Greece: the perfect laboratory for the EU’s most inhumane policies
For all the warnings, penalties and wagging fingers, Europe needs Greece to do its dirty work.
Ten years of European propaganda, portraying Greece as the continent’s prodigal son – a corrupt, inefficient, lazy relative that needs to be assisted, but also be purified through suffering for its sins – have created the perfect laboratory for the European Union’s most inhumane policies.
From how to deal with a financial crisis within a common currency zone without political cooperation, to how to deal with migration and asylum in a common travel zone without – you guessed it – political cooperation, Greece has been ground zero for developing new, cynical ways for the European Union (EU) to pretend it’s a Union, without ever truly becoming one. To allow for this cruel treatment of Greece and the souls that dwell there, everything is enacted under the useful dogma of “Greece deserves whatever happens to it”; a stance from which whatever help you offer, no matter how ineffectual and puny, is seen as a grand gesture of largesse.
Let us not dwell on the financial crisis, that still holds the country in a downward spiral of deepening crisis, while the numbers and spreadsheets reviewed and approved by the Commission reflect the continued rise of Greece’s parasitic oligarchy which is benefiting from the country’s fire-sale. Let us, instead, focus on current affairs: the situation on the Greek-Turkish border.
Since the crisis began in 2010, half-a-million Greeks have left their own country in search of work; refugees and migrants are obviously not arriving in Greece for a place in the country’s non-existent job market, or in search of security in this volatile part of Europe. They are on their way to the more affluent centre and north of the continent, and Greece, due to its geographic location, is the first step on that journey. The right-wing dominated Council (the governments of EU members) and Parliament (elected representatives from across the EU) in Brussels are unlikely to reproduce the facts in this light.
Even the technocratic European Commission, which has been touting its apolitical vantage point, dropped all pretense to impartiality when it announced in September 2019 the creation of a powerful position in Brussels tasked with overseeing migration policy, under the banner of “Protecting our European Way of Life”. The position was given, perhaps unsurprisingly, to a Greek: Commission stooge Margaritis Schinas.
The crème-de-la-crème of the EU’s leadership descended upon Greece’s Evros river border with Turkey, to review the situation at the Europe’s border. Rhetoric comparing Greece to Europe’s “shield” and congratulations for Greece’s government were shared, while videos and pictures depicting soldiers and policemen brutalising unarmed people and coast guards attempting to sink dinghys in the Aegean were being circulated online. This is the same government that described the influx of refugees and migrants as an “invasion” and a method of “asymmetric warfare”.
In the meantime, innocent people are killed or tortured while trapped between Turkey’s geopolitical power game and an EU held hostage by right-wing politicians. Politicians who have been promising ever more xenophobic and racist measures to their voters, hailing their electoral victories as a defeat of extremists, instead of what it truly is: the transformation of Europe’s conservatism to a mainstream far-right.
Europe is not only unwilling but also unable to help. Technically speaking, when it comes to refugees and asylum, it all begins and ends with the Dublin Regulation; the legislation that outlines how refugees are to be handled within the EU. Since the refugee “crisis” began in 2015, it has been in “review”. Five years later, it is no closer to a revision.
In Brussels, lacking a system of political cooperation, compromise is key. After half-a-decade of inaction, this means only one thing: the deadlock will only be resolved when the reform of the Dublin Regulation will be so watered-down that it might as well not have happened at all. While this policy merry-go-round continues, Europe throws, magnanimously, some scraps (700 million euros and 100 border guards) for its Useful Scoundrel to do the dirty work.
This political Gordian Knot that is the EU appears hopeless, but it is not. Dissolving the EU would only turbo-charge those who progressives are combating within the EU, and localise the struggle in every country. DiEM25 and its approach to political change is the only one that could lead to impactful results: a coordinated, united progressive political front across the whole of Europe, which will bring progressives to power at all levels, from the local, to the European, with a shared plan for change.
