#Euroleaks: the full 2015 Eurogroup recordings now public!
Today, March 14, 2020, the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) is releasing the complete audio files of Yanis Varoufakis’ Eurogroup meetings in 2015 on: euroleaks.diem25.org!
During 2015 Yanis Varoufakis participated in thirteen Eurogroup meetings. After the first three Eurogroup meetings it became clear that no minutes were being taken!
This kind of intransparent action by an unelected group of politicians who influence all our lives is unacceptable. That is why DiEM25 is today releasing the recordings of the meetings of the Eurogroup from 2015.
Two particular aspects should be emphasised:
- The new right-wing Greek government of Nea Dimokratia has repeatedly tried to lay the blame of SYRIZA’s failed economic policies to Yanis Varoufakis’ 2015 negotiation for a better deal that made more sense than the Troika’s repeatedly failed, austerity-oriented memorandum. In short, they are accusing the only one who stood against the absurdity of austerity politics, for the results of austerity politics!
- The European community is still trapped in massive austerity programs, which in many countries have led to a renaissance of right-wing populism. With all the consequences that can be observed at the Greek-Turkish border: inhumanity and xenophobia.
The decisions of that time have had a lasting impact not just on the Greek population but on all Europeans.
What we aim to achieve by releasing the recordings is nothing less than the democratisation of the EU! Only through transparency is it possible for elected parliamentarians to make fundamental decisions.
DiEM25 as a pan-European organisation has a special interest in restoring the confidence of the citizens of Europe in its institutions and to make Europe finally become what it has failed to be so far: A community that serves the peoples of Europe and creates a better future for all citizens not just financial institutions and powerful vested interests.
Brexit has happened and we have to make sure that the European Union does not continue to lose itself in petty squabbles where no single country will emerge the winner.
Much trust has been lost over the last few years. With this initiative, we do not wish to play into the hands of the Eurosceptics, but rather to ensure that, by moving towards more transparency and democracy, the trust and faith of the people is regained.
Euroleaks is a wake-up call to all politicians in Europe to serve the citizens of Europe again and to make them aware of all important decisions that affect them.
The people of Europe have the right to know what was decided behind closed doors and how it affects them today. To make it better in the future and avoid these mistakes for the future. This is the only way we can save Europe and the EU!
Leaked by DiEM25 – full audio and transcripts available at https://euroleaks.diem25.org/.
For further questions we are at your disposal.
>>DiEM25 Press and Media Relations [email protected]
The fight against pandemics can only be won with free, universal, public health care
When everybody is in danger, nobody is safe: this is the first lesson the Coronavirus pandemic has taught us, or better, reminded us of: that health is more than anything else, a common good.
The COVID-19 pandemic proves just how important public healthcare systems, and the services they provide, are for the well-being of populations across the world.
It also spectacularly illustrates how the neoliberal politics of austerity and its fiscal policies in particular, not only seriously damage the health of the people but also kill the most vulnerable.
The private sector gains by providing economically rewarding cures and assigning the costly ones, like emergency services or intensive care, to public health facilities which, after years of “starve the beast” policies, have become incredibly under-funded.
The pandemic also demonstrates, in the most dramatic manner, the meaning of the word “equal”: that primary care for all should be humanity’s first concern, and equal access to free, public and good-quality care is not simply a moral call, but a necessity for the whole community.
Yet the pandemic also teaches us the meaning of words like cooperation and solidarity: that no individual, and no country, can save its own skin alone, because both face COVID-19 and its dire economic and social consequences.
In moments like these we see the magnificence of public and universal healthcare systems and the uselessness and inefficiency of the private health sector, which, by trading in health services, has downright supplanted and undermined national health services.
Now, more than ever, public and universal healthcare systems have to be supported and reinforced, or implemented in countries that do not yet have them, such as the USA.
DiEM25’s response to the pandemic that has so-far killed 5,120 people across the world (962 Europeans, while 23.672 have been afflicted) is to call for a public healthcare system for all countries and their residents, irrespective of citizenship, and for the demise of private health services that neoliberal policies of austerity and the shrinking of the public sector have imposed. Health as a public good for all people is the value that has to be urgently protected and promoted.
The pandemic has exposed the ugly face of neoliberalism, the privatisation of health services to the benefit of capital, which has imposed a biopolitical model of death worldwide. As with plagues that ravaged populations in the Middle Ages, the coronavirus (even if, luckily, not as deadly as the plague) does not spare anybody because it does not discriminate against people on the basis of class, wealth, religion, etc.
