important questions remain: Which institution should issue it? And who will back it? DiEM25 believes there is only one answer: an ECB-Eurobond backed solely by the ECB.
- A Eurobond is essential, but it is not enough: Two more interventions are needed. During the pandemic, Europe must inject directly cash into every citizen’s bank account immediately so as to prevent as many bankruptcies and lost livelihoods as possible. Once the pandemic recedes, Europe must embark upon a sizeable, effective and common green investment program so as to improve Europe’s overall capacity to bounce back.
Three Steps to Unify Europe & Avert a COVID-19 Depression
Step 1: The ECB must issue €1 trillion ECB-Eurobonds
Those calling for a Eurobond are right: it is the only way the rise in public debt can be shouldered without breaking the Union. The question is: Who should issue it? And, who should back it.
Europe has three institutions that could issue the much-needed Eurobond: The European Stability Mechanism (ESM). The European Investment Bank (EIB). And the European Central Bank (ECB). However, two of these institutions are ill-suited to the urgent task at hand.
- European Stability Mechanism: The ESM should not be the issuing institution for two reasons. First, its charter insists that all lending must come with conditionalities that no government will accept. Second, even if these conditionalities are waived, the ESM’s ‘synthetic’ bonds contain the seeds of Europe’s fragmentation.
- European Investment Bank: The EIB should be used to issue investment bonds, not Eurobonds for shouldering public debt. (See Step 3 below)
We are left with the ECB: The only EU institution able to issue non-synthetic, therapeutic Eurobonds.
In view of the above, DiEM25 proposes that:
The ECB issues a long-maturity, 30-year, Eurobond for €1 trillion euros solely backed by the ECB, with the possibility of further issuance in needs be.
The €1 trillion collected by the ECB will then be used to replace national debt, in proportion to the coronavirus-induced national recessions & public health costs.
Given the three-decade maturity of these ECB-Eurobonds, the EU will have three decades to decide how to reimburse its central bank. DiEM25 believes that only a democratically elected federal government in Europe can make these decisions. Without it, the ECB’s emergency measures only deepen Europe’s democratic deficit, threatening the survival of the Union all over again.
Step 2: The ECB must inject a €2000 European Solidarity Cash Payment to every European resident
Countless Europeans are currently locked up without a capacity to earn. They need cash immediately, not loans or benefits that involve excessive bureaucracy.
For this reason, we call upon the ECB to fund immediately Europe’s commercial banks with €2000 per European citizen to be credited directly into their account.
As for the unbanked, the ECB must provide cash to one bank per member-state that issues numbered, anonymous debit cards to be disbursed by local and national authorities to all residents without bank accounts.
- Let no one tell you it can’t be done! In response to COVID-19, Hong Kong authorities credited US$1250 to the account of every resident. In response to the 2008 financial crisis, the Australian government did the same, sparing the country the same recession that spread viciously through Europe.
- Let no one tell you we cannot pay for it! The total cost of the €2000 European Solidarity Cash Payment to every European citizen will cost the ECB €750bn – precisely the sum that the ECB just announced will go to more quantitative easing: the same quantitative easing that failed, prior to the pandemic, to help Europe exit its stagnation.
- Let no one tell you it is not ‘sustainable’! At the end of the year, states can tax individuals in proportion to their overall income, recouping some of those cash payments, if the needs be.
Step 3: The EU must create a European Green Recovery & Investment Program
When Europe’s lockdown ends, entire industries will be facing bankruptcy, in desperate need of re-investment and re-orientation.
Europe cannot afford to waste this crisis as it did the last.
The euro crisis left Europe with a lower green growth potential and with less capacity to compete with China and the United States on the technologies of the future. We cannot afford to respond to this crisis with more austerity, stronger divergence, less investment, and a dearth of quality jobs.
That is why the European Union needs a permanent post-pandemic European Green Recovery & Investment Program, funded by an alliance of the EIB and the ECB and implemented by a new European Green Recovery Agency.