Europe will not change because we demanded it, or because we have a right to it. It will not change because it was reformed by experts. It will change when those in charge want it to change: and DiEM25 coordinates a common plan for those who wish to do it. Europe is unwilling and unable to help, but that can change. And when it does, the true capacity of progressive politics can be rolled-out in a way that national politics makes impossible.
Turkey’s blackmail, EU “solidarity” and Greece in emergency: refugees and migrants are not “human after all”
On Sunday, the Greek government issued the following statement: “Because of the organised and mass character of refugees and immigrants’ heading to the borders of Greece, that has nothing to do with the international right to asylum.”
The government claims that Greece is under a state of “asymmetric threat”, implying that Turkey is purposefully allowing refugees and migrants to “invade” the country. To this effect, the Greek government announced a number of measures such as the fortification of the Greek-Turkish border, by sending in the army, special police forces and coast guards along the river Evros in North-Eastern Greece and the islands, a one-month repeal of asylum-seeking procedures, and the immediate return of asylum seekers, who have entered the country. They have additionally requested that FRONTEX (the European Border and Coast Guard Agency) immediately deploy operation RABIT for the protection of the national borders that are also EU’s borders.
At the same time, in the context of EU member states’ ‘solidarity’, it called for the EU Council to activate A.78 of the EU Treaty of Lisbon that would recognise Greece as a country in a state of emergency because of the sudden influx of third countries’ citizens into its territory. Moreover, on monday morning, army training exercises with live ammunition started at the Greek-Turkish borders, along the Evros river. Coast guards have been seen intercepting and attempting to capsize boats, and even shooting at dinghies.
Amnesty International has condemned this excessive use of force, and the ‘inhumane treatment’ of refugees and migrants, with Massimo Moratti stating that “People seeking asylum are once again being used as bargaining chips in a deadly political game, a predictable consequence of the EU-Turkey deal.”
For the past four days, more than 24,000 refugees and migrants have been trying to enter Greece from Turkey, where they are camping, while the Greek police have been using chemicals and flash bangs grenades against them along the Evros.
Amidst all this tragedy and humanitarian crisis the EU “heads”, i.e. the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Council Charles Michel and the President of the European Parliament David Sassoli arrived in Athens yesterday to visit, along with the Greek Prime Minister Kyriákos Mitsotákis, the Greek-Turkish borders in a ‘symbolic’ gesture of solidarity for Greece.
As von der Leyen’s statement goes, “the challenge that Greece is facing is also a European challenge” but, on the other hand, “Turkey is in a difficult situation, therefore dialogue with it should be intensified at all levels.”
Erdogan’s flagrant blackmail is the violation of the EU-Turkey Treaty agreement of 2016, through the “release” of refugees and migrants from Turkey (the Turkish government repeatedly inciting refugees and migrants to go to Europe through Greece) in return for the EU’s complicity with his aggressive geopolitical expansionism in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean.
Characteristically, the German government keeps silent on this inhumane use of the distraught and dispossessed people as toys at the hands of superpowers but issues appeals to Erdogan to respect the Treaty. It is obvious by Merkel’s silence that her 2015 politics of ‘open borders’ is out of the question now. Instead, there are official statements that Germany will not repeat the same mistake, being tacitly in line with the Visegrad group.
MeRA25’s position is that the EU-Turkey agreement is not the solution to the problem but rather it is the problem itself since it violates international legitimacy and is morally unacceptable. At the same time, in line with its pacifist policies, it calls for the cease of warfare and all kinds of hostilities in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, which are the real causes of the refugee and migrants’ tragedy.
Brutal treatment of refugees and migrants on Greek-Turkish border
The government, with yet another “mea culpa” on the issue of refugees and migrants, and after beating up the people of Lesbos and Chios and spraying them with chemicals, is at the moment withdrawing the special police forces sent to suppress local reactions.
These violent incidents have erupted after local protests against the building of “closed” camps—referred to as “prisons for the refugees and migrants”.
