Yanis Varoufakis's Blog, page 83
May 4, 2019
Γιατί ΜέΡΑ25; Για τα παιδιά που έφυγαν…
Για τα παιδιά που φεύγουν
Για τους παππούδες που ντρέπονται
Για τις γιαγιάδες που αναστενάζουν
Για τους γονείς που δακρύζουν στα αεροδρόμια
Για τον βουβό πόνο του παρατημένου
Για την πνιγμένη οργή του άνεργου
Για την κλεμμένη αξιοπρέπεια του εξεγερμένου
Για τον κρυφό καημό του μετανάστη
Για τον μικρομεσαίο
Για τους έλληνες που αισθάνονται ευρωπαίοι
Για τους ευρωπαίους που αισθάνονται έλληνες
ΓΙΑ ΤΟΥΣ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥΣ… ΟΧΙ ΓΙΑ ΤΑ ΑΞΙΩΜΑΤΑ!
Για αυτούς όλους τους ανθρώπους, στις ευρωπαϊκές και εθνικές εκλογές ψηφίζουμε ΜέΡΑ25 – Επειδή ΑΥΤΗ Η ΝΥΧΤΑ ΚΡΑΤΗΣΕ ΠΟΛΥ!
April 24, 2019
It is time the world unites around an International Green New Deal – The Guardian
By Yanis Varoufakis and David Adler: In times of crisis and catastrophe, children are often forced to grow up quickly. We are now witnessing this premature call to action on a planetary scale. As the adults in government accelerate their consumption of fossil fuels, children are leading the campaign against our species’ looming extinction. Our survival now depends on the prospects for a global movement to follow their lead and demand an International Green New Deal.
Several countries have proposed their own versions of a Green New Deal. Here in Europe, DiEM25 and our European Spring coalition are campaigning under the banner of a detailed Green New Deal agenda. In the UK, a new campaign is pushing similar legislation with MPs such as Caroline Lucas and Clive Lewis. And in the US, dogged activists in the Sunrise Movement are working with representatives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to push their proposal to the front of the political agenda.
But these campaigns have largely remained siloed. Their advisers may exchange notes and ideas, but no strategy has emerged to coordinate these campaigns in a broader, global framework.
Unfortunately, climate change knows no borders. The US may be the second-largest polluter in the world, but it makes up less than 15% of global greenhouse emissions. Leading by example is simply not enough.
Instead, we need an International Green New Deal: a pragmatic plan to raise $8tn – 5% of global GDP – each year, coordinate its investment in the transition to renewable energy and commit to providing climate protections on the basis of countries’ needs, rather than their means.
Call it the Organization for Emergency Environmental Cooperation – the namesake of the original OEEC 75 years ago. While many US activists find inspiration in a “second world war-style mobilization”, the International Green New Deal is better modeled by the Marshall plan that followed it. With financial assistance from the US government, 16 countries formed the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), dedicated to rebuilding the infrastructure of a devastated continent and coordinating its supply of energy.
But if the original OEEC entrenched an extractive capitalism at Europe’s core –protecting the steel and coal cartel – the new organization for an International Green New Deal can empower communities around the world in a single transformational project.
The transnational scope of this mobilization is crucial for three main reasons.
The first is production. Recent studies show that, as long as countries cooperate, all continents have the wind, solar and hydropower resources they need in a zero-emissions world. Northern countries and mountainous regions have better access to wind power, while southern lands are better suited to exploiting the sun. An International Green New Deal could exploit these differences and ensure that renewable energy is available to all of them year-round.
The second is innovation. Confronting the climate crisis will require more than keeping fossil fuels in the ground. We will also need major scientific breakthroughs to develop renewable sources of energy, adapt existing infrastructure, detoxify our oceans and decarbonize the atmosphere. No country alone can fund the research and development necessary to meet these challenges. The OEEC would pool the brainpower of the global scientific community: a Green Manhattan Project.
The third is reparation. For centuries, countries such as the US and the UK have plundered natural resources from around the world and polluted them back out. Less developed nations have been doubly dispossessed: first, of their resource wealth, and second, of their right to a sustainable life – and in the case of many small island developing states, of their very right to exist. An International Green New Deal would redistribute resources to rehabilitate overexploited regions, protect against rising sea levels, and guarantee a decent standard of living to all climate refugees.
