Campaigning

The 2008 global financial crisis—the modern 1929 crash—set off a vicious chain reaction across Europe. By 2010 it had irreparably damaged the foundations of the eurozone, causing the establishment to bend its own rules and commit crimes against logic in order to bail out its banker friends. By 2013 the neoliberal ideology that had legitimized the EU’s oligarchic technocracy had plunged millions into misery, even through the enactment of official policies: socialism for the financiers and harsh austerity for the many.

The European Union Court today delivered its verdict: European citizens cannot be allowed to find out whether the ECB acted legally in closing down Greece’s banks in June 2015. Why? In the wording of the three judges, because such disclosure would affect the ECB’s “space to think in 2015 and also after 2015”. If this sounds like an Orwellian decision, it is because it is an Orwellian decision.

The European Union is fragmenting at a time when Europeans need it the most. Emmanuel Macron is right to point this out. But he is wrong to push another top-down agenda that lacks credibility, fails to speak to European’s concerns, and entrenches the democratic deficit at the heart of the EU.

Here is a selection of what the press had to say about this debate:
Berliner Zeitung: https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik/rnd/-anne-will–zu-europa-beatrix-von-storch-haelt-emmanuel-macron-fuer-einen–loser–32199838

Demokratie in Europa is DiEM25’s new political party in Germany. Demokratie in Europa is running in the European Parliament election this coming May as part of our EUROPEAN SPRING that is campaigning across Europe on the basis of our transnational NEW DEAL FOR EUROPE.

In a warm office in Berlin’s trendy Kreuzberg district, Charlemagne is trying to persuade Yanis Varoufakis that he is a politician. “It’s a necessity. I really dislike running and asking people for votes,” protests the Greek economist when asked about European Spring, his new transnational political party. Does he think of himself as a politician? “No. The moment I do, shoot me.” Apparently inadvertently, Mr Varoufakis won his seat in the Greek parliament in 2015, became finance minister, took on the European economic establishment and failed.

The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, just stepped down  in search of greener pastures. His readiness to resign  prompted David Adler (DiEM25’s Policy Coordinator) to I to write this op-ed in The Guardian arguing for a New Bretton Woods. In this CNN interview David explains what we mean.

If xenophobia is rearing its ugly head across Europe, it is because of the awful design of our Single Currency, our Single Market & EU governance. It is time to fix them. The European Spring program explains how we propose to do this.

Yanis Varoufakis, the Spitzenkandidat for the EUROPEAN SPRING, set up by DiEM25, told EURACTIV Germany that: “If the European Left were united, coherent and civilised, we wouldn’t have created Diem25, we’d have joined them. Now we are running against them, which is very painful to us,” the former Greek finance minister told EURACTIV Germany in an interview.

In der Finanzkrise zog er den Zorn europäischer Sparpolitiker und heimischer Eliten auf sich. Jetzt will Yanis Varoufakis selbst nach Brüssel. Im Interview mit der Deutschen Welle spricht er über seine Vision für die EU.