Now, the government is calling for dialogue! At the same time, there are serious allegations by press unions that it has enforced “preventative censorship” on the public TV channel ERT. MeRA25 is calling for its administration to immediately take back these antidemocratic decisions.
Every single day that the government proves itself to be incompetent and dangerous to the islanders and the refugees and migrants, they also prove themselves to be destructive to our democracy.
The insidious return of xenophobia in Greece
DiEM25 condemns the militarisation of the Greek-Turkish border, the European Union’s violation of every principle of humanism, the instrumentalisation of refugees both by the Turkish regime and Brussels, the abandonment of Greek islanders to their own devices – the list goes on and on.
DiEM25 calls for an immediate opening of all borders. The Greek-Turkish one and, more importantly, all borders within the EU. It is the only way the humanitarian crisis can be dealt with rationally and humanely, without resorting to military solutions under a cloud of hysteria.
MeRA25 ON THE SITUATION ON THE GREEK-TURKISH BORDER
A virus and the inevitable escalation of refugee inflows from Turkey were enough to heighten xenophobia and cause the right-wing Greek government to embark upon a large-scale campaign of disorienting Greece’s public opinion – so as to mask the reality that the much heralded economic recovery was a mirage given the continuing troika program of attacking labour, fiscal austerity and fire sales of public property.
The fear of others’, be it the Chinese or the wretched refugees, is being instrumentalised so that the people of Greece can no longer discern the true causes of their continuing asphyxiation – that is, the continuing surrender to the troika policies and the permanent subjugation to the EU’s irrational and inhumane policies regarding refugees, the EU-Turkey, EU-Libya relations etc.
Yes, the COVID-19 epidemic is a worry. Yes, the exploitation by President Erdogan of Turkey of refugees as part of his geostrategic gaming (i.e. varying the number of refugees to cross to Greece with a view to increasing pressure on the EU to side with him in Syria) constitutes a violation of basic human rights.
However, neither COVID-19 nor the refugees justify the motivated hysteria that Greece’s troika-run regime is cultivating so as to escape its responsibility for the decade-long asphyxiation they have brought to the people of Greece.
DiEM25 and MeRA25 will not allow this new Troika-Nationalist Alliance to pull the wool over our people and to bolster xenophobia – whose end result will be to worsen the Greek’s circumstances and rob Greece of its capacity to appeal to progressives across the world.
DiEM25 and MeRA25 will not allow the Greek government to legitimise the Golden Dawn – Greek Solution racist narrative that casts the hapless refugees as an “organised invasion force” that Greece’s “heroic” government is facing down on the Greek-Turkish border.
Precisely like the economic crisis that erupted in 2010, so too now refugees and COVID-19 are ridiculing the notion that electrified border fences can solve the problem of ‘contagion’ – whether it is the financial crisis contagion, COVID-19 or refugee flows. That walls and border fences provide security is not only a lie but also a dangerous delusion.
DiEM25 and MeRA25 will continue to point the way to the only road to security with prosperity: Radical Internationalism. Our transnational getting together based on a common understanding that all epidemics (economic, financial) and all mass movements of human beings struggling to live are transnational in nature and, thus demand transnational solutions.
Solutions that will only come through our constructive disobedience: Resistance to the policies of austerity, militarisation and xenophobia. And constructive, transnational, humanist policies to replace them with.
Watch Yanis Varoufakis' powerful speech at #FreeAssange event in London [video]
Leaking the guilty secrets of power is not a phrase, it is a sentence. And no one is facing a longer one today than Julian Assange.
Julian has gained the right to quote another past prisoner, another enemy of Empire, Mahatma Gandhi.
Like Gandhi Julian could say: “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.”
He may very well say that.
But WE don’t have the right to agree.
We must NOT let THEM destroy his body.
WE must END his torture.
Because first they came for Julian. Then they will come for our comrades. Then our friends. Then our children. Then the good people working for the Guardian, the BBC – anyone who does not submit to the right of the powerful to carry out crimes against humanity in our name and without our knowledge.