To this end, DiEM25 will fight for the introduction, reinforcement and/or restoration of public and universal healthcare for all, and support all political leaders who are fighting for it. At the same time, DiEM25 condemns the EU establishment for its inane response to the pandemic, its inefficiency in taking adequate fiscal measures and the lack of investment in public healthcare systems.
Their criminal indifference and paralysis is the same as the one exhibited during the financial crash of 2007-2008 and the subsequent Eurocrisis in 2010. DiEM25 claims that the right of people to basic goods and services, and to the uppermost value of life — a decent life — goes hand in hand with a new democratic and socially just Europe, without which basic human rights and lives would be fatally jeopardised.
In these dire times, when our elders and the most vulnerable members of our societies — including the unemployed, homeless, poor and refugees – need our full support to overcome the following weeks and months, DiEM25 is calling not only for serious reflection on the crisis of global capitalism, but also for resolute action in protecting or enabling public and universal healthcare as a crucial part of democracy and equality — and as an indispensable response to global pandemics.
Here’s Yanis Varoufakis, DiEM25 co-founder and MeRA25 Secretary General and MP, in the Greek Parliament on the “Prevention, protection and promotion of health – Development of public health services”, MeRA25’s Proposal for 7 + 1 measures to support the economy in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.
And here’s a separate contribution just about the economic and political impact:
"A new breath for Mons": Municipalism in action in Lille!
In Mons-en-Barœul, situated in Lille’s suburbs, and following a vote by all the members of DiEM25 in Europe, several members of DiEM25 are participating in an election as part of the citizen, ecological, social and solidarity list. Brice Montagne interviewed Nicolas Dessaux one of the candidates in Mons-en-Barœul.
Brice Montagne: Hello Nicolas, can you describe the city of Mons-en-Barœul?
Nicolas Dessaux: Mons-en-Barœul is a city of nearly 22,000 inhabitants in the Lille suburbs. It previously had two centres; the old village where the wealthier residents lived, and a working-class district connected to the steel and textile factories of Lille. In the 1970s, these two centres were linked by a new city formed by many large buildings including the Europe towers, which marks the urban landscape due to its 20 floor height, forming the largest condominium north of Paris. There is a large amount of social housing here, with a higher rate than the national average. Families have origins from all over – Morocco, Poland, Greece, Turkey, and Armenia – over sixty countries in all. A large part of the population works in the trade sector, in neighboring towns, or in insurance as a large company is headquartered in the town.
Mons-en-Barœul was also a benchmark for self-management and local democracy in the 1970s. The socialist municipality had submitted the budget vote to a referendum of the inhabitants, and had created a system to elect, in a consultative capacity, immigrant advisers to represent those who did not have the right to vote. However, over time the following municipalities have dismantled this system of local democracy. The current mayor, elected for 18 years, is a centrist, officially without a party affiliation.
Brice Montagne: How did the initiative “A new breath for Mons” (Un nouveau souffle à Mons), in which several members of DiEM25 participated, start?
Nicolas Dessaux: There were a series of local ecological collectives such as zero waste, as well as elected officials with an ecological sensitivity who broke away from the municipal majority. As time went on, this nucleus grew: union members, members of parents’ associations, sports or cultural clubs, neighborhood associations – in short, the local organizations which constitute the living force of the left in the suburbs. Over the course of the project, a local section of the party “La France Insoumise” become more closely involved, and it elected an LFI deputy to the national assembly.
The activists of DiEM25 were asked, first individually, and then as part of the vote of all members, about whether to participate in municipal elections in several French cities. At this moment, the order of the list is not final, but it is understood that our comrade Nathalie Robillart, member of the national collective of DiEM25 and long-time union activist, will be in a good position.
Brice Montagne: How was the manifesto writing process?
Nicolas Dessaux: From the start, the project was that of a participatory list, open to residents. Even if activists from political movements take part in it and give their support, it is not a question of a coalition of parties. The desire for local democracy begins with this open project.
To write the program, there were three workshop sessions, which brought together a hundred people in total. Each session brought together seven or eight workshops, with five to ten people around each table. The workshops were led by volunteers: activists from DiEM25 led workshops on culture, employment, gender equality and housing. It was a question of stimulating the discussion, sometimes of reviewing the stakes or the possibilities of action of a commune, but especially to listen to the words of the inhabitants so that the program reflects their concerns. Among the proposals, those related to local democracy, the expression of the population, the participative budget and community life have often come up.
At the end of these workshops, the head of the list was selected from two candidates: it was Timothée Lebon, an environmental activist and already municipally elected. He is also founder of the badminton club and well known locally.