The UN climate change conferences will not save us from extinction – the demise of the Paris agreement should be evidence enough. These frameworks lock us into prisoners’ dilemmas, in which every country has an incentive to defect on their climate commitments, even if cooperation between them would yield a greater collective good. As long as climate cooperation is framed around sacrifice, it is vulnerable to strongmen like Donald Trump who vow to buck international rules in the name of national interests.
The International Green New Deal changes the frame. Rather than pleading for restraint, it sets out a positive-sum vision of international investment, in which the gains from joining in outweigh those to going it alone.
This is the strategy that won Franklin D Roosevelt the original New Deal. His plan addressed people who had given up hope and inspired in them the idea that there is an alternative. That there are ways of pressing idle resources into public service. It made sense to the disheartened and offered opportunity to the entrepreneurial.
The same is true of the International Green New Deal, which mobilizes public finance to crowd in private investments that, together, fund the $8tn transition. Just like in the original New Deal, public financing will involve a mix of taxes and bond instruments. On the former, we can introduce a global minimum corporate tax rate that is then redistributed on the basis of their sales. On the latter, public investment banks – including the European Investment Bank, the World Bank and the KfW, Germany’s state-owned development bank – can coordinate the issue of green bonds that the major central banks agree collectively to support in the secondary markets.
Suddenly, countries with large trade surpluses will realize they are better able to invest their excess capital if green investments in deficit countries are coordinated under the auspices of an international plan. The positive-sum dynamic will prevail.
In this sense, the stakes of the International Green New Deal are not merely environmental. By uniting countries in the project of bottom-up economic transformation – and coercing multinationals to fund their fair share of it – it will also stem the tide of bigotry and xenophobia engulfing the world.
“Advanced” capitalist countries today are literally falling apart. In the US, net public investment has fallen below half of one per cent of GDP. Across the eurozone, net public investment has remained below zero for nearly a decade. It is little wonder that political monsters are rising again: just as in the 1930s, the grapes of wrath are ripening and “growing heavy for the vintage”.
To revive the liberal democratic project, some pundits have suggested making China into a bogeyman. But the real bogeyman is of our creation: a climate crisis wrought by decades of inaction and underinvestment. To address the true existential threat that we face today, we must reverse the economic policies that brought us to this brink. Austerity means extinction.
The promise of an International Green New Deal to is to avoid the pitfalls of cold war politics and unite humanity in the only project capable of preserving a habitable planet. To do this, however, we need a powerful progressive international movement to demand that our leaders begin to act beyond their own borders. Let’s start building it. The children are watching.
Yanis Varoufakis is the co-founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement and the former finance minister of Greece. David Adler is a writer and a member of DiEM25’s Coordinating Collective. He lives in Athens, Greece
April 23, 2019
DiEM25 and the European Parliament election in the UK: A proposal
Fellow DiEMers, dear comrades,
Since the Brexit referendum was called, early on in DiEM25’s life, we have been consistently on the ‘right side of history’.
We opposed Brexit on the basis of the radical narrative IN THE EU – AGAINST THIS EU.
We were the first to warn voters of the ‘Hotel California’ situation that would ensue if Brexit were to win
After Brexit won, we sensibly proposed a Norway+ arrangement for an indefinite period (of minimum 5 years) so that, first, we respect the verdict of the people while, at once, eliminating all the economic and social costs of Brexit. For a country almost evenly split between Remain and Leave, that was the only sensible solution. A solution that would maintain the UK as close as possible to the EU thus giving the people of Britain an opportunity to debate amongst themselves, in the fullness of time and without a ticking clock, both the UK’s constitutional arrangements and its relationship with the EU in the longer term. Opposing the idea of a divisive second referendum during the Article 50 process, we supported a future referendum, to follow a full and proper People’s Debate, that would decide, after 2022, whether the UK wanted to stay in Norway+, exit the Single Market and Customs Union altogether, or re-enter the EU.
When Theresa May adopted her hardline rhetoric but fell into the trap of a negotiation that was doomed, we were the ones who, from the very beginning, exposed Theresa May’s colossal negotiating errors – and called upon her to adopt our Norway+ proposal.