Mike Pompeo, Trump’s first CIA director and now US Secretary of State, described WikiLeaks as “a non-state hostile intelligence service.” That’s exactly right. Wikileaks IS a non-state hostile intelligence service. Exactly what every self-respecting news outlet ought to be.
Dan Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky have warned journalists who fail to oppose Assange’s extradition to the US: You are next on the hit list of a President who considers you the “enemy of the people.”
When you turn a blind eye to Julian’s torture you consent to your own emasculation.
Of course, by being here you have already proven that you know all this. That we know all this. It also means that you, we, have accepted the duty to let into the secret those who are not here.
You see, Julian’s greatest enemy, the greatest enemy of freedom, does not come from evil men in smoke-filled rooms plotting against good people. No, rational, self-conscious evil is not the worst enemy.
The worst enemy is apathy. It is the appalling silence of good people. Of tired people too exhausted and disheartened to have the energy to campaign for others. Fatigue is the enemy, the oligarchs’ greatest ally. Along with banality – with people in some authority, neither good nor bad, too banal to care.
I got to know Julian back in 2015 when he took an interest in me because I had exposed the way Europe’s finance ministers conspire against the interests of the people they represent.
Our common project will see the light of day on March 10 – watch out for #Euroleaks.
Soon after we met, in February 2016, together with tens of thousands of European progressives, Brian Eno and Noam Chomsky included, we created the D in E Movement – DiEM25.
Today, I stand here to convey to you their solidarity from every nook and cranny of the European continent. From Germany. From Portugal, Spain, France, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Scandinavia. You may be out of the EU but we consider you more deeply embedded in Europe’s progressive movement than ever.
Tomorrow I shall be visiting Julian in prison, alongside John – his remarkable father. I shall do my best to convey to him your spirit, the spirit of DiEMers from across Europe, the wishes of our Greek members of parliament who are staging a demonstration outside Britain’s embassy in Athens right now.
Their message to Julian is: We are all Wikileaks. Each one of us is a tiny MeLeaks exposing abuse of power and letting light in wherever power seeks to grow in the darkness that makes it monstrous, hideous, misanthropic.
As my friend, and Julian’s friend, Phillip Adams said recently, we shall not let them turn Julian into a latter-day Man in the Iron Mask, into the Man forgotten in an Iron Cell.
So, stiffen your upper lip folks. We are here so that unarmed truth has the final word. So that Julian’s sentence ends neither with a bang nor with a whimper – but with a majestic, a marvellous full stop.
DiEM25 strongly condemns the normalisation of right-wing extremism in Germany
While Germany was debating the meaning of “Leitkultur” (“leading culture”, as opposed to multiculturalism), another right-wing terrorist attack occurred, this time in the German town of Hanau where an armed individual killed eleven people at two shisha bars.
This latest attack comes in the aftermath of last week’s attempted assault against Muslims, which fortunately was prevented, as well as prior deadly attacks in Kassel and Halle.
Moreover, last year’s discovery of an extremist right-wing network operating within the German army, “Hannibal“, illustrates the extent to which right-wing extremism has become normalised in the country.
Furthermore, the attack happened just two weeks after a liberal politician was elected in Thuringia with the help of the right-wing party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland). This clearly shows just how incapable and unwilling the German Establishment is to fight right-wing extremism.
Not only is the right-wing extremist party AfD part of political institutions in Germany and a welcomed guest in TV-debates, “white terrorism” is now becoming the new normal.
The town of Hanau is famous for being the birthplace of the Brothers Grimm. Now it is becoming a symbol of what is wrong with Germany.
We express our deepest solidarity with the victims, and call on all progressive forces in Germany to protest against the normalisation of right-wing extremism, and to get organised so that events like these are not repeated in the future.
Our condolences are with the victims and their families. We stand by you.
