DiEM25

Onwards with DiEM25-Generation-s-EUROPEAN SPRING and our New Deal for Europe

If Brexit demonstrates that leaving the EU is not the walk in the park that Eurosceptics promised, Emmanuel Macron’s current predicament proves that blind European loyalism is, similarly, untenable. The reason is that the EU’s architecture is equally difficult to deconstruct, sustain and reform.

On November 25, at a hip “event loft” in Berlin, Yanis Varoufakis announced that he’d be campaigning for office in two countries at once. In the spring, the former Greek finance minister had declared his intention to run for prime minister back home in Athens—and in ordinary times, that might have been enough. Today, though, “discontent, xenophobia, and precariousness are on a triumphant march” around the world, as Varoufakis told his mostly German audience.

Western democracies in chaos: In the face of divisive nationalist movements, DiEM25 co-founder and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis wants the world’s progressives to fight for democratic rights and an International Green New Deal. Here he explains why. Source: CNN

A global war is being waged against workers, against our environment, against democracy, against decency.

A network of right-wing factions is spreading across borders working to erode human rights, silence dissent, and promote intolerance. To defeat this new Nationalist International, we cannot simply go back to the failed status quo.

Yesterday, DiEM25 and the SANDERS INSTITUTE, in a packed room hearing from Bernie Sanders, Yanis Varoufakis, Niki Ashton, Ada Colau and Jeff Sachs, we launched the Progressive International. (CLICK HERE TO READ THE OPEN CALL, TO JOIN, AND TO SUPPORT) Today, in this GUARDIAN op-ed, David Adler and Yanis Varoufakis explain why we need the Progressive International.

On Sunday morning, the former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis picked up a microphone in Berlin, the German capital where, three years ago, high-stakes negotiations with E.U. leaders culminated in his resignation. Varoufakis, 57, knows many Germans still blame him and his country for the European debt crisis. But on stage in Berlin, next to a banner reading “European Spring,” he announced he would again be running for elected office. This time, in Germany.

Germany is experiencing a paradoxical crisis. Germany is, on paper, flooded by… money. The federal government is in surplus. A tsunami of foreign money is flooding German banks. Families are saving. And even corporations hoard huge amounts of savings. So, why is the political centre not holding? Why are the major parties bleeding? Why is discontent, xenophobia and precariousness on a triumphant march?