At every step of the way, we proceeded with clarity and internal democracy. Our Forum was always active, our DSCs, NCs and CC in the UK and beyond discussed Brexit incessantly and, most importantly, our pivotal strategic decisions were made on the basis of all-member votes.
As 2018 was drawing to an end, we voted overwhelmingly to begin a campaign to extend Article 50, seeing that PM May was heading for the rocks before the year’s end. The purpose of that extension was to create the space of time necessary for the singularly cathartic general election. [Time was simply insufficient to hold the People’s Debate that ought to precede another referendum. Only a general election could have cleared the air and justified a long extension to Article 50.]
History proved us right: This Tory government is prepared to let the country suffer in the interests of clinging on to a powerless office. Alas, the Tories’ tenacity at holding on to their offices outweighed their internal strife. The result is that Mrs May is still PM and Brexit is stalled. So much so that we are now heading blindly toward a European Parliament (EP) election in the UK under extraordinary circumstances: No one knows whether they will be held for sure and no one knows for how long the elected MEPs will be sitting the European Parliament.
Given that (for better or for worse) the last people’s vote obliged the political establishment to take Britain out of the EU, as well as the perfect uncertainty about the EP elections will be held, it is hard to make a case that these EP elections are legitimate. Already, the EP elections are being hijacked by the extreme Leavers (who want the UK to crash out of the EU) and the extreme Remainers (who want the UK to crash back into an unreformed EU run by smug bureaucrats). Both extremes are striving to turns the EP elections into a second referendum. This is intolerable because it is such a violation of basic, democratic process; and not just because it is the perfect vehicle for Nigel Farage and the extreme right.
And here comes our dilemma as DiEMers.
Each and every one of us would have relished the opportunity to campaign in the UK as we do in Germany, in Greece, in France, in Denmark etc. under the banner of our EUROPEAN SPRING. What could be better? We would love to take our Green New Deal up and down England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It would have been splendid to cultivate our links with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party as well as Caroline Lucas’ Greens and have DiEMers play a leading role in the campaign. However, this is not the kind of election that suits either our principles or our goals.
Firstly, it is an illegitimate election. I could not for the life of me look a progressive leaver in the eye and answer the question: “What right do you have to ask for my vote in an election that the majority of the people voted not to have?” Secondly, it is an election that reduces seriously the chances of a Corbyn government – for the simple reason that it offers Blairite Hard Remainers within the party the perfect opportunity to antagonise progressive leavers in order to pull the rug from under Jeremy’s valiant efforts to unite progressive leavers and progressive Remainers. If these efforts are undermined, Britain will continue to be ruled either by a Tory government that pushes for a hard Brexit or a post-Corbyn Blairite government which would be music to the ears of the EU establishment that DiEM25 was founded to oppose and which, through its universal austerity policies, is feeding the beast of xenophobic Euroscepticism everywhere in Europe.
For these reasons I believe that our enthusiastic campaigning in this EP election (if it takes place) would be a mistake. But, at the same time, if these elections are to take place, we cannot afford to sit idly by either. So, what should we do? Here is a suggestion:
Noting that our original European New Deal was put together with a view to being applicable not only for EU countries but also for non-EU ones, our Green New Deal can be calibrated in a way that it applies to the UK independently of the Brexit process/outcome. The people of Britain do not know this. They have been led to believe that either they are in the EU, in which case they must toe the line, or they are outside the EU, in which case they are on their own. Either they are in the European Parliament, in which case a paneuropean Green New Deal affects them, or they are not.
Nothing is further from reality. As DiEM25’s European New Deal explained two years ago, implementing a Green New Deal across the EU and in the UK can be done independently of Brexit. Indeed, we have gone to great lengths to show how 5% of Europe’s GDP can be channelled to green investments by an alliance of UK and EU institutions. Similarly with our proposals for fighting poverty, tax evasion, setting up a Universal Basic Dividend etc.
My proposal is, therefore, the following: Over the next week or so, the CC undertakes to put forward a variant of our European Green New Deal in the form of a UK Agenda for Europe (UKAfE) – an agenda that is independent of PM May’s dog’s Brexit of a process. Once this is in place, DiEM25 UK must campaign up and down the country to bring progressive Leavers and Remainers around this UKAfE. Instead of campaigning in a toxic election, we should be intervening with a campaign for UKAfE – for a UK that is central in Europe’s Green New Deal regardless of the shenanigans of the two extremes battling it out in the EP elections. [Hopefully, the leadership of the Labour Party will see the value in our campaign and, perhaps, adopt DiEM’s UKAfE as its own.]