Celebrating DiEM25's fourth anniversary in Rome
On the fourth birthday of DiEM25, the Roman local DiEM25 groups and the Italian National Collective organised the event “Manifestiamo”, held in Rome on February 9, at the Villetta Garbatella Social Club.
The event was an opportunity to present the Progressive Manifesto for Italy, a work in progress and a first step toward building DiEM25’s Progressive Agenda for Italy. Above all, it was an opportunity to discuss the issues and priorities for Italy, bearing in mind today’s international scenario of social, environmental and democratic emergencies.
The speakers that took part were personalities from the world of associations, trade unions and universities. Our intention was to join their claims – that are normally on separate fronts – through the red thread of a progressive and ecological vision.
After a brief presentation of the Manifesto by Antonella Trocino and Stefania Romano (members of DiEM25 Italia), there was a speech by Professor Paolo Pileri (Polytechnic of Milan) who confirmed that land consumption is the main reason for hydrogeological failure, among Italy’s first environmental emergencies. On this matter, he is among the authors – together with the Forum of movements to save the landscape – of a bill that Parliament still hasn’t debated or implemented.
Davide Di Laurea (representative of the trade Union USB Public Employment) spoke of precarious jobs and negative flexibility in the public administration and, in particular, in research institutions and universities, two domains that should drive the transition of the Italian economy. Instead they are being crushed by austerity policies and the corporatisation of the education and research system.
Lorenzo Battisti (CGT) outlined the reasons for the French strikes which have much more support in public opinion (but are ignored by the Italian mass media) who understood that Macron’s mission is to break the French welfare system.
Roberto Giordano, regional representative of the largest trade union (FIOM – CGIL), admitted not only that all the trade unions struggled to represent precarious and working-poor people, but admitted that it was a big mistake to have accepted – within only two hours of strike action – the 2011 pension reform that the ECB and Europe had asked Italy (Fornero Reform).
The Fornero Reform was a reform similar to the one that in France they are fighting strenuously, which became one of the flags of Salvini, who when he was in government partially reformed it, of what should have been a battle fought by the Left.
A representative of the International Women’s House (an historical common good that in Rome is a flag of feminism and inclusion), Marilena Grassadonia (Activist Rainbow Families) and Simona Maggiorelli (Left) closed the event, talking of gender equality, LGBTQIA+ battles and the right to beauty and to sociability that should not be considered minor rights, given that they are fundamental components for a just society capable of dealing with hatred.
Alessandro Giannì from Greenpeace sent in a video, which was played at the beginning of the event. He was travelling when the event was taking place so could not connect via internet link. Marta Fana, economist, was in Spain at the time and also couldn’t connect.
Despite these two setbacks, it was a content-packed afternoon, which ended with a toast to celebrate DiEM25’s birthday.
Former Merkel advisor and top EU official to "Adults in the Room" movie director: "Don't Make That Film!"
Klaus Regling is “very sad” as a result of the “breach of privacy” by Yanis Varoufakis’ audio recordings of the Eurogroup meetings.
Of course he is sad, given that if citizens could hear and see what he said and did, Mr. Regling would find it very difficult to stay employed in any European country, including his own.
If he was scrutinised by the public, would he ever have dared to recommend to a minister of a fellow European nation that he should withhold all pension payments so that his country could pay back an instalment to the IMF?
If he was scrutinised by the public, would European citizens have not noticed that Mr. Regling is not simply a cynical bureaucrat, but an inept one at that?
When he speaks off-script, even when the camera is pointed at him, Mr Regling makes basic technical mistakes. For example, in the most recent documentary of George Avgeropoulos, AGORA II, he said that Italy and Belgium have managed a primary surplus of over 3% per year for decades – something that, with only some basic research, the documentary-maker revealed to be false.
This is the reason why people like Mr. Regling are terrified of the eyes and ears of citizens: public scrutiny.
This is the reason why the Eurogroup meetings have no minutes.
