DiEM25 lands in Brussels to present its “Citizen Takeover of the EU Institutions”: the first-ever transnational list to contest a European election
On Monday, March 25 we’ll be landing in Brussels to set the alternative to the European Establishment’s There Is No Alternative in motion: the first-ever transnational list to contest a European election!
And we invite you to be part of this historic event!
Here’s what will be happening on that day (see schedule below for specifics on timing and locations):
- DiEM25 co-founders Yanis Varoufakis and Srećko Horvat will hold a press conference, where they and other European Spring candidates to the European Parliament will present the international progressive alliance we have created.
- On the evening of Monday, March 25, we will host “A Citizen Takeover of the EU Institutions”, a presentation of the women and men from all corners of Europe who will take our common political programme to the ballot on May 25 – like Génération.s’ Benoît Hamon and LIVRE’s Rui Tavares among others – at the BOZAR theatre. Here we will officially launch our European Spring campaign – embodied in a New Deal for Europe, a set of ambitious economic proposals to save Europe from itself by transforming it.
We will be joined by some very special guests, like activist and human rights lawyer, Laura Álvarez and actress and activist Pamela Anderson. RSVP to attend our event here.
- On Tuesday, March 26, Yanis Varoufakis will participate in “Road to Europe: The Spitzenkandidaten series”, a Bruegel-Financial Times special event that aims to “explore and challenge the main political parties’ policies for the future of the continent”. For more information, visit the event’s website here.
If you’re interested in attending our event at BOZAR, register here. If you’re a journalist and would like to obtain accreditation for the press conference, please mail BOZAR’s press office at [email protected]. If you would like to explore the possibility of an interview with one of our spokespeople, mail DiEM25’s Communications Coordinator at [email protected].
“A Citizen Takeover of the European Institutions”: Schedule
Press Conference
- When: Monday, March 25 at 13:00hrs
- Where: Salon de Réception, BOZAR Theatre, Rue Ravenstein 23, 1000 Brussels
- Contact: Barbara Porteman | +32 2 507 84 48 | T. +32 479 98 66 04 | [email protected]
Main Event
- When: Monday, March 25 at 19:00hrs (doors open at 18:30)
- Where: BOZAR Theatre, Henry Le Boeuf Hall, Rue Ravenstein 23, 1000 Brussels * Tickets
European Spring MEP candidates speaking at the event:
- Yanis Varoufakis
- Benoît Hamon
- Srećko Horvat
- Daniela Platsch
- Laurent de Sutter
- Rosita Allinckx
- Emma Justum-Foundethakis
- Jacques Terrenoire
- Fotini Bakadima
- Erik Edman
- Rasmus Nordqvist
- Karin Rohr Genz
- Rui Tavares
- Joacine Katar Moreira
- Neil Harbisson
- Joanna Bronowicka
- María Garzón Molina
- Arantza Azmara Rodríguez
- Marine Betrancourt
- Adrian Vlaicu
Special Guests
- Laura Alvarez
- Pamela Anderson
DSC Viborg and a European Spring animation project growing in the fields of rural Denmark
March 10 marked the first meeting for the Viborg DSC!
Of course, everybody knows Viborg: the once medieval capital and later seat of the Danish Reformation, now sleepy student town. In a classroom at The Animation Workshop VIA University College, nine wide-awake students from Latvia, Israel, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Italy and Brazil met and ping-ponged ideas.
A week earlier, four of us held an afternoon talk about DiEM25 and the European Parliament election in the homebuilt Høgni Pub. It was an informal event with beer and snacks, but with a serious agenda and a lot of words per minute.
At the very end, we asked if anyone would be interested in collaborating on a collective animation project to promote the ideas presented. Many people signed up, and here we are, back at the classroom.
After recapping the main policy proposals of DiEM25, we had an open discussion – sharing ideas on how to structure the animation project and about expectations. We decided on holding a YES workshop next Sunday, in which no ideas are shut down.
Here we will – in line with the spirit of DiEM25 – collectively spit into a big bucket of ideas, look at them all and then choose which ones to work from.
After the ideas have been chosen as a starting point, we will let people work freely and intuitively from the idea – and arrange a collective crunch day where we all start animating early in the day and work until night – to create support and the opportunity to share knowledge.
Then, those of us who is interested to work on the text/voice of the project, will sit down and work to make a clear and relevant narrative. In the end we planned our participation in the 15th of May school strike and other future events.
If you would like to join us, come along! All are welcome.
Greetings from DSC Viborg
The European Union Court rules in favour of the ECB – and against transparency and democracy in Europe
The European Court’s ruling against our case comes as a disappointment. That its decision intends to protect the ECB’s “space to think” only adds insult to injury.