In conclusion, what matters more than anything now is that DiEM25 helps free UK politics from the toxins of Brexit. Campaigning in this toxic election, in favour of particular candidates is not going to make much of a difference. Our voices will be lost in the cacophony generated by the extremes of the Brexit debate in an election that should never have been held (at least not in this manner). But, a campaign that opens the eyes of UK’s progressives to the possibility that the UK remains central in Europe under a Corbyn government on the basis of DiEM25’s Green New Deal and its associated UKAfE? Now that would – or could – make a difference!
In short, my proposal is that we play no direct role in the EP election campaign as such, lambasting Mrs May and the Tories for denigrating what should be a celebration of democracy. And that, at the very same time, we campaign across the UK for our Green New Deal and its UK equivalent – the UKAfE.
April 22, 2019
Πρώτα ήρθαν για τον Ασάνζ – ΕφΣυν 29 ΑΠΡ 2019
Πρώτα ήρθαν για τους σοσιαλιστές, και δεν είπα τίποτα
Καθώς δεν ήμουν σοσιαλιστής
Μετά ήρθαν για τους συνδικαλιστές, και δεν είπα τίποτα
Καθώς δεν ήμουν συνδικαλιστής
Μετά ήρθαν για τους Εβραίους, και δεν είπα τίποτα
Καθώς δεν ήμουν Εβραίος
Μετά ήρθαν για εμένα – αλλά πλέον δεν είχε μείνει κανείς για να με υπερασπιστεί.
[Από ομιλία του Γερμανού αντιναζιστή Μάρτιν Νίμουλερ]
Ολες μου οι συναντήσεις με τον Τζούλιαν Ασάνζ έγιναν σ’ ένα μικρό σαλόνι. Οπως γνωρίζουν οι μυστικές υπηρεσίες αρκετών χωρών, από το καλοκαίρι του 2015 έως και τον περασμένο Δεκέμβριο επισκέφτηκα τον Τζούλιαν πολλές φορές στο μικρό διαμέρισμα στο Λονδίνο που στεγάζεται η πρεσβεία του Εκουαδόρ. Αυτό που δεν γνωρίζουν οι υπάλληλοι των μυστικών υπηρεσιών που μας παρακολουθούσαν ήταν την ανακούφιση που ένιωθα κάθε φορά που έφευγα.
Ηθελα να γνωρίσω τον Τζούλιαν χρόνια πριν γίνει γνωστός στο ευρύ κοινό, εντυπωσιασμένος με την αρχική του ιδέα για τα Wikileaks. Οπως όλοι όσοι διαβάσαμε στα νεανικά μας χρόνια το «1984» του Τζορτζ Οργουελ, με διακατείχε δέος μπροστά στην προοπτική ενός καθεστώτος απόλυτης ηλεκτρονικής παρακολούθησης του καθετί που κάνουμε, λέμε ή ακόμα και σκεφτόμαστε.
Πρώτη φορά που ένιωσα ανακούφιση από εκείνον τον φόβο ήταν όταν διάβασα κείμενο του Τζούλιαν Ασάνζ στην Αυστραλία, χρόνια πριν δώσει σάρκα και οστά στα Wikileaks. Στο κείμενο εκείνο, ο Τζούλιαν περιέγραφε πώς μπορούμε να χρησιμοποιήσουμε, εμείς οι απλοί πολίτες, όλες τις σύγχρονες τεχνολογίες που επιστρατεύει ο Μεγάλος Αδελφός εναντίον μας, να κατασκευάσουμε με αυτές κάτι σαν έναν τεράστιο ψηφιακό καθρέφτη και να τον στρέψουμε προς τον Μεγάλο Αδελφό, έτσι ώστε εκείνος να ζει με τον φόβο ότι τον βλέπουμε.