This is the reason why, when Costas-Gavras announced that he would make a film based on Yanis Varoufakis’ book “Adults in the Room”, Mr. Regling was worried enough to ask for a meeting with the famous director. A request which Mr. Gavras accepted by inviting him for a working lunch in Paris.
During the lunch, according to Costas-Gavras himself, Mr. Regling attempted to dissuade the director from filming Adults in the Room, on the basis that — according to him — the events described in Mr Varoufakis’ book, and especially the conversations in the Eurogroup, are, largely inaccurate.
Mr. Gavras, after having listened to his argumentation, responded: “The reason why I believe Mr. Varoufakis’ book is that I fact-checked its content against his recordings of the Eurogroup proceedings, which allowed me to hear what you and your colleagues said, Mr. Regling”.
Of course, that was the end of the conversation. Mr. Regling did not respond, until yesterday, when he expressed his sadness that the citizens of Europe would finally learn the truth.
P.S. The bill for the lunch was footed by Costas-Gavras. The bill for Mr. Regling’s ineptitude is being paid daily by European, and especially Greek, citizens.
Noam Chomsky, Rosemary Bechler, Laurent de Sutter and Brian Eno become advisers to DiEM25
We’re thrilled to announce the following additions to our Advisory Panel (AP), the team which advises DiEM25 and facilitates the implementation of its aims:
– Noam Chomsky — Born in Philadelphia on December 7, 1928, Noam is regarded as the father of modern linguistics. He has authored over 100 books on topics in his field and on issues of dissent and U.S. foreign policy. Noam currently holds a joint appointment as Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Laureate Professor at the University of Arizona. Here’s what he had to say about joining our Advisory Panel:
“Very pleased to join the DiEM25 Advisory Panel, an honor and privilege. Europe should be playing a significant constructive role in world affairs. Serious flaws in the design of the EU and policy errors are among the factors that have prevented this from taking place. DiEM25, in my opinion, offers the best hope for preserving what is valuable in European integration and overcoming the severe problems that have undermined its prospects, including the hope to be the leading participant in a progressive international that will combat and overcome dark forces that are plaguing much of the world.”
– Rosemary Bechler —Mainsite editor of openDemocracy and editor of Can Europe make it?. For DiEM25 she co-edited with David Adler, A Vision for Europe, Eris, (May, 2019). She was an elected member of our Coordinating Collective and is at present a member of the National Collective in the UK. Here’s what she had to say about joining our Advisory Panel:
“DiEM25 is a vital creative force in pan-European politics and beyond, at a time when the Nationalist International and anti-politics are rampant. I am proud to have been involved in its formative years, and hope to contribute to its flourishing, alongside so many dedicated and ambitious thinkers and activists.”
– Laurent de Sutter — Laurent de Sutter, born on 24 December 1977 in Brussels, is a French-speaking Belgian philosopher. He is Professor of legal theory at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and a member of the Scientific Council of the International College of Philosophy. Here’s what he had to say about joining our Advisory Panel:
“DiEM25 is the most credible radical alternative out there, for those who want serious changes in a world facing environmental, political, economical and social collapse. I’m thankful for the confidence put in me by DiEM25 members as a newly appointed member of its Advisory Panel. I will do all that is in my power to make this count and help DiEMers in their fight.”
– Brian Eno — Brian Eno was involved with DiEM25 from the very beginning and has been an elected member of our Coordinating Collective. At the launch of DiEM25 in 2016 he famously stated “Start cooking, recipe to follow!”. Brian is an original and influential musician. He began his career playing synth with Roxy Music in the 1970s and has produced music for acts including David Bowie, Talking Heads, U2 and Coldplay. In everything he does his goal is to overturn established ways of thinking and spark creativity, whether in the world of music or in his political activism.
The 37-strong Advisory Panel includes two-time Palme d’Or film director Ken Loach, UK Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, renowned philosopher Slavoj Žižek and award-winning journalist, writer, film-maker and activist, Naomi Klein. See full line-up here.