After years of economic
turmoil, a near-Grexit, a looming Brexit, and a refugee crisis that challenges
the very principle of open borders, it’s safe to say that the European Union is
struggling. According to Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s unforgettable former minister
of finance, the only way to stop the EU’s complete disintegration is to further
democratize it: On Feb. 9, the fiery economist established a pan-European
movement called DiEM25, aimed at bringing greater democracy and transparency to
the EU. Supporters include Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, musician Brian
Eno, philosopher Slavoj Žižek and MIT theorist Noam Chomsky. Varoufakis
spoke to Quartz about his star-studded movement and how it hopes to fix the EU.
DiEM25 is not a political
party. It’s not a think tank, organization or interest group—you call it a
movement. What does that mean?
The idea for DiEM25 was born
last summer, immediately after the crushing of the Athens Spring and Europe’s
spectacular failure to respond in a united and humane way to the refugee
crisis. In this sense, DiEM25 was our collective response to the realization
that the European Union is at an advanced stage of disintegration, that this
disintegration will only benefit misanthropy, xenophobia and toxic nationalism,
and, finally, that the only way of preventing such frightful developments is by
democratizing the EU’s institutions through the formation of a pan-European,
cross-border movement that inspires into collective action democrats
independently of whether they come from the Green, radical left, liberal or
progressive conservative traditions.
As you say, DiEM25 is not a
party. It is a cross-border movement providing the political infrastructure to
Europe’s committed democrats to come together, independently of party
affiliation or nationality, to have the conversation we need on how jointly and
systematically to confront Europe’s systemic crisis. If and when a pan-European
consensus emerges, I am sure it will find a way of expressing itself
electorally in our different countries.
How do you make sure that the
movement doesn’t only appeal to an intellectual left, but also engages the
people who are actually losing their jobs or trying to offer humanitarian
solutions to refugees?
This is a crucial question. If
DiEM25 fails to appeal to the people on life’s barricades, it will simply
wither. The answer is that DiEM25 came into being precisely because the people
you refer to seem eager to be part of such a movement. A movement that offers
an overarching narrative within which their private and communal trials and
tribulations make sense. A movement within which they can invest their
individual and collective energies towards some common European cause that
makes their endeavors seem worthy, rather than in vain.
DiEM25 has been criticized for
being too melodramatic and cynical in tone, and its agenda has been criticized
for aiming too high. How do you answer that?
Criticism is the salt of the
earth. DiEM25 is open to criticism, as long as it is well-meant and
constructive. To answer this particular criticism, it is important to
distinguish between the impassioned and the melodramatic, between the
principled and the emotive.
As for the accusation of
cynicism, it is our view that the cynicism is fully “owned” by the EU
institutions, something I witnessed in person while observing the contempt with
which the bureaucracy and the institutions treated real problems of real
European citizens, as well as their democratic rights.
What is the first actual task
on DiEM25’s agenda?
DiEM25 is organizing as a
grassroots movement around six major themes, each of which will result in a
DiEM25 Assembly. The six Assemblies will take place within 18 to 24 months and
each will result in a DiEM25 Policy Paper. Together, these six Policy Papers
will constitute DiEM’s Program for Europe. To ensure maximum participation in
its creation, before each Assembly there will be many smaller meetings across
Europe to discuss the Assembly’s themes, there will be petitions, interventions
in the media, cultural events etc.
The first Assembly
took place on March 21st to 23rd, in Rome, focusing on DiEM25’s Transparency
in Europe, Now! campaign – click here to participate.
Our petition demands that all EU-level decision-making be exposed to
European citizens’ gaze, that meetings of the European Council, ECOFIN,
Eurogroup, FTT, ESM etc. become accessible to Europeans, that all documents and
protocols related to the crucial
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTiP) negotiations between
the US and the EU, be uploaded on the Internet etc.
The other five DiEM25
Assemblies, that will follow after Rome, will focus on the themes that are
already outlined in our Manifesto: (1) Imagining a democratic European Union
Constitution, (2) Open Europe—Overcoming the fear of migrants and refugees, (3)
Labor, its value and the distribution of income, (4) The European Green New
Deal and Europe’s monetary system, (5) Green transition and Europe’s
technological sovereignty.
There are very extreme
positions on TTIP, from people who say its tariff cuts or reductions will be the
saving grace for Europe’s economy and its job market, to others who believe
that it will cut deeply into democracy and transparency and will infinitely
empower corporations. The secrecy of its negotiation rounds certainly fed
eurosceptics who always put forth the democratic deficit.
Will a potential Brexit
influence the DiEM25 agenda?
It will be devastating for
Europe and, as such, it cannot leave DiEM25 unaffected. If the LEAVE campaign
win, Europe’s disintegration will speed up and, naturally, DiEM25 will have to
re-assess the situation and, of course, its agenda and strategy. Having said
that, my fear is that the British will vote to stay out of fear, not hope. This
will be almost as terrible as Brexit.
You were very firm about
refusing to accept more cuts superimposed by the Troika while you were the
minister of finance in Greece, which ultimately resulted into you leaving
office. What would you say to someone accusing you of not being able to
compromise?
That there is a profound
difference between a readiness to compromise (which I was putting on display in
every negotiation) and a readiness to surrender to a misanthropic deal that
would condemn my people to many more years of our Great Depression while
guaranteeing that our real creditors (i.e. European taxpayers) would get less
back than I was proposing.
Put simply, the only thing I
was not willing to do is to be compromised by accepting more extend-and-pretend
loans under conditions that guaranteed that Greece would not be able to repay
them.
How does the refugee crisis
not serve as a dismissive argument of the EU? Do you have an optimistic counter
argument to offer to people who are ready to drop the European idea altogether?
There is no doubt that the
refugee crisis is a blot on the EU’s record. Future generations of Europeans
will feel embarrassed and saddened by Europe’s current moral and political
failure to respond humanely to this humanitarian crisis. But would things
improve if we allowed this highly problematic EU to implode? My answer is that,
no, they would not.
Related
Noam
Chomsky joins DiEM25In "DiEM"
About yanisv
Professor of Economics at the
University of Athens
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