Οταν, τελικά, συνάντησα τον Τζούλιαν πρόσωπο με πρόσωπο, τα Wikileaks είχαν ήδη εξευτελίσει τον Μεγάλο Αδελφό κι είχαν δώσει σε εμάς τους πολίτες τη δυνατότητα να δούμε στις οθόνες μας τα εγκλήματα που είχε κάνει στο όνομα της «πολιτισμένης» Δύσης στο Ιράκ, στο Αφγανιστάν, τις συζητήσεις μεταξύ των ιθυνόντων του ΔΝΤ για την άμοιρη την χώρα μας κ.λπ. Από την άλλη, η πρότερη ελπίδα που είχα νιώσει παλαιότερα είχε συρρικνωθεί μαζί με την ελευθερία του Τζούλιαν που, πλέον, περιοριζόταν σε μερικά ανήλιαγα τετραγωνικά μέτρα στην πρεσβεία-διαμέρισμα του Εκουαδόρ.
Το σαλονάκι που βρισκόμασταν περιστοιχιζόταν από βιβλιοθήκες γεμάτες κρατικές εκδόσεις της κυβέρνησης του Εκουαδόρ. Το παράθυρο κοίταζε στον τοίχο του διπλανού ισογείου. Πάνω σε ράφι βιβλιοθήκης, ένα μηχάνημα που παρήγε «λευκό θόρυβο», για να ακυρώνει τους «κοριούς» – ένας θόρυβος που μετά από μια-δυο ώρες προκαλούσε πονοκέφαλο. Υστερα από ώρες ολόκληρες, κάποιες φορές μεταμεσονύκτιων συζητήσεων, ο μπαγιάτικος αέρας, ο «λευκός θόρυβος», η κάμερα στο ταβάνι που με κοίταζε στα μάτια, η σκέψη ότι ο Τζούλιαν δεν μπορούσε να βγει από εκεί –όλα αυτά σιγά σιγά μου έφερναν μια αίσθηση κλειστοφοβίας που με έκανε να θέλω να αποδράσω στη λονδρέζικη βροχή.
Οι επικριτές του Τζούλιαν ισχυρίζονταν, τότε, ότι επέλεξε να φυλακιστεί στην πρεσβεία του Εκουαδόρ, επειδή δεν ήθελε να αντιμετωπίσει στη Σουηδία τις κατηγορίες για σεξουαλική βία πάνω σε δύο φίλες του. Ως μέλος του προβληματικού φύλου, δεν δίνω στον εαυτό μου το δικαίωμα να έχω άποψη για τέτοιες κατηγορίες. Οι γυναίκες που κατηγορούν εμάς τους άνδρες για σεξουαλική βία πρέπει να ακούγονται με σεβασμό. Μόνο η ίδια η βία εναντίον τους είναι βιαιότερη από την έλλειψη σεβασμού απέναντι σε μια γυναίκα που κατηγορεί έναν άνδρα για σεξουαλική βία.
Σε μια από τις πρώτες μας συζητήσεις, είχα πει στον Τζούλιαν ότι, αν μια γυναίκα με είχε κατηγορήσει για σεξουαλική βία, θα ένιωθα την ανάγκη να της δώσω την ευκαιρία να εκφράσει την κατηγορία της ανοικτά και με ασφάλεια, σε δικαστήριο, ανακριτικό γραφείο, οπουδήποτε.
Ο Τζούλιαν μου απάντησε ότι κι αυτός αυτό ακριβώς θέλει, προσθέτοντας: «Αν όμως πάω στη Στοκχόλμη, θα με ρίξουν στην απομόνωση και, πριν προλάβουν οι εν λόγω γυναίκες να με κατηγορήσουν πρόσωπο με πρόσωπο, θα με έχουν μπουζουριάσει σε αεροπλάνο με προορισμό κάποιο λευκό κελί των ΗΠΑ». Για του λόγου το αληθές, μου έδειξε την αλληλογραφία των δικηγόρων του με την πρότασή τους προς τις σουηδικές αρχές να πάει εθελουσίως στη Σουηδία, υπό τον όρο να του εγγυηθούν τη μη έκδοσή του στις ΗΠΑ. Πράγματι, οι σουηδικές αρχές απέρριψαν την πρόταση.