DiEM25 proposes that the European Council:
- Directs the European Investment Bank (EIB), and its subsidiary the European Investment Fund (EIF), to issue EIB-EIF bonds approximately equal to 5% of the EU’s GDP, to be backed in the bond markets by the ECB.
- Establishes the European Green Recovery Agency (EGRA) with a remit to direct the funds raised by the EIB-ECB alliance toward the green energy union and the provision of public health, public education and other public goods across the Union.
Conclusion: Europe will unify or it will perish.
The creation of the euro set the EU on a forked path that led either to unification or disintegration. No third endpoint ever existed.
The euro crisis was put on ice, but never cured, by the interventions of the ECB. But the COVID-19 emergency now makes it impossible for the euro crisis to remain frozen.
The EU will either unify to confront this unprecedented crisis, or it will perish.
DiEM25’s 3-Point Action Plan offers the only path toward unification. The three policies we propose are immediately implementable and consistent with the letter of the EU Treaties.
They promise:
- To share the debt burden between EU member-states
- To deliver the large discretionary stimulus Europe needs
- To correct the EU’s category error in mistaking a crisis of insolvency for a crisis of liquidity
- To protect European residents from incomes lost to COVID-19
- To deliver the public green investments to help Europe bounce back sustainably.
Once DiEM25’s 3-Point Action Plan is implemented, Europe will have a chance to become a genuine, democratic Union. The only other option is disintegration.
The catastrophic consequences of privatisation in France
“Privatisation kills!”
After having privatised La Française des Jeux (equivalent to the National Lottery) — one of the French budget’s cash cows — the government of former investment banker Emmanuel Macron presented a bill before the Assemblée Nationale for the privatisation of ADP (formerly Aéroports de Paris) in April 2019. This company owns and manages the largest airports in France, as well as other airports abroad.
For the first time in French history, members of parliament (députés) from both the right and the left joined forces, and 248 of them demanded that the French people be allowed to a referendum against this privatisation.
In accordance with constitutional requirements, such a demand would require a petition signed by at least 4.7 million French citizens (meaning, not including foreigners, EU citizens and even French citizens not registered on the electoral rolls) within nine months.
DiEM25 Paris, together with an anti-privatisation collective comprising of political parties, trade unions and citizens’ associations, fought on the streets each week for nine months to inform citizens and urge them to sign this petition. Quite conveniently for Macron, his government had not seen fit to inform the public about it through the national press, television and radio.
This airport privatisation project includes the prior investment of 6 billion euros in taxpayers’ money into these airports before selling them for around 8 billion euros. As envisaged, ADP would remain in the hands of the private sector for 70 years before being handed back to the state.
The state would be expected to compensate the future owners of ADP by a further several billion euros for the re-appropriation of ADP by the state at the end of this 70 year period. We are speaking of a sum several billion euros upfront and calculated by way of a formula; a formula whose details have not been made known to the public.
Since ADP is a very lucrative company contributing around 200 million euros per year to the state budget (therefore amounting to 14 billion euros over 70 years), any reasonable person would question the economic justification for such a measure which would also be catastrophic in terms of environment and employment consequences. Vinci, which already owns the French motorways, has declared its interest to also purchase ADP.
At a time when Macron wants to privatise every public asset of the state — such as dams, the pension system, the healthcare system, and more — governments in other countrie,s and in particular in the European Union, appear to be doing the exact opposite. There has been much public acknowledgment in other countries as to the catastrophic consequences of privatisation.
Governments throughout the world are, on the contrary, now moving towards policies of re-nationalisation or non-renewal of concessions and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), for example:
- In 2020, Spain is intending to renationalise its motorways,
- In the UK, after the necessary re-nationalisation of the Eastern Railway Company, the city councils of both Liverpool and Manchester have demanded that the government nationalises the Northern Railway Company (currently owned and operated by Deutsche Bahn),
- The State of California is now demanding the nationalisation of the PG&E, the company operating the state-wide power grid, due to the company’s failure to maintain and upgrade the poorly maintained power grid which is deemed to be the cause of a large number of the fires that have devastated California over the last few years,
- In Germany, municipalities have taken back control of water management.