Then, there was a collection of information from the two weekly markets in the city: a team asked people about their wishes for the future of the city, questioning them with questions like: “What is what would you do if you were Mayor? ” or “what is missing in Mons? ”. This step was important to broaden the vision, to look outside of the concerns of activists to better understand the expectations of the population.
On this basis, a first draft of the program was established, with no less than 220 proposals. But we had to go further: a team carried out a door-to-door operation, to present the project and listen to other residents.
Finally, meetings were held in each neighborhood of the city, which made it possible to reach people who did not come to the meetings before, including famous figures from the neighborhoods. Gradually, this modified the program.
In the last step, the various program proposals were synthesized together and submitted to the vote of the workshop participants in order to choose the ones that were going to be highlighted. This made it possible to select measures that would not necessarily have been the first choice of activists, but which will well reflect the concerns of our electoral base, such as their desire for a quality centralized kitchen, for schools and retirement homes. This reflects the climate emergency while meeting the needs of the population.
Brice Montagne: What are the main obstacles to overcome in organizing this list?
Nicolas Dessaux: The abstention rate is very high in Mons-en-Barœul , especially in the lower classes. Despite efforts to expand the list’s social and electoral base, it would be futile to claim that it reflects the composition of the Mons population. It remains marked by the classic sociology of the left and ecology in France, by its level of study, its lack of diversity, its concerns. Everyone is aware of this: whether or not we win this election, this is the job that awaits us in the years to come.
In addition, when one engages in municipalism, one must accept at the outset that the program will not necessarily resemble what one had imagined at the start. We go there as residents, with a variety approaches, good or bad, of militant experience, and we simply ask ourselves the question of whether the result is compatible with the values we carry. With the Mons project, I have no doubts on this subject. This naturally raises the question of the link between political movements and “citizen” lists. For my part, I do not see how joining a movement or a party would deprive the quality of citizen, but it is a debate which came back in a nagging way during the process, and we see that certain lists in other municipalities are closed to parties – even if it means structuring itself in a way that is not that different.
The victory is far from assured, but the project is interesting. It offers the inhabitants of Mons-en-Barœul an alternative on the left, which had not happened in a long time. It proposes the union of the left and of environmentalists, which is proving so difficult to achieve in other cities, even while the “people of the left” are demanding it. And for DiEM25, this is a challenge since 2020 is the year of our first participation in municipal elections in France.
Brice Montagne and Nicolas Dessaux are members of the french national collective for DiEM25.
Coronavirus, Great Fear and our response?
Most of the commentary on coronavirus tends to overlook the fact that a response to a crisis doesn’t necessarily have to be negative.
I am currently in Vienna, where in the neighbouring “Bezirk” a whole street was blocked off by the police when suspicion arose that someone in a school with around 500 children was infected by coronavirus. The test was negative. But the fear and paranoia in Vienna is rising. A few days earlier, a train from Italy to Austria was stopped at the border for fear of infection. Now the supermarkets are already noticing higher demand for products such as canned food and pasta.
One memorable reaction to the current great fear of coronavirus could as well be a sketch from the famous American sitcom Seinfeld. This was a video recording shared in recent days by an elderly Italian man on social media.
He was filmed at the exit of an empty Italian supermarket emotionally saying “The pasta shelves are empty! What’s happening?” His response not only deserves a medal for dark humour, but invites us to seriously rethink our current historical moment: “There wasn’t this much panic when World War II started!”
As coronavirus is turning into a global pandemic while the “infomedic” is spreading even faster than the virus itself, it seems an old German proverb is becoming relevant again: “When war enters the land, then there are lies like sand” (Kommt der Krieg ins Land, Dann gibt’s Lügen wie Sand)
Coronavirus is not a war, but the fear and anxiety in all corners of the world resembles a war-like situation. There are as many “fake news” rumours as sand. And one phenomenon is becoming quite common everywhere – this is panic in the supermarket.
One among many surreal episodes was an incident with armed robbers stealing hundreds of toilet rolls.
Already in mid-February when the news about coronavirus reached Hong Kong, panic-buying in the city’s supermarkets caused shortages. One among many surreal episodes was an incident with armed robbers stealing hundreds of toilet rolls. And there was, as would occur all across Europe only two weeks later, a run on supplies such as rice and pasta as well as face masks and disinfectants. The same behaviour was soon noticed in Singapore, Japan, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia and Taiwan. Then it started in United States and Europe – first in Italy, then in Croatia, Austria…
In Germany the word of the day is now Hamsterkauf – a combination of German hamstern, “hoarding” and kaufen, “buying”. While this term is normally used to describe the act of stockpiling ahead of store closures or weekends, today people are flocking to supermarkets because of the fear that they might be forced into quarantine. At the end of February, the German supermarket chains Aldi and Lidl reported an increased demand for pasta, canned food, flour, sugar and toilet paper.