Εκείνη την εποχή, ήταν αδύνατον να πείσω φίλους και εχθρούς ότι ο Τζούλιαν δεν απέφευγε να πάει στη Σουηδία αλλά απλά γνώριζε ότι η κυβέρνηση των ΗΠΑ ήθελε να τον εξοντώσει ως αντίποινα για τις αποκαλύψεις των Wikileaks. Αν και ήταν γνωστό ότι η στρατιώτης των ΗΠΑ, Τσέλσι Μάνινγκ, η οποία έστειλε στα Wikileaks όλο εκείνο το υλικό για τα εγκλήματα στο Ιράκ, βασανιζόταν επί 18 μήνες σε λευκό κελί στην Αμερική για να ομολογήσει (ψευδώς) πως ο Τζούλιαν την είχε «ωθήσει» να παραβιάσει το απόρρητο του Αμερικανικού Στρατού, ήταν πολύ δύσκολο να πείσω ακόμα και φίλους ότι ο Τζούλιαν κρυβόταν στην πρεσβεία του Εκουαδόρ για να μην εξαφανιστεί σε αμερικανικό λευκό κελί.
Σήμερα, αυτό έχει αποδειχθεί. Τούτη τη στιγμή, ο Τζούλιαν είναι κλειδωμένος σε υπόγειο κελί στο Βρετανικό Γκουαντάναμο, όπως αποκαλούν οι ίδιοι οι Βρετανοί τη φυλακή ύψιστης ασφάλειας Μπέλμαρς, περιμένοντας την έκδοσή του στις ΗΠΑ με την κατηγορία της ηθικής αυτουργίας στην παραβίαση απόρρητων υπολογιστών του Αμερικανικού Στρατού. Την ίδια στιγμή, παρά το γεγονός ότι ο πρόεδρος Ομπάμα είχε αποφυλακίσει την Τσέλσι Μάνινγκ λίγο πριν από την αφυπηρέτησή του, οι αμερικανικές αρχές τη φυλάκισαν ξανά, εκβιάζοντάς την ότι, αν δεν «δώσει» τον Τζούλιαν, δεν θα ξαναδεί το χρώμα του ουρανού.
Το ενδιαφέρον -και τραγικό συνάμα- είναι ότι οι ίδιοι επικριτές του Τζούλιαν που αμφισβητούσαν και χλεύαζαν όσους φωνάζαμε πως η δίωξή του αφορά αποκλειστικά τις αποκαλύψεις των Wikileaks και όχι την προσπάθεια αποφυγής των σουηδικών αρχών, αντί να παραδεχθούν το λάθος τους, λένε: «Καλά να πάθει. Να σαπίσει στα αμερικανικά κελιά, καθώς βοήθησε τον Τραμπ να εκλεγεί» -αναφερόμενοι στη δημοσίευση από τα Wikileaks των emails της Χίλαρι Κλίντον που ήταν πλήγμα για εκείνη προεκλογικά.
Ρωτούν οι ίδιοι, για να δικαιολογήσουν την υποστήριξή τους στη μεταχείριση του Τζούλιαν: «Γιατί τα Wikileaks δεν δημοσιεύουν κάτι κακό για τους Ρώσους, τους Κινέζους, τον Τραμπ;». Η απάντηση, βέβαια, είναι ότι τα Wikileaks δεν επιλέγουν τι στοιχεία τούς στέλνουν. Λειτουργούν ως ψηφιακό ταχυδρομικό κουτί, στο οποίο ο οποιοσδήποτε μπορεί να τοποθετήσει ό,τι θέλει με εγγυημένη ανωνυμία, γνωρίζοντας ότι ούτε ο Τζούλιαν γνωρίζει την ταυτότητα του αποστολέα.
Τίποτα από τα προηγούμενα δεν έχουν σκοπό την αγιοποίηση του Τζούλιαν, αγαπητέ αναγνώστη. Μπορεί να είμαστε φίλοι αλλά, ομολογώ, με έχει φέρει εκτός εαυτού αρκετές φορές. Οταν π.χ. υποστήριξε το Brexit, ήρθαμε στα μαχαίρια.
Οταν απάντησε ανάγωγα και αντιφεμινιστικά, λόγω του θυμού του που κάποιες ακτιβίστριες τον αποκαλούσαν βιαστή, ακολούθησε μια δύσκολη μεταξύ μας συζήτηση. Οταν έμαθα ότι είχε έρθει σε επαφή με την ομάδα του Τραμπ (ελπίζοντας ότι θα του δώσουν αμνηστία), έγινα έξαλλος, αν και κατανοούσα την απελπισία του. Τίποτα όμως απ’ όλα αυτά δεν έχουν σημασία ως προς τη δική μας στάση.