In 2015, the European Central Bank (ECB) forced Greece’s banks to close as part of the Troika’s attempt to intimidate the newly-elected Greek government into abandoning what it had been voted in to do: renegotiate the country’s public debt, fiscal policy and reform agenda.
Following the closure of the banks, capital controls were imposed on Greece. These are still in place, with widespread social and economic costs for its already-ailing economy.
When we learned that the ECB commissioned a legal opinion on the legality of those actions, we immediately asked the ECB to disclose that opinion, but the ECB refused.
Thus, DiEM25 co-founder and Greece’s finance minister at the time, Yanis Varoufakis, and MEP Fabio de Masi (GUE/NGL), supported by a broad alliance of politicians and academics, filed a mass freedom of information request to the ECB to get this opinion. Again, the ECB got off the hook.
So we took them to court.
Today’s ruling, in which the judges claim that “the ECB could legitimately take into account the hypothetical effects that the disclosure of the contested document could have on its space to think in 2015 and also after 2015,” is yet another blow to our ailing democracy, as it reaffirms the Establishment-controlled institutions to make powerful decisions behind closed doors by unelected officials. Decisions that affect millions of people.
And the least Europeans can expect is access to legal opinions that they have paid for regarding the exercise of the ECB’s power.
We will most certainly appeal the court’s shameless decision. This battle to uphold our values is not over.
For a detailed account of the ECB’s actions in this case, and how it likely acted outside of its mandate, visit our see our #TheGreekFiles campaign.
Ultimately, this is exactly why we need a transnational set of progressive MEPs elected next May. The EU establishment is too busy protecting itself and its TINA (There Is No Alternative) narrative, showcasing that they are more interested in protecting themselves than they are in doing their jobs and upholding our values, repairing our Union, democratising and bringing transparency to our institutions and properly establishing a system of checks and balances.
Join us as we continue the fight to repair and democratise our Union with European Spring, the first-ever transnational electoral effort to bring a progressive, pan-European programme to ballots everywhere.
Press contact
Luis Martin, DiEM25 Communications Coordinator
[email protected]
A Citizen Takeover of the EU Institutions | March 25, Brussels, BOZAR
With xenophobic, anti-European, forces gaining ground everywhere in Europe and an inane Establishment hellbent on continuing the same failed business-as-usual policies that condemn citizens to lives of poverty, precarity and insecurity, DiEM25 and European Spring are here to say: no more!
We think it’s time for a citizen takeover of the EU institutions, and we’re staging an event at the very core of the Brussels machine on March 25 to show you how it could be done.
A Citizen Takeover of the EU Institutions will bring together artists, activists, academics and politicians from across the planet to Brussels’ BOZAR theatre to present the first-ever transnational list for the European elections and the progressive solutions that people are crying out for. A New Deal for Democracy to bring democracy back to Europe! A Green New Deal that ensures Europe’s green transition and much more, including the women and men, nominated in an ambitious experiment in grassroots democracy, who will take the New Deal for Europe programme to the ballot box in May.
The Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) is working to provide awareness, launch campaigns and produce policies to bring about reforms for the EU. The movement urges those who believe in Europe to rethink the current structures of the EU and re-balance power between the local, national, and European level. DiEM25 is convinced that only a Europe of solidarity can guarantee peace, prosperity and humanism in our continent.
European Spring is Europe’s first transnational list. This movement is united behind a shared vision of Europe as a realm of democracy, sustainability, prosperity, and solidarity. European Spring provides an alternative to the choice that Europeans face – between apathy and anger, between technocracy and autocracy, between those who defend the European Union as it exists today and those who wish to destroy it forever.
[DiEM25 is 100% financed by donations from its members. We don’t receive money from public authorities or oligarchs with vested interests. The money obtained from ticket sales will go towards covering the cost of the event. Thank you for your support!]
BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW
www.bozar.be/en/activities/152835-a-citizen-take-over-of-the-eu-institutions
SHARE THE EVENT
www.facebook.com/events/376599409592419
Follow our Twitter and Facebook page for all speaker updates! We have an amazing line-up of speakers, so don’t miss out. BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW!
DiEM25 press release on the situation in Algeria
For several weeks, hundreds of thousands of Algerians from all regions of the country and from foreign parts have taken to the streets to oppose a fifth term of the ailing Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been President of the Algerian Republic for nearly twenty years, and who is physically unfit to govern.
This mobilisation, unprecedented in Algeria’s recent history, rejects a candidacy marred by irregularities, the intimidation of other candidates, and an anti-democratic regime that remains in power despite the will of the vast majority of the Algerian people. Despite their deep anger, the Algerians have shown remarkable restraint by demonstrating peacefully and displaying the legendary humour of the Algerian people.