Perplexed at why people were panic buying, in a leaked private conversation, Singaporean trade minister Chan Chun Sing accused the people of engaging in “monkey see, monkey do behaviour”. But can we really dismiss panic buying just as “monkey” behaviour, mere imitation, or is there something else underneath the current coronavirus frenzy?
Frenetic consumerism
What has to be stated first is that this is not the first and certainly not the last time that people are manifesting overwhelming anxiety through frenetic consumerism. There are similar examples of panic buying throughout our recent history.
One of the most famous buying panics happened during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when Americans stampedoed the supermarkets to stock up on canned goods, thinking that World War III could break out at any moment. The stock market dropped sharply. Other examples include panic buying of fuel during the 1973 Oil Crisis or, more recently, the panic buying of supplies provoked by Hurricane Katrina. What all these examples show is that panic buying can’t be easily dismissed just as “irrational behaviour”. In all these examples there was indeed a good reason to be worried.
The prevailing affect today – a collectively shared situation – is precisely a “sense of an ending”.
Again today there is a prevailing sense of insecurity in all parts of the world. The prevailing affect today – a collectively shared situation – is precisely a “sense of an ending”, a sense of an imminent threat. And since the threat is invisible it is finding scapegoats, provoking racism and xenophobia – first the “eating habits” of the Chinese, then the Chinese themselves became identified with the virus, and as coronavirus first appeared in Europe the racist chorus towards the Italians began to gather momentum.
Surfacing the contradictions
However, and this is what most of the commentary on coronavirus tends to overlook, a response to a crisis doesn’t necessarily have to be negative. Famous historic examples include the twentieth century antifascist movement around Europe or “spirit of the Blitz”, and more recently the solidarity among people faced with natural catastrophes, from hurricanes to floods. Global catastrophes usually provoke all sort of reactions, very often they lead to more control and surveillance, sometimes even to totalitarianism, but at the same time, they can also bring to the surface the underlying inequalities and contradictions of a certain system. Sometimes they can even lead to revolutions. When the Black Death wiped out a third of Europe’s population, its effects on society and economy also destroyed feudalism.
When the Black Death wiped out a third of Europe’s population, its effects on society and economy also destroyed feudalism.
Another more recent example is the so called la Grande Peur (“Great Fear”) that refers to the wide-spread feeling of anxiety in France in the second half of July and early August 1789, when the countryside joined the town in revolution. It was researched in detail by the great French historian Georges Lefebvre who was famous for coining the term “history from below”. What interested him was not so much the French Revolution itself, but what were the preconditions for the French Revolution to take place?
And the answer was the “Great Fear” which was a defensive reaction against an “aristocratic plot” in a situation in which France was already faced with economic despair and universal fear. But fear breads fear, so in the end it gave a great stimulus to the revolution in the countryside – there were food riots, agrarian revolts, municipal revolutions, self-organisation.
Rumour
As Lefebvre shows, the general panic that took place during the French Revolution was the result of rumour. But unlike today, when rumour is mainly being spread by governments or through the social media owned by Chinese or Silicon Valley companies, these rumours were spread among peasants who were already facing grain shortages, rising food prices and unemployment, and together with agitation they were carried, mainly through oral transmission, from village to village and market to market.
“But for the government and the aristocracy”, notes Lefebvre, “this means of transmission was a great deal more dangerous than freedom of the press. It goes without saying that it favoured the spread of false reports, the distortion and exaggeration of fact, the growth of legends”. Why was it so dangerous? Because it also created the conditions for the peasants’ revolts and a “municipal revolution” that would pave the way for the French Revolution. Rumour, panic and fear, even if it is very often irrational, played a significant role in this important historical process.
No wonder in 1815, when Paris was occupied by the Allied Powers of Europe, Justus von Gruner, the notorious Prussian head of the Allies’ police in Paris, constructed a sophisticated network of amassing rumours. The reports he would daily receive from his agents always contained a section on “Gerüchte” (rumours), which were assembled in the Parisian cafes, on the Boulevards and in the many salons. As the historian Beatrice de Graaf shows in her work on that interesting period, this “rumour intelligence” was a direct consequence of the experience of the previous revolutionary period – the occupied forces knew very well that Gerüchte can be dangerous and even lead to the overthrow of a system.
In times of uncertainty, it is precisely information that becomes precious. In times of coronavirus, the whole globe has turned into a marketplace of misinformation and rumour. But rumour is not merely “fake news”, it is rather a piece of information that has not yet been confirmed, but at some point of transmission it is believed to be true. It is not necessarily false information, it is rather an unconfirmed trace of information that fills a void in the absence of reliable information or trust in the government.