Ο μόνος λόγος που ο Τζούλιαν Ασάνζ και η Τσέλσι Μάνινγκ λιώνουν στην απομόνωση σήμερα, είναι επειδή μας άνοιξαν τα μάτια στα εγκλήματα που γίνονται στο όνομά μας εναντίον της ανθρωπότητας. Είτε τους συμπαθούμε είτε όχι, έχουμε ιερή υποχρέωση να τους υποστηρίξουμε. Αλλιώς, όπως έλεγε ο Νίμουλερ, θα έρθει η στιγμή που δεν θα υπάρχει κανείς να υπερασπιστεί εμάς
*γραμματέας ΜέΡΑ25
April 18, 2019
A Dream of Spring: Emma Steiner interviews DiEM25’s David Adler
Emma Steiner: Tell us a little more about the European Spring.
David Adler: The premise of European Spring is that Europe is ripe for a grassroots transnational movement. The financial crisis of 2008 not only revealed the interconnections between European economies — bound together by a Single Market and, in the case of the Eurozone, a single currency — but also between European democracies. These political dynamics were not pretty, pitting core against periphery, and most memorably, Germans against Greeks. But in the process, they illustrated the extent to which every European country is, for better or worse, bound to every other. In other words, this crisis had the effect of giving birth to a European demos: a single public that — despite differences in class or country — is beginning to understand the role that institutions at the European level play in shaping life at the local level.
All of this to say: our movement has grown out of Europe not because of some sense of European exceptionalism, but because the conditions for transnational politics were most favorable, and most urgent.
But the movement does not end at the borders of the European Union, nor at the borders of the European continent. On the contrary, while our manifesto proposes policy changes inside the European Union, many of these commitments are meaningless in the absence of more global coordination. One clear example is tax evasion: efforts to introduce a ‘common reporting standard’ have been stymied by the US, which refuses to disclose the identities behind its shell companies. Another, more looming example is climate change: Europe’s ecological transition must go hand in hand with a more global effort — or we are all march toward extinction regardless.
ES: How can the United States and non-European countries be a part of this process?
DA: Non-European countries have three key roles to play.
First, they can stand behind shared policy goals like the Green New Deal, which European Spring is championing here in Europe: €500 billion each year from the European Investment Bank to kickstart Europe’s green transition. Countries like the US tend to create a firewall between what it deems “foreign” policy and what it deems “domestic” policy. This must fall. US progressives must become more comfortable speaking out about policy issues beyond their borders and coordinating domestic demands with those issued abroad. After all, American soft power remains extremely — tragically — strong. US progressives can and should be leading the movement for a global Green New Deal.
Second, non-European countries can work with us to envision new institutions to deliver these shared policy goals. Here again, the climate case is instructive. The Paris Agreement is transnational in name only — it ‘binds’ countries to climate targets, but without building a more positive, political case for ecological transition, only encourages them to renege whenever it is convenient. Advocates of a Green New Deal in UK, US, Europe, and around the world should develop the blueprint for an institution that can roll out the investment necessary for a just transition, rather than simply demanding that countries roll back their emissions — a recipe for nationalist resentment.
Third, non-European countries can build from our efforts to democratize the EU to call for a broader democratization movement in existing international institutions. US progressives, in particular, should work with us to scale up the European Spring and demand that their government — the chief source of funding and legitimacy for international institutions like the World Bank and IMF — democratize them.
ES: How do you foresee the proposed Copenhagen Commission in addressing illiberal democracies in Europe that, so far, the EU has been unable or unwilling to reckon with?
DA: There is a temptation to view the rise of illiberal regimes in places like Italy and Hungary as the product of a democratic deficit at the heart of the European Union. The EU, designed as cartel for the capitalist class in Europe’s core, was never meant to protect the lives and liberty of European residents. Its institutions are responsive to violations in EU competition law — cracking down on efforts to regulate Uber or Airbnb, for example — but they are perfectly willing to overlook violations of civil rights.