Beyond the grotesque nature of this candidacy, Algerians reject a regime that has for decades turned nepotism and corruption into a system. Characterised by its opacity and the practice of lies and misinformation, this regime, which for a long time bought social peace on the basis of a now reduced oil rent, has failed to develop an economy commensurate with the country’s resources and to provide the population with employment opportunities or prospects, particularly for the young (29.7% of Algeria’s population are younger than 15). It is the youth – very numerous – who have known no other president than Bouteflika, who take to the streets on a massive scale.
Quick to speak out on other countries, the states of the European Union have remained surprisingly silent. Stupefied by the fear of a hypothetical impact on migration flows, they prefer, as elsewhere in Africa, to support an authoritarian and corrupt regime. They justify this support by the need to establish a bulwark against Islamist terrorism, even though the lack of democracy and the practices of this regime taking over the country’s wealth feed support for the terrorists.
We salute the courage of the Algerian people and express our solidarity with their democratic aspirations. Without any intention of interference, we call on the states of the European Union not to support the regime in Algeria and to express themselves in favour of democracy, in particular by putting pressure on the Algerian government not to violently repress demonstrations and to establish a dialogue with Algerian civil society.
Algeria is a natural partner of the European Union and a strategic ally for the construction of a Euro-Mediterranean area of peace and prosperity. The European Union’s attitude towards current events will be decisive for future relations with this country. Rather than supporting the debris of a failed system, we must hear the democratic call of the Algerian people and bet on the future!
This statement comes at DiEM25’s French National Collective initiative and request.
Image credit: France24
The EU statement on non-military intervention in Venezuela still upholds intervention
DiEM25 can, and should denounce the Euro-parliament’s decision to step up sanctions against Venezuela, while refusing the instant recognition bestowed upon opposition deputy Juan Guaidó as real president of the Bolivarian republic. EU interference in Caracas contravenes the values of the DiEM25 ”European Spring.”
Frederica Mogherini’s recent statement promised that the EU will not engage in military intervention in Venezuela, while keen on pursuing a ”peaceful” intervention urging new elections, towards an outcome still favouring Guaidó.
The disavowal of military means is good news. But Mogherini has yet to explain why sanctions against Caracas are justified, despite the absence of similar economic pressure exerted upon (for example) the Jair Bolsonaro government in Brazil, in the light of extreme policies that undermine human rights and democracy. Though the EU claims, in theory, to use a method of ”targeted” economic strangulations, thus far EU actions have reinforced and legitmised the sanctions prolonged by the US Trump administration since Obama installed these in 2015.
As long as sanctions stand, costing Venezuela billions of dollars, the EU remains complicit in worsening the Venezuelan crisis. Meanwhile, the EU has shown from its treatment of Syrian refugees that if the ‘‘solidarity’’ for the Venezuelan opposition leads to further instability, Venezuelan refugees can expect no shelter in Europe. We can already see a worsening Venezuelan refugee crisis in the European overseas territories in the Caribbean, with little hope of improving conditions as European governments have pledged not to spend ”one sole euro” on amending the Venezuelan refugee crises developing in, for example, the Dutch Caribbean islands.
Subjecting Venezuela to mounting pressure, while letting Brazil off the hook, risks giving a green light to aggressors like Jair Bolsonaro, as they seek to incite regional conflict with Venezuela. Mogherini’s abiding by mere economic warfare (sanctions) while disavowing support for military pressure, confirms the self-deprecating joke that Brussels’ bureaucrats often make about themselves and their employer ‘‘the EU remains an economic giant, a political dwarf and a military worm’’. The EU abides by its most potent weapon in the arsenal, economic warfare, by supporting sanctions that it had lifted against Iran even before the EU pulled out of Trump’s trade war.
Among the principles of the European Spring listed in the DiEM25 charter, the following, perhaps stand out:
- No European people can be free as long as another’s democracy is violated
- No European people can live in dignity as long as another is denied it
- No European people can hope for prosperity if another is pushed into permanent insolvency and depression
Sanctions on Venezuela push the Venezuelan people into insolvency and depression.
DiEM25 must not allow the EU to keep ignoring how the alliance of Latin American right-wing governments of the so-called ”Lima group” have used every possible tactic to violate individual and human rights and press freedoms of the populations of Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Chile. Meanwhile the Europarliament went along with Trump, in supporting the nomination of a president in a foreign country, Venezuela, even though the MercoSur parliament (ParlaSur) and UN secretary general refuse to recognise Juan Guaidó.