Everywhere, the conclusion remains the same: the privatisation of public services is a resounding failure. The lack of investment and maintenance, the unreasonable increase in prices relative to the services provided to the public, the rolling out of large redundancy plans causing widespread unemployment to rise, the increase in environmental disasters… the list goes on.
In Paris, our banners for action against the privatisation of our airports announced: “Privatising is theft” (in reference to French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, which claimed “Property is theft!”). But the Covid-19 epidemic shows us that it is more than that: to privatise is to kill!
For years the French government has favoured and rolled out programmes of austerity, deliberately prioritising privatisation. Their initiatives have included the financial support through the French Public Investment Bank of start-ups created out of spin-offs of French state labs, and the disinvestment in public services for the benefit of private companies. Before the coronavirus, French hospitals were already on strike for more than 10 months.
They were desperately trying to raise the alarm about the constant decrease of state funding, the lack of investment in recruitment and training for nurses and doctors, the lack of equipment, and the low, if not inadequate, pay of carers, while allowing the development of multiple private clinics and exclusive retirement homes.
Firefighters, electricians, postal workers, railway workers, university professors and post-graduate researchers have all been doing the same, but without being heard. We observe everywhere in Europe equivalent movements ringing alarm bells about the desperately low level of public investment, pointing at the adverse consequences of privatisations and PPPs, contesting their costs and, most importantly, their efficiency.
As the state may not always be considered the best possible employer and/or decision-maker, we at DiEM25 shall definitely also consider other alternatives including, but not limited to, cooperatives, employee-led management and other forms of managerial control.
Today, it cannot be denied that COVID-19 is an effective killer in France, and also in Italy and other European countries, in part due to such measures of austerity and privatisation. Our hospitals are not sufficiently equipped (hospital beds are at record low, the government had to admit that not enough masks, hand sanitizers, or tests are available, nor sufficient breathing machines).
There is not enough staff, and the emergency medical services of the fire brigades are overloaded. In the last couple of years, medical researchers at universities have not obtained the funds required to properly carry out the necessary research on severe respiratory diseases. Instead, state labs have been invited to work on more profitable research topics.
Today in France, as in other European countries, we indeed are observing what many have for a long time already been known, shouted loudly about, and demonstrated against: PRIVATISATION KILLS!
DiEM25 launches online TV series: the World After Coronavirus
If you registered in advance, you will receive the link to the livestream via e-mail. If you didn’t register in advance, don’t worry, you’ll still be able to watch it LIVE on our DiEM25 YouTube account, starting at 19:00 CET!
We are currently living through one of the biggest historical challenges of our lifetimes.
As the EU and the US have sealed off their borders and decided to turn inwards, we must — even if it is only online for now — turn our attention to building the World After Coronavirus.
It is important, as DiEM25 has done from the start, to insist on public and universal health care, mutual aid and global solidarity. We must all do our best to take care of the most vulnerable members of our societies, even if it means self-isolation for the weeks to come.
However, ‘social distancing’ doesn’t, and shouldn’t, mean the end of social cooperation. On the contrary, if coronavirus has shown anything it is the necessity of both micro-local and unprecedented trans-national cooperation.
This is why we are starting a special DiEM25 COVID-19 Online Series that will consist of online lectures, public discussions and various other formats where we will invite our members, Coordinating Collective and Advisory Panel members, but also other experts, scientists and activists to share their thoughts on the current global crisis, and possible ways out of it.
If you have a suggestion of who we could invite, please feel free to send it to me and we will do our best to make it happen:
Join us for the following first online events:
Monday, 23 March, 19:00 CET
Yanis Varoufakis: Europe’s latest historic failure
The coronavirus crisis is revealing that the powers that be of the European Union have learned nothing from the Eurocrisis. They are currently betraying the interests of the majority of Europeans in the same way that they have done so in 2010 — by failing to mobilize existing money and public financial instruments in the interests of the many. With their current decisions, they are jeopardizing public health, public goods and the interests of Europeans.
[Register]
Tuesday, 24 March, 19:00 CET
Vijay Prashad: The cost of the pandemic must not bankrupt the people
15 min introduction + 45 min Q&A
[Register]
Wednesday, 25 March, 19:00 CET
Larry Charles & Srećko Horvat: Hope & Humour in Times of Coronavirus
40 min live conversation + 20 min Q&A
[Register]
Thursday, 26 March, 19:00 CET
John Shipton: The Flames of Truth: Assange
15 min introduction + 45 min Q&A
[Register]
Friday, 27 March, 19:00 CET
Saskia Sassen: What is this is the beginning of a possibility?
15 min introduction + 45 min Q&A
[Register]
Saturday, 28 March, 19:00 CET
SATURDAY SPECIAL
Noam Chomsky: Coronavirus – what is at stake?
(pre-recorded, 30′)
Gael Garcia Bernal & Srećko Horvat, Love in Times of Coronavirus live conversation
(40′ + 20′ Q&A)
[Register]
Sunday, 29 March, 19:00 CET
Ece Temelkuran: Corona-Neo-Fascism: A deadly combo
15 min introduction + 45 min Q&A
[Register]
Monday, 30 March, 19:00 CET
Stefania Maurizi: Why we must save Julian Assange?
15 min introduction + 45 min Q&A
[Register]
As millions of Europeans are confined to quarantine, living under a ‘state of exception’, with restricted mobility and even curfews, we must focus on the broader picture. Aside from offering unprecedented short-term measures and courageous policy proposals, we must also look into the long term effects of COVID-19 on our economies, politics, psychology, and forms of social resistance — as well as on the future of democracy.
Join us next week, and in the weeks to come, online at DiEM25 TV: a radically hopeful and constructive Television programme which will be shaped by its members, journalists and the general audience.
Don’t wait for someone to ask you what you have been doing in 2020, join us by seizing this historic moment!
BELGIAN NC ELECTIONS
It’s time for you to make your voice heard: vote for the new National Collective in Belgium between Sunday March 22nd and Saturday March 28th! Head over to the members’ area, we’re counting on you!
COVID-19 is here: where is European solidarity?
Every crisis can be tolerated, at least if general solidarity exists and politicians can foresee it as a priority. It is exactly during times of crises that politicians have fallen short in recent years, and that the European Union has struggled to enact the values that it usually preaches around the globe.
The coronavirus now holds a disturbing mirror up to all of us. It is quietly observing whether human beings respond from a place of fear and individualism, or courage and solidarity with others, and whether ‘European solidarity’ is truly showcased by nation states in the Eurozone.
Solidarity is suddenly only for others to show. People are hoarding en masse, young people are throwing lockdown parties and insisting on living out their ‘spring breaks’, and the Yellow Vests are continuing their demonstrations.
Contradictory measures are being implemented by politicians, leading to increased fear and confusion in the population. In France, Macron has decided to enact a complete lockdown, but has still let municipal elections go ahead. In the United States, Bernie Sanders has turned part of his campaign efforts towards raising funds to address the socio-economic crisis that COVID-19 has created, whilst “where is Joe Biden?” trends on Twitter and the elections still take place in crowded rooms. In Belgium, citizens cross the border en masse to continue shopping and stockpiling.
At the European level, there is a clear lack of coordination regarding the coronavirus. While Médecins Sans Frontières calls for the evacuation of refugee and migrant camps in Greece, silence persists at the European headquarters. The crisis is also being used to further previous political agendas in Europe. Rather than being offered medical aid, refugees on the border with Greece are being brutally stopped, and there remains a total lack regarding the coordination of refugees across Europe. Open borders within the Schengen area are disappearing and Europe’s ‘humanitarian values’ are being thrown out with the bathwater.
In the midst of the pandemic, ‘European values’ have become questioned — the fabric of the Union is now at stake. Each nation in Europe has decided to deal with this crisis separately, closing down their borders and failing to offer support in regards to the supply of masks and other medicinal and pharmaceutical resources.