But this is only a partial truth. The EU has certainly been weaponized to protect capitalist interests. But illiberalism has risen in Europe precisely because of European democracy — not its deficit. Viktor Orbán’s party Fidesz belongs to the center-right coalition of European parties known as the European People’s Party (EPP), which has dominated European politics for over a generation. As the coalition with the largest number of representatives in the European Parliament elections of 2014, the EPP were empowered to nominate their candidate, Jean-Claude Juncker, to the presidency of the European Commission. With Fidesz offering a healthy 11 Members of the European Parliament to the EPP group, there has been little political incentive to take action against its illiberal policies.
As R. Daniel Kelemen of Rutgers has argued, Hungary — in the absence of the EU — would likely have gone the way of Belarus: full-blown dictatorship. But the EU has certainly failed to stem the tide of illiberalism within the Union.
There is both good news and bad news in this analysis.
The bad news is that the EU treaties — the closest thing we’ve got to America’s Constitution, because, again, the EU was designed primarily as an economic cartel with a political infrastructure built on top of it — are basically dead letter. Just like politicians in the US referring to “We the people,” European officials drag on about solidarity, equality, and democracy. But wherever those principles become politically inconvenient, they are tossed aside.
The good news, though, is that it is in our power to change this political calculus. If illiberalism is downstream from the EPP’s democratic success, then a mass movement of European citizens can challenge center-right parties across Europe, take their seats, and demand immediate action to address illiberal infractions of the EU treaties.
Our proposal for Copenhagen Commission is simple: create an independent watchdog to enforce Article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty, which guarantees freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. In other words, our goal is to energize a movement that can, through its political force, enshrine a body that can then operate independently, bringing the dead letter of the EU treaties back to life.
This is, after all, the promise of international institutions: to protect our most fundamental rights from the vagaries of the electoral cycle. Sovereignty is a beautiful thing, but security in fundamental rights — regardless of the shifting will of the people — is beautiful, too.
ES: The universal citizen dividend is a classic Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) proposal. I would love to hear more about how this can help Europeans.
DA: There is a frustrating paradox in European political economy. On the one hand, European recognize how tightly bound their economies have become. Germans know, for example, how dependent their car industry is on exports to neighbors like Italy ($82 billion), Austria ($75 billion), and Poland ($75 billion). Yet Angela Merkel refuses to engage with the implications of such economic interconnectedness. The German government remains firmly opposed to making the Eurozone into a “transfer union,” and it has blocked all attempts to create a deposit guarantee plan in the EU that would promise to stabilize the European economy in the event of another financial crisis.
This is, of course, a self-defeating strategy: by actively crippling economic demand along Europe’s periphery, Germany threatens its own lucrative export industries.
But it illustrates how successful politicians have been at constructing a zero-sum equation between the interests of the core and the periphery, scaring German pensioners into believing that a budget deficit in Italy will inevitably shrink their savings, in turn. Paranoia about “risk sharing” abounds.
Our proposal for a European Citizen Wealth Fund bypasses this conflict and assuages these pensioners’ anxiety. Rather than leveling reams of new income taxes, we propose to build European social wealth by purchasing assets through the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing, taxing intellectual property of the rentier class, and collecting a percentage of stock from every initial public offering. As in most proposals for a SWF, the gains to this wealth fund will then be distributed to every European citizen in the form of a Universal Basic Dividend.
This will, of course, help Europeans directly, putting money into millions of pockets that currently lack access to stable employment. But it will also completely transform the European project, eliminating the myth of a zero-sum international dynamic and encouraging Europeans to push for positive-sum investments that can expand the scope of social wealth. The forces of fragmentation — premised on the conflict between European interests — would fade away.
ES: I am regularly astounded by the figures that Gabriel Zucman is able to produce regarding tax havens and hidden wealth. Can you expand on how the European Spring would seek to combat this?
DA: Most stories about tax evasion focus our attention at the fringes of the global economy — places like Panama or the Bahamas where financial crime is just one piece of a broader portrait of lawless thuggery.
The European Union tends not to be one of those places.
This is by design. The EU claims to take tax evasion very seriously, publishing its a blacklist of jurisdictions that undercut the global tax regime. But it notably does not mention the jurisdictions within its borders — Luxembourg and Ireland, chief among them — that commit some of the worst evasion fraud in the world. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the EU Commission, spent years of his political career in Luxembourg blocking Europe’s attempts to regulate its tax system, as billions poured into the tiny country from multinational corporