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Sat Jan 9 08:26:46 CET 2016

Varoufakis launches Democracy in Europe Movement 2025
Source:
https://roarmag.org/2016/01/07/varoufakis-launches-democracy-in-europe-movement-2025/

Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, or DiEM 25, is billed as an alternative
to prevailing authoritarianism and austerity.

Hoping to show Europeans they have an alternative to the prevailing system
of “authoritarianism” and austerity, former Greek finance minister Yanis
Varoufakis has announced a new cross-continent movement with a “simple,
common agenda:” To democratize Europe.

The movement, known as the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (or DiEM 25),
will be launched on February 9 at Berlin’s Volksbühne theater.

Varoufakis, who first revealed
<http://espresso.repubblica.it/archivio/2015/12/22/news/yanis-varoufakis-a-febbraio-faccio-il-mio-partito-1.244652?refresh_ce>the
plan late last month in an interview with *L’Espresso*, said
<http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2016/01/02/united-european-democrats-we-stand-divided-we-fall-el-diario-interview-with-luis-martin/>
that he is hopeful this “activist movement” will connect progressives
across the continent and enable them to take back power from the ruling
elite and what he described as the “shadowy world of bureaucrats, bankers,
and unelected officialdom.”

“To counter this de-politicisation of political decision making, which
reinforces the economic crisis and the crisis of legitimacy facing Europe,
we need a movement that rises up throughout in Europe, at once, with the
same agenda everywhere to re-politicize political decisions and to
democratize the decision making process,” he said in an interview with* El
Diario* published on Saturday.

“There is no other means by which to arrest the awful feedback between
authoritarianism and failed economic policies—a feedback that, left
unchecked, will wreck Europe and help ultra-nationalism triumph,”
Varoufakis added, referring to the rise of ultra-right and fascist forces
such as Greece’s Golden Dawn
<http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/06/greek-minister-poison-troika-austerity-fueling-rise-nazi-party>
party.

Varoufakis, who has been a fierce
<http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/07/02/varoufakis-i-prefer-cut-my-arm-sign-deal-without-debt-relief>
and vocal critic of austerity, stepped down
<http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/07/06/no-yes-rejection-austerity-just-beginning-european-battle>
from his post within the Syriza government this summer amid tense
negotiations with EU creditors.

The launch of the DiEM 25 movement comes amid a growing leftist surge
across Europe. 2015 saw the rise of anti-austerity forces in both the
United Kingdom, with the election of Jeremy Corbyn
<http://www.commondreams.org/tag/jeremy-corbyn> to Labour party leader, as
well as in Spain, where the Podemos
<http://www.commondreams.org/tag/podemos> party gained enormous power.

According
<https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://www.volksbuehne-berlin.de/praxis/diem_25/%3Fid_datum%3D10015&prev=search>
to the German socialist paper *Neues Deutschland*, Varoufakis will be
appearing at the launch along with “some of his ‘accomplices’ from all over
Europe,” though the complete list of speakers has yet to be announced.

Varoufakis said that the while the exact organizational contours of the
movement are still unknown, he is hopeful that the grassroots, cross-border
structure will embolden and empower progressives across the continent.

“What makes me optimistic about a pan-European movement? That it will be
pan-European!” he said.

“We shall exert pressure on every Parliament, every government, every head
of state at once,” Varoufakis continued. “That when the troika is
squeezing, let’s say the Madrid government, it will know that the electoral
process in, say, Germany or France or Portugal will punish any local
politician who does the troika’s bidding.”

“It is a truly utopian undertaking,” he added.

*Written by Lauren McCauley for Common Dreams
<http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/01/05/greeces-varoufakis-launch-pan-european-progressive-movement>.*

-- 
- Strategic developer P2P Foundation. Director of content
commonstransition.org

- Co-founder guerrillatranslation.org

-- 
Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org

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