The Serbian president notably called European solidarity a “fairytale” amidst increasing tension about the lack of mutual aid. China appears now as the most useful ally as it extends help to European nations such as Italy. Most recently, however, relations are breaking down as the Czech republic has intercepted the supply of masks sent by China, which were en route to Italy. Similar tactics are being used by the Polish government, as they are accused of seizing 23,000 masks at customs. Furthermore, Germany and France have been condemned by smaller nations due to their recent blocks on medical supply exports.
All that we hear from our politicians is that they’re going to ‘save the economy’ — lieutenant governor Dan Patrick in the US is an extreme example. But, haven’t we heard this before, during the Greek crisis? We all know how this ended; with harsh austerity measures, a huge amount of bankruptcies, and people falling into poverty. It appears that even under the coronavirus crisis, it will be banks, rather than people, who will be bailed out. The richest people will be able to protect themselves from the biggest ramifications of COVID-19, whilst the poor continue to be pushed into more dangerous and volatile circumstances.
More than ever, the results of past decisions related to austerity measures are having disastrous consequences on our healthcare systems. Such measures have also deeply affected care staff. Solidarity should be a priority this time, and it should be requested from everyone. The coronavirus and big money have two things in common: both cross the border invisibly, and are harmful to our society. One attacks man directly, the other indirectly, but the weakest are their victims.
Will this crisis weaken us all? Tax evasion will have to be banned, and loopholes eradicated, in order to confront it; criminal behaviour conducted by elites will have to be treated just as harshly as the criminal behaviour of others within our society. The call “Billionaire, pay your share!” must sound louder than ever before… It is time for them to behave like everyone else and contribute to our society.
Where are we going to run to? This is a global crisis, and we must realize that there is nowhere to run to anymore! We cannot flee from the coronavirus — instead, it calls us to stay put, become accountable to our social responsibility, and reevaluate our priorities as a society. The coronavirus is showing us what we have been unable, or unwilling to see until now: the suffering of those on the outskirts of society, and the way in which the wellbeing of others interlinked with our own. The only sane response is global solidarity.
Being in contact in a contactless new world
The mesmerizing spring blossoms of Zagreb look a little melancholic. After all, this is the first spring they lost their regular audience, humankind. In fact we might remember the spring of 2020 as the first time that nature belonged only to itself.
Only a few passersby could notice the cherry blossoms in a shutdown botanic garden. Alas, we are all too busy with resetting our public life habits to survive a pandemic: drawing wide arches when passing by each other, carefully positioning ourselves one meter apart from others whilst waiting at the traffic lights and wondering if we will survive this worldwide trouble.
It’s only been five days since I began my self–isolation and I already feel a shiver down my spine whenever people kiss or touch each other in movies. Whenever I witness an affectionate human contact, which normally would induce warmth in my heart, I feel like I’m looking at the walking dead. In times terror, the brain is surprisingly apt at reorganizing its habits. The brain is a plastic matter, yes. Yet, it does not have limitless elasticity and is thus not prone to constant reshaping.
So, if and when there will an it-is-all-over day, it probably won’t be a back-to-normal day. It seems like there will be a new normal. And since we are all at home and have less to do, rather than obsessing about the death toll that is now broadcasted like the stock market, we can start anticipating and even imagining the new world.
Our times are marred with much cynicism, so voicing such deliberations is rather risky. One feels almost afraid to suggest a solution to any problem for one knows well that any idea would be met with immediate cutthroat sarcasm. Still, I dare to assume that the last several weeks taught us that we, as human beings have no time left to waste on being the moody adolescents of human history. It is about time that we risk to be perceived as naïve when it comes to finding a way out of our current problems.
For a while now, history has been accelerated. Capitalism has been hardly holding itself together through clownish or dreadful authoritarian leaders and climate change has already showed us the tragic ending of our story as humankind. The refugee crisis with its epic global moral failure presented us with the fact that the end of humanity does not require any dramatic apocalypse but can happen in the most banal way, like a live broadcasted reality show. We are all trying to keep up with maddeningly chaotic political and natural developments like actors thrown in a horror movie scampering around with no clue about the script.
With the coronavirus, this acceleration is now in full speed. However, two observable and quite groundbreaking developments are unfolding: A general sense of urgent need for social justice (simply not to die as a victim of an underfunded public health system) is in revival. And the honor of science (simply not to die under the rule of idiocy) is being restored. Humankind is finally coming terms with the fact that in order to survive it has to let go the institutionalized greed and also follow facts, the truth and the moral.
After a collective denial of science, and an alienation of scientists encouraged by right wing populist leaders around the world, today the entire planet is desperately waiting for scientists and doctors to talk on a daily basis. The long struggle to explain that inequality is idiotic and unsustainable to humankind is finally yielding fruit. At last, the peoples of the world are convinced that it cannot go on like this.
My mother and father are both Socialists and I was mocking them the other night, “So after all it isn’t the class struggle but a stupid virus that is finishing Capitalism.” My father retorted with a Leninist joke, “Well, we’re still here, aren’t we? We’ve been waiting for the conditions to mature.”
The world is at its best to allow the sane, the humane and the rational to take over. The question is, how are we supposed to reinvent solidarity in order to gather the political power to change it? How are we going to be in contact with each other and with the current reality to shape this contactless world for the better? I guess, thanks to total lockdown, this is the first time in generations that we have enough time in our hands to come up with answers.
Ece Temelkuran will appear as a special guest this week on DiEM25TV to present ‘Corona-Neo-Fascism: a deadly combo’. Join us on our YouTube livestream at 19:00 CET this Sunday!
This piece was originally published in duvaR.english. Find Ece Temelkuran on Twitter.
Last night Julian Assange called me. Here is what we talked about.
“Everything is now possible” says Assange from Belmarsh Prison.
Last night, immediately after our first DiEM25 TV event, my phone rang. It was Julian. From prison. It was not the first time that he honoured me deeply by using the few phone calls prison allows him to call me. Like every other occasion, when I unexpectedly recognised his voice a torrent of emotions came flooding in. Guilt, primarily, at the thought that, the moment the line is disconnected, he will remain there — in the exceedingly dark place to which he has been confined because of a decision he made long ago to help the rest of us grasp what the powers-that-be have been doing on our behalf without our knowledge or consent.
Julian wanted to talk about the effects of Covid-19 on the world we live in and, of course, on his case. He remarked that Jeremy Corbyn’s election manifesto — that the establishment had lambasted for being too radical — now seems unreasonable moderate.
We laughed at the audacity of those who were telling the people of Britain that it was irresponsible to spend a few tens billions on providing proper funding to the NHS and social care for all, on turning broadband into a public utility, and on taking the railways into public ownership to make them work properly — the very same people who, now that big business and capitalism more generally, are in serious trouble seem to have discovered the money tree, announcing trillions to be pumped into the economy.
Julian did not know that (how could he, when the prison authorities deny him access to newspapers, the internet, even to BBC Radio 4?) Boris Johnson had, just yesterday, announced the temporary nationalisation of the railways — seeing that privateers can never provide a decent service in the midst of a national emergency.
After a few minutes during which we allowed ourselves to bask in the neoliberals’ Waterloo, in the hands of some RNA that the system could simply not cope with without abandoning all its certainties, we discussed what this means for the future. Julian said, quite correctly, that this new phase of the crisis is, at the very least, making it clear to us that anything goes — that everything is now possible. To which I added that anything ranges from the best to the worst possible developments.
Whether the epidemic helps to deliver a good or evil society will depend, of course, on us — on whether progressives manage to band together. For if we do not, just like we did not in 2008, the bankers, the spivs, the oligarchs and the neo-fascists will prove, again, that they are the ones who know how to not let a good crisis go to waste.