Though a positive step, Mogherini’s recent statement is simply insufficient when the EU plays a prominent role in endorsing the economic pressures currently sinking Venezuela.
Arturo Desimone is an Aruban-Argentinean writer and visual artist, currently based between Argentina and the Netherlands. His articles on politics previously appeared in Open Democracy, CounterPunch, El Andén and various literary journals. For more info see his blog www.arturoblogito.wordpress.com
Want to contribute to the debate? Check out our forum and/or submit your own articles on this subject to: [email protected]
On March 8, let us not only reclaim the streets but reclaim our democracies
Great feminist initiatives are growing from DiEM25 grassroots. It is beautiful to see the forming of groups and discussions in key areas of emancipation within our movement, whether those of online groups like the Thematic DiEM25 Spontaneous Collectives (DSCs) on Gender, or the spaces on our forum where gender equality issues are burgeoning, thanks to all the members who are interested. The end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 has seen the launch of two Women’s groups:
- The Berlin Women’s group – An inspiring and safe space for FLTI DiEM25 Activists. Holding meetings each two weeks they exchange challenges & experiences and discuss ways to increase presence and participation, as well as overall awareness of feminist issues within DiEM25.
- Thessaloniki Women’s Group – Women Solidarity in DiEM25 meets once a week with women of all ages and backgrounds to address issues of society and equality. Recently they focused their actions on violence against women with an event whose motto is that the only way forward is together, in solidarity.
Following the DiEM25 Academy in Cologne the idea of having a group on diversity, open to all those interested, was born and hopefully will flourish soon as well.
Talking to members, women often mention the fact that there are no such groups in their city/country, and that it would be good if there were. It is clear that these initiatives are essential for an inclusive and diverse movement.
Everywhere where members want them, we need to see them being formed, since women’s voices are also an essential component in defending diversity and democracy. This is a point well made by the FEMEN activist from the Ukraine living in exile in Paris, Inna Shevchenko.
She points out that in Europe today, right-wing populists are “one of the main obstacles to progress of women’s rights…they play a lot with people’s emotions and fear and insecurity and they manipulate society in this way, aiming to divide us and using identity politics to reduce us to only one identity, one adjective. Then they claim to represent us, but no, we all have multiple identities and therefore we all have multiple answers.”
She says to us women, “We have to show solidarity to one another and we have to continue making our own proper voices also heard. Because what populists are really afraid of is pluralism. And women’s voices, when they join in public debate, they necessarily push for more pluralism.”
On International Women’s Day let us not only reclaim the streets, but reclaim our democracies… and defend the rights of all the dissenting voices calling for radical progressive change. Let us raise our voices in support of the European Spring candidates who are fighting against the backlash of the right-wing, for equal pay, so long overdue, for reinforcing LGBTTQIA+ rights, and for greater understanding of the systemic misogyny behind gender-based violence – in order to put an end to it… on behalf of all of us.
Carpe DiEM,
Gianna Merki and Rosemary Bechler, DiEM25 Coordinating Collective
The right is waging a war on women. Help us fight them back!
For many, International Women’s Day is a day to celebrate and recognise a long struggle for equality and dignity by a majority of our planet’s inhabitants. But International Women’s Day should also be a day to recognise that many continue to be oppressed, that we still have a long way to go to bring about gender equality, and that right now the right is waging an overt war on women.
In Spain, the new extremist political party VOX, supported by the establishment’s own Popular Party and Ciudadanos, has just launched a campaign to annul legislation to advance women’s rights. Their latest hideous stunt is to drive a “Stop Feminazis” bus across the country starting from March 8 – a bus that features the face of Adolf Hitler with make-up and a feminist symbol on his cap. They want to convince voters that the laws to protect women from violence, to achieve gender equality and to defend the LGBT collective should be repealed.
While the establishment and its accomplices want to divide us up by the colour of our skin, our country of origin, our gender, our religion and our sexual orientation – we are going to do exactly the opposite. We are going to bring people together – all Europeans.
Here’s a video message from Virginia López Calvo, member of DiEM25’s Coordinating Collective, in support of the Women Strike.
Democracy is fragile – from corporations buying the loyalty of our political representatives and mass media, to raising xenophobe parties disenfranchising women and migrants in their ascent to power. But on May 26 we have the substantial goal of electing a European Parliament who will pass progressive legislation for all Europeans: A Green New Deal for Europe, and equality for all people.
Because when all the important decisions that govern our daily lives and define our future are made by a homogeneous group of people who don’t understand the struggles of discriminated communities, people get left behind by accident and by design.
Here’s a message from Eirini Mitsou, member of DiEM25’s Coordinating Collective, in support of the Women Strike.