That happened in China, when the silencing of the whistleblowers provoked even more rumours. It happened in Iran, where the behaviour of their authorities (Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi who appeared on TV without a face mask although he already had coronavirus) led to even more panic. It is also happening in the United States where a whistleblower revealed that US health workers lack training and protective face masks. No wonder people are panicking and storming the supermarkets, they do not believe the system.
What most of today’s world governments obviously don’t understand is that it is precisely censorship and mainstream “fake news” that fuel even more rumours. As one humorist put it during the First World War: “The opinion prevailed in the trenches that anything could be true except what was allowed in print.”
As information that is still not confirmed, rumour is always political.
So in the absence of giving much relevance to newspapers and official statements, there is a renewal of oral tradition and rumour. As information that is still not confirmed, rumour is always political. It shows a mistrust in authority and existing structures of social order. Rumour might as well be the central political category of the early twenty-first century.
Keeping calm?
Now, after Europe, the panic at the supermarkets has also hit the United States. What if panic-buying is not so much an irrational behaviour, but rather a rational response to a situation in which the world is ruled by irrational leaders? When the United States president Donald Trump is saying coronavirus is the Democrats’ “new hoax” or Serbia’s leader Aleksandar Vučić suggests citizens should drink strong alcohol, how can anyone keep calm and carry on as if things were still normal?
However, what this global panic-buying pandemic shows is that it actually functions as a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy – very often it is the panic-buying itself that creates the shortages. Or to be more precise, the belief that there is “panic” – and that the government either lies or doesn’t have things under control – makes it more logical to act individualistically. When such irrational and unreliable leaders are occupying state power, stocking up pasta as ridiculous as it sounds actually gives people at least some sense of control.
Today, just like during the events that led up to the French Revolution, what is needed to set off a wave of fear is a rumour, a piece of gossip, or even auto-suggestion. And just like in the period of the Great Fear, the background of our contemporary global anxiety lies not so much in the fear of a virus, but in the fear of a future without health-care and functioning states.
Today, just like in the period of the Great Fear, the real fear lies in poverty and unemployment, in the daily unveiling of a system that is broken. And even if we can already see the coming of an even stronger surveillance capitalism, merging of thermal scanners and facial recognition, bio-political control of populations and restrictions on mobility, what if it is precisely this panic and rumour that also contains a potential emancipatory feature?
The pasta shelves are empty, but this is a great chance to pause for a moment – even in quarantine if necessary – and reflect on the fact that it’s not coronavirus that is killing the planet. It’s global capitalism.
This article was previously published by Open Democracy.
Our Green New Deal for Europe Tour around Belgium and France
A great initiative to mobilise citizens for our powerful social and ecological programme for Europe
At DiEM25, we know that power has to be built from the bottom up. The task is all the more difficult if one wants, as we do, to build a pan-European transnational movement to democratise the European Union. But as Brian Eno said at DiEM25’s launch in 2016: ‘Start cooking, the recipe will follow.’ And recently, we’ve found one good recipe.
On the initiative of French NC member Brice Montagne, DiEM25 Belgium and France organised a tour to several cities in both countries to build popular support for the Green New Deal for Europe. Throughout January and February, Brice travelled to 15 cities and presented the Green New Deal to local activists, environmentalists and citizens. And it was a resounding success: we managed to reach around 400 people multiplying our ideas, created new DiEM25 local groups along the way, reinvigorated some that already existed and built a feeling of transnational solidarity. This is the right way to grow our green solidarity network.
Interestingly, it wasn’t the big cities where the tour was most successful. Just one example: the small French town of Matignon all the way on the northern coast of Brittany. Though the town has just around 1,600 inhabitants, we filled a hall with over 80 overly enthusiastic people. Here, one could sense that, perhaps for the first time in a long while, someone came to speak to the locals about Europe, about big ideas and the socio-ecological transformation. Not only that, all over Belgium and France people wanted to take this one step further: we were frequently asked whether it would be possible to receive training on giving these presentations to spread the message in their own communities and beyond.
This Green New Deal tour showcases that there’s a huge appetite for a mix of ambitious solutions for the just transition, talking to people about Europe in a meaningful way (and not just during election time) and building a transnational working-class movement.
We’re already thinking about replicating these tours in other European countries. Together with other organisations we want to grow a big green solidarity network. Now we need to get to action, because time is running out and austerity is not an option anymore. Let’s get visible around the continent in every country, every city and every little village to protect our planet and human lives.
We have a plan! So let’s bring the plan to the people!
Why women are advocating for a Green New Deal for Europe
Women that are a part of the DiEM25 movement support the Green New Deal for Europe (GNDE) for a variety of reasons – from acknowledging the need for solidarity with the Global South, to illustrating how growing inequality affects women’s rights . Read their statements to find out how they propose to re-envision the European project in the midst of the current climate crisis!
Patricia Selva – Member of DiEM25 Spontaneous Collective New York
“Climate change magnifies existing social inequities, and various communities are disproportionately unprepared to respond to climate conditions. I support the Green New Deal for Europe because there are gender-based and/or racialized dimensions to this: Women, and women of color more so, are alarmingly implicated by climate change.”
Axelle Van Wynsberghe – Web Editor for DiEM25
“The climate crisis exacerbates the already-existing global inequalities that have been the result of colonialism and unfettered capitalism. Without restitutive policies, we risk an ecological colonialism that threatens the frontline communities that have contributed the least to climate change, but are suffering from climate catastrophes and displacements. The Green New Deal for Europe opens up the opportunity for true solidarity in the tackling of a global – and increasingly pressing – issue.”
Sona Prakash – Policy Adviser for Green New Deal for Europe, Member of DiEM25 Spontaneous Collective Amsterdam and Thematic DSCollective “Peace and International Policy”
“Staggering inequality and planetary devastation are but two symptoms of the strongly intertwined socioeconomic and environmental crises we currently face. The Green New Deal for Europe enables the systemic change needed to reverse the damage caused by an extractive economy focused on growth, unbridled profit accumulation by corporations, the profligate lifestyles of the wealthy and the dismantlement of public services, for which the poor bear the brunt of the burden. The Green New Deal for Europe shifts the focus from economic growth and fossil fuel dependence to inclusive wellbeing, reduced consumption and renewable energy while benefiting the working class, the poor and the marginalised, as well as the planet.”
Stefania Romano – Coordinator for Italy for Green New Deal for Europe Campaign and Member of the Italian National Collective
“These days we are gravely witnessing that health issues do not stop at borders, as much as the intertwined environmental breakdowns. The Green New Deal for Europe aims at restoring healthy patterns, protecting citizens and communities, preventing rather than fixing, for keeping us safe from emergency situations, with a shared vision of inclusive justice and sustainability. It is time for a Green New Deal for Europe Campaign, as there is no more time.”
Myriam Zekagh – Member of the French National Collective of DiEM25
“Shifting power relations is the key to gender equality. The Green New Deal for Europe gives us that: solutions for a fairer, more sustainable economy, that are applicable at all levels – and globally. The Green New Deal for Europe is a solid and comprehensive platform, carried by engaged and committed citizens, in Europe, the US, and beyond, who use their agency to bring it to the fore of our national and international agenda (organizing local actions, calling out decision makers and proposing concrete measures for change in the public debate – or any other way). Joining this movement gives me – gives us – a real chance to grow as a network, and use our collective power for the defense of women’s rights, and the rights of all.”
Mame Coumba Faye-Rexhepi – Member of the Coordinating Collective of DiEM25
“The Green New Deal for Europe lays out a comprehensive plan for a sustainable future; one in which no one is left out or behind. Unlike other ‘Green Deals’, ours responds to all aspects of our current crisis: climate change, mass displacement of people and growing inequality. It does so by placing us, human beings and the natural environment that we depend on at its core, and the economy at our service, instead of the other way around.”
Read more about the gendered dimensions of the climate crisis, and how the Green New Deal for Europe proposes to address it.
Why environmental breakdown is a gendered issue
A Green New Deal for Europe may be the best proposal to tackle the gendered dimensions of the climate crisis.
The climate crisis and other forms of environmental breakdown is a global issue, but it does not burden humanity equally. Women are more likely to bear the heaviest burdens of the crisis, as make up an estimated “70 percent of those living below the poverty line.”
The effects of environmental breakdown, such as floods and sea level rises, ocean acidification, forest fires and deforestation, water scarcity, climate migration and energy poverty have a gendered dimension. As the United Nations (UN) states, “climate change is a women’s issue”, with women often facing greater risks and burdens in the face of climate disasters. A study conducted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) also found that as environmental pressures increase, so does gender-based violence.
A holistic transformation of the economy is needed in order to address the climate emergency. The Green New Deal for Europe (GNDE) is a campaign and social movement calling for a transnational, intersectional and intergenerational approach to the climate crisis. It proposes that the twin European crises of austerity and climate change can be tackled by re-envisioning the European project, investing in public infrastructure and programmes, and valuing social and environmental work.
The UN has called for the need to empower the “participation of women at all levels of decision-making related to climate change.” The Green New Deal for Europe does just that—by focusing on civic participation and on issues that disproportionately impact women. Its initiatives include creating millions of decent jobs with good wages, building sustainable housing, and providing a care income to reward caring for each other and our environment.
People’s Assemblies
Less than 30% of representatives in national and global climate negotiating bodies are women – the Green New Deal for Europe plans to change that. Self Organizing People’s Assemblies are the core organizing principle under the Green New Deal, allowing for direct and deliberative democracy at the local and international level. This will address the European Union’s democratic deficit by fostering a culture of civic participation. Assemblies such as these have been shown to ensure that gender equality is a priority for political agendas; and that issues such as the sharing of care work, the representation of women in leadership positions, and the wage gap are addressed. Furthermore, feminists have played an important role in advocating for marginalized communities on the issue of climate justice. People’s Assemblies would ensure that the needs of women and LGBTQI people are prioritized.
The Care Income
Green New Deal’s Care Income recognizes undervalued or invisible labour overwhelmingly performed by women, especially mothers. The Care Income would be available to anyone engaged in full or part-time care work, such as stay-at-home parents, those caring for the elderly or disabled, or people engaging in care-work for their communities.
It would additionally incentivize people to engage with care-work and thereby provide security for disabled people by facilitating the access to the resources they need in order to live independently.
The Universal Basic Dividend (UBD) would additionally ensure that all Europeans benefit economically from technological advancement through the taxation of companies benefiting from innovations in robotics and artificial intelligence.
Decent Jobs for All
Maintaining and enhancing people’s living standards is a fundamental part of the Green New Deal. It would establish a four-day working week with lower overall working hours, as well as fair wages and local job creation. Local and municipal investment will create local job opportunities, which will reduce the amount of displacement needed for people to get to and from their jobs, and address the housing and transportation issues that affect large metropoles like London or Paris. Retraining programs and income guarantees will therefore also be deployed for workers transitioning from the fossil fuel industries.
Public funding would allow for the kind of environmentally sustainable projects and methods of production that have so far been suppressed by the influence of the private sector and their focus on increasing profit margins. The Green New Deal’s economic realignment bolsters activities that protect and restore the environment, as well as contribute to local communities.
Earning a dignified living is an important aspect of the Green New Deal for Europe, which also proposes to remunerate work that has social value—such as habitat restoration or community services. Public access will additionally be given to services such as community centers and libraries, parks and childcare centers.
Green New Deal initiatives such as the care income, decent jobs for all, and sustainable public housing would allow women to have their own financial recourse and personal resources, including those who decide to be stay-at-home moms or care for their disabled or ill relatives. This could address the economic dimension of gender inequality and thereby issues of domestic and sexual abuse.
Economic Democracy and Pension Protection
It is possible to build prosperity in the face of climate crisis. The Green New Deal for Europe calls for an alternative to the deterioration of public infrastructure and labour rights in Europe. The financing of the Green New Deal is part of its holistic approach towards reshaping the future of Europe. This transformation will be financed through the Green Public Works (GPW), an historic public investment program powered by the European Investment Bank.
One of the sites in which gender inequality is made visible is that of pensions. The Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign in the UK advocates for the women born in the 1950s whose careers and pensions have been negatively impacted by the maladministration of the State Pension Age.
Pensions are additionally coming under threat throughout Europe due to austerity measures, such as in France where Macron’s pension reform is being implemented despite protests from the Gilets Jaunes. All jobs created under the Green Public Works ensures worker representation at the boards of companies, and in all capital savings, pensions or worker funds.
Sustainable Public Housing
Homelessness impacts women more than other demographics; domestic violence can often push them into shelters or the streets, where they can be vulnerable to threats of violence, sexual harassment, and abuse. In general, they also face more challenges such as coping with menstruation, lack of access to reproductive or maternal health services, and increases in the burden of childcare. The Green New Deal will harness public investment to build sustainable public housing which would address housing security. It would additionally lower the cost of living, reduce fuel poverty, ensure accessibility and radically cut emissions.
Households remain the spaces in which the unequal distribution of care work is most clearly manifest. A transition towards a low-carbon housing must therefore also accelerate work-sharing at the household level, ensuring that the burden of unpaid work is split evenly among residents. Co-housing models—in which residents share public spaces and appliances, across communities—could at once reduce energy demand, and contribute to the alleviation of housework which still disproportionately falls on women.
International, Intergenerational and Intersectional Justice
The Green New Deal for Europe ensures that no community is excluded from Europe’s green transition—regardless of geography, race, gender, gender identity, age, dis/ability, nationality, immigration status, sexuality, religion or education. Identifying and examining barriers to inclusion is one of the aims of the Environmental Justice Commission, which will monitor the progress of the green transition, investigate questionable practices, and advise EU authorities on how to redress Europe’s role in environmental injustice around the world.
International accountability will be crucial in order to redress the extraction, exploitation, and inequality in Europe and around the world. Not only have these countries suffered at the hands of the extractive practices of colonialism, but they also constitute today’s ‘frontline communities’ in terms of climate change.
Due to this, some are referring to climate change as a form of ecological colonialism. The Green New Deal commits to restitutive policies that acknowledge Europe’s history of pollution and resource extraction across the Global South. It will monitor and address environmental migration.
In response to Greta Thunberg’s recent statement about the European Green Deal (“you are giving up”); the Green New Deal for Europe advocates for a path forward in which the European project restores the agency of peoples in negotiating their common futures, and addresses the issue of climate change as an intersection of a variety of socioeconomic issues such as the gender wage gap, invisible care work, and job insecurity.
Our Support
The DiEM25 movement has many influential women on its Advisory Panel, such as Jane Sanders, Saskia Sassen and Naomi Klein. The Green New Deal for Europe is building a wide coalition of support throughout Europe. On the Coalition Council, Ann Pettifor (PRIME Economics), Meera Ghani (Ecolise), Stefania Barca (CES, University of Coimbra), Adrienne Buller (CommonWealth), Selma James and Nina Lopez (Global Women’s Strike) and Grace Blakeley (Tribune) — have all contributed to the Green New Deal for Europe report. Notably, the Global Women’s Strike has been a vocal supporter of the Green New Deal and its Care Income.
You can read the full Green New Deal for Europe report here.
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The. Full. Secret. Eurogroup. Recordings.
On March 14, for the first time in history, Europeans will be able to take a front seat in the meetings where their future is decided: DiEM25’s #EuroLeaks will take YOU inside the secretive, powerful Eurogroup that has no standing in law, but where far-reaching decisions about all our lives are made.
WHY AND WHY NOW?
– Because YOU have the right to hear what YOUR elected officials are deciding in YOUR name. Democracy without transparency is impossible. If you do not know what your elected officials are doing on your behalf, you cannot pass judgement on them.
– Because what happened in Greece back in 2015 could happen again – anywhere in Europe.
– Because in the age of “fake news,” correct, unfiltered information is the only way to upend low-transparency centres of power and fend off propaganda.
– Because Brexit was largely propelled by the unacceptable decision-making process at the heart of the EU. #Euroleaks will also provide invaluable insights into how flimsily crucial decisions for the world economy are reached. Learning these lessons is a prerequisite for transforming Europe, and DiEM25’s #Euroleaks is a service to democrats around the world.
– Because we as DiEM25 don’t take “no” for an answer and we’re willing take on the Establishment everywhere, at the ballots like we did with European Spring, in court like we did in our lawsuit against the ECB, and on the streets like we did last month to support our Advisory Panel member and transparency champion Julian Assange.
– Because only RADICAL TRANSPARENCY will help us democratise Europe and legitimise its institutions.
WE NEED YOU FULLY ONBOARD
There is only one way we are funding this action, and that is from LOTS and LOTS of people like you making small donations.
If you’ve been waiting for the right time to donate, this is it!
Internationalism against reactionary violence
New atrocious murders have just been committed on the European continent. A man driven by the ideology of the nationalist and racist far-right of Germany randomly shot and killed customers in various shisha bars near Frankfurt.
This is not a “German” problem, or even a European one. The move of right-wing extremists of all sorts from words to action is a global phenomenon, which has spread to the Antipodes – as can be observed in the Christchurch massacre in New-Zealand. The “lone wolves” as well as organised groups who want to erase the Muslims, or the non-Muslims, or the non-nationals from their environment, are attacking everywhere.
One of the roles of the Left is to sound the alarm, as we have entered a state of war of everyone against everyone else, of low-intensity, for now. This disintegration in slow-motion must must be denounced, as absolutely nothing good will come out of it for the workers or the population. On the contrary, the rights and freedoms of all will inevitably be smashed by these violent and reactionary movements, and sometimes also by their repression, as we witness the implementation of a sort of global and endless state of emergency.
If there is never only one explanation, the fact that social movements are weak, divided and defeated everywhere (or almost) by the attacks of governments in the shareholders’ pay renders all these identity-based withdrawals possible. DiEM25 intends to be one of the forms of refusal of the trivialisation of this suicidal violence induced by despair. Organising a European social and political movement, enforcing internationalism through fighting for common progress is the best defence against reactionary violence, wherever it may come from.