Will we succeed? Julian had a hopeful comment on this: At the very least, transnational organisations like Wikileaks and DiEM25 had honed the digital tools for online debates and campaigns well before Covid-19 came on the scene. In some measure, we are better prepared than others.
Then we talked about his case. His prison conditions are deteriorating. Now that visits have stopped, his isolation is getting worse. His lawyers are about to petition the court for bail. If any prisoner’s health at Belmarsh High Security prison is in jeopardy from Covid-19 infection, it is Julian’s. Will the court grant him bail? Unlikely. Will the new crisis change the odds of his extradition? We agreed that the answer to the last question is: probably, but only a little — now, the national security complex in the US and in the UK have things to worry about that did not feature a few weeks ago.
Our conversation lasted ten minutes and one second. Then the prison warden cut the line. The one man who knows the perils and pains of isolation better than all of us, had emerged from it to give me, us, a ten-minute lesson in how not to lose it while in confinement.
Make no mistake dear reader: Julian is struggling to maintain his faculties, not to lose his mind. Every day, he fights darkness and despair for hours in solitary. When he sounds lucid, funny even, on the phone it is because he has worked for 20 hours in anticipation of the moment when he will have to communicate his side of the story, his thoughts, to the outside world. No one should have to live that way.
Now that we are all in some state of isolation, Julian’s plight — as well as his insights — must give us pause, and cause, to discover in ourselves the power and the solidarity necessary to ensure that this crisis is not wasted. To ensure that the inane and corrupt powers-that-be do not end up being, once again, its beneficiaries.
This article was originally posted in Yanis Varoufakis’ personal blog.
DiEM25 demands immediate release of Julian Assange!
Assange to apply for bail as experts warn of COVID-19 spread in prisons.
BREAKING: Assange’s lawyers have announced that they will be applying for bail at court this Wednesday, March 25. They argue that he is in imminent danger from Coronavirus spreading through the prison population and should be released for his and other prisoners and staff safety. pic.twitter.com/pVjglPPi80
— Don’t Extradite Assange (@DEAcampaign) March 23, 2020
On Wednesday, 25th of March, Julian Assange’s lawyers will make a bail application at Westminster Magistrates Court. They will argue that he is vulnerable to the COVID-19 outbreak in the prison where he is on remand.
The WikiLeaks founder and publisher is being held at HMP Belmarsh on a US extradition warrant for WikiLeaks’ 2010 publications about the Iraq and Afghan wars and US foreign policy. United Nations officials and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe have called for Julian Assange’s immediate release and for the US request to be thrown out. He faces 175 years in prison if extradited to the U.S.
Prisons are considered epicentres for the spread of COVID-19 due to overcrowding and the propensity of the virus to spread in closed environments. Andrea Albutt, the President of the Prison Governors Association, has warned that “there will be deaths” in UK prisons.
It is not only prisoners whose lives are at risk but also prison staff and their families.
Spain, the U.S and Iran have released thousands of low-risk prisoners. Iran has released UK national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. She wears an ankle tag and her movements are restricted to a 300-metre radius around her parents’ home.
The UK Prison Officers’ Association (POA) has likened the infection risk in UK prisons to that of cruise ships. The POA has called on the Johnson government to enact an executive release to address the crisis. Former chief inspector of prisons Nick Hardwick has also called for low-risk prisoners to be released.
The Johnson government has not yet released any low-risk prisoners, although it has released 300 people from immigration detention centres.
Julian Assange falls into a category of persons who should be released to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 under the recommendations of independent legal charity, the Prison Advisory Service. Last week, campaigners called for Julian Assange’s release and the release of all low risk prisoners to slow the spread of the virus and minimise the number of deaths in prisons.
Julian Assange’s case is one week into a four-week extradition hearing. The case began on February 22nd and has been adjourned until May 18th. It could be further adjourned due to the virus. More than 20 witnesses will be giving evidence for the defence.
All major newspapers, journalists associations and rights groups have denounced the Trump administration’s prosecution of Julian Assange as politically motivated and setting a disastrous precedent by criminalising normal journalistic behaviour.