Our European Spring political programme, the first-ever attempt to take a progressive agenda to ballot boxes across the Union by a transnational list, tables a series of initiatives aimed to stand up for a more equal Europe, with dignity for all:
- Equal Pay Standard: We are calling for a pan-European Equal Pay Standard to end gender-based discrimination in the workplace.
- Gender Parity in the EU: We propose the introduction of a European gender parity clause that will ensure an equal and fair representation of all genders at all levels of all EU institutions.
- Convention on Reproductive Rights: We are calling for a pan-European Convention on Reproductive Rights, which sanctions member-states that fail to guarantee safety, security, and reproductive autonomy.
- Ending Gender-Based Violence: We will fight to protect and extend the Istanbul Convention, calling on all member-states to ratify protections against gender exploitation. Also, all EU- sponsored facilities for asylum-seekers must provide gender-specific facilities that guarantee protection from harassment and sexual assault. Exploitation and oppression based on gender should be respected as a basis for refugee status.
- Enforcing LGBTTQIA+ Rights: We will fight for all EU member-states to recognise all marriages between partners and guarantee marriage privileges to those partners. In addition, we will fight to guarantee LGBTTQIA+ people’s right to ad-opt children.
That’s why DiEM25’s Electoral Wings and European Spring partners are supporting gender-balanced MEP candidate lists and a programme that seeks to defend their rights and reclaim their dignity. Because one thing is to say we need more “diverse” representatives in office, and another is to have the will to make it happen. We need candidates who understand and relate to the experiences of their communities to represent those voices in our European institutions. We need people who won’t ever sell out because they understand exactly what’s at stake. And they understand what’s at stake because they’ve lived under the consequences of bad policy their entire lives.
We have a long way to go, but we have the right candidates, the right policies and we have you to support them.
Your monthly donations allow us to grow our movement, spread our message and support candidates who can be your voice in Brussels. Please, become a donor if you are still aren’t one, or increase your monthly donation so we can boost our chances to make everyone’s voice heard in the EU: women’s, migrants’, yours.
Carpe DiEM!
#BalanceForBetter #IWD2019 #WomenStrike #8M
Pamela Anderson joins Srećko Horvat to promote our Green New Deal for Europe!
Next week all roads lead to…Graz, Austria!
As part of the Elevate Festival opening on February 27 in Graz I’ll be joined by actress and activist Pamela Anderson to promote our Green New Deal for Europe – the flagship policy proposal in our Progressive Agenda for Europe we’re taking to ballot boxes everywhere next May.
Our collaboration started last year, when Pamela and I published a conversation for the American magazine Jacobin. In it, we discussed various topics, from climate change to Gilets Jaunes, and from activism to… Baywatch!
Among other things we both agreed on what DiEM25 has been saying since its launch back in February 2016:
“Look at leaders such as Trump, Bolsonaro, and Salvini and you will see exactly these properties (of “ur-fascism”). They are destroying the Amazon, the Arctic, the whole planet in “real time.” And there is no planet B,” said Pamela.
“Retreating to nationalistic tendencies is not an alternative”, she elaborated, adding that, “The only road to freedom is via a joint fight of the unprivileged. This means foreign workers included.”
From my part, I stressed that, ” unless the deep crisis of the European Union is solved, which is not only internal but also concerns its foreign policy, I am afraid we will see the situation deteriorating even more. So instead of the simple “Lexit” solution, I think we need more trans-national politics, not just an inter-national politics (between nations), but a trans-national one. We need to go beyond the nation state.”
Among the activities in Graz next week, Pamela and I will discuss the role of activism today and the current situation in Europe – and the world.
Also, Daniela Platsch (our MEP candidate in Germany) will join us on February 27 at 3pm CET in a press conference at Forum Stadtpark, where the three of us will speak about our Green New Deal for Europe, and our transnational bid to enter the European Parliament.
Supporting progressive priorities such as our Green New Deal for Europe, having a true international mentality and understanding about what’s happening in the world today, from the US to France, from Turkey to Brazil, is rare nowadays. The dominant discourse is a retreat to toxic nationalisms and xenophobia. That an actress and activist from the other side of the Atlantic like Pamela steps up to join and support our struggle is outstanding – a courageous act we cherish and appreciate.
The press conference will be livestreamed, so stay tuned, keep an eye on our social media for links to the stream and more info!
There is no culture without popular culture! There is no resistance without imagination!
Carpe DiEM!
For press accreditation [needed to attend press conference]:
Demokratie in Europa – DiEM25 (German Press Office)
Claudia Trapp | +49 176 43294733 | [email protected]