Julian Assange has been on remand since 22 September 2019 when he finished serving a sentence for obtaining asylum at the embassy of Ecuador in 2012.
HMP Belmarsh receives 300 new prisoners every month, most of whom are then dispersed to prisons around the country. HMP Belmarsh has a total of approximately 800 prisoners and the highest suicide rate in the prison system. The UK has 83.500 prisoners, the highest prison population in western Europe.
Press contact: Joseph Farrell, Wikileaks ambassador, +447919891992
Can the pandemic trigger our social reflexes?
Amidst the coronavirus crisis we need to rethink the structure of our societies, and of our economic and healthcare systems.
Greece’s prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, called for a curfew on Sunday night. This decision followed media reports during the previous week that Greeks have behaved irresponsibly during the crisis. Is this a medically-wise choice, or a move to restrict freedom and human rights?
DiEM25 Advisory Panel member Naomi Klein explained how the coronavirus pandemic has been leading to actions based on the “ideas that are lying around”. Thus, let us examine the context of the Mitsotakis government: strict law-and-order measures, harsh anti-immigration policies, further abandonment of social provisions and increasing police force but not medical personnel. With the coronavirus hitting Greece, the government has pushed for campaigns that highlight the individual’s responsibility: Stay at home.
In the broader context, the European Union has been playing the role of the observer (both in the health and economic sectors) after it has been pushing for austerity measures and other cuts in social spending (including hospitals) in Greece for ten years now. It was not long ago when governments were turning one social group against the other: taxi drivers, teachers, and doctors that were supposedly a financial elite. Expectedly, social cohesion networks collapsed and communities were led into disarray, thus paving the way for the general approval on strict policing and state surveillance in times of a pandemic. Needless to say, the proposals of MeRA25, DiEM25’s electoral wing in Greece, for the restoration of the social role of hospitals, have not been heard.
Greece has been, and still is, the canary in the mine — acting as an early warning of things to come under such austerity measures and cuts. As COVID-19 has surfaced the flaws of Greek society, it has also done the same throughout the world. States like Taiwan have showcased how non-resilient our western societies are: we have built communities, economies and health systems that are not ready to cope with severe crises, even when we have been warned.
Instead, individual responsibility is emphasized. This effectively shifts the focus and isolation burden onto individuals. We are asked to conduct ‘auto-surveillance’ and self-quarantine because of understaffed hospital facilities, inadequate testing infrastructure and numbers of testing kits. We are policed on the streets and fined if we test positive, despite a lack of shelters and social support measures. Such initiatives overlook that human beings are part of communities and need social interactions; it is inherently wired in us. Social distancing is “flattening the curve”, but could also have damaging consequences on people’s mental health or sense of identity.
As we struggle to contain COVID-19, we must look at the roots of this crisis: the faulty larger social structures that we live in and not irresponsible citizens. We need to speak in social terms and regain our lost “social” language. We need to re-imagine our societies and a response devoid of increased policing and surveillance.
And let us go one step further and demand accountability for those politicians who enacted austerity measures, and implemented cuts on healthcare and housing, for presidents and prime ministers who have been slow to act and promoted fake news, for corporations that won’t give their employees sick leave. Surely, they have contributed to the spread of the pandemic and endangered lives.
In DiEM25, we believe that social distancing should only be physical, and that this crisis offers a unique opportunity to increase our social bonding and cooperation in safe ways. We can do so not only in Greece, but across the world. We need to offer alternatives to increasing policing and surveillance throughout Europe and beyond.
Once we combat the pandemic, we need to restructure societies with much more resilience, equity and social justice. We do not stay silent; we launch initiatives like DiEM25 TV [see here and discuss in our forum here] as well as keep rethinking the world through our postcapitalist vision.
Let us revisit the ideas of social cohesion, empathy and solidarity. Join us!
DiEM25 and coronavirus: You are not alone, we are in this together!
Aris Telonis is a member of DiEM25 and coordinator of the New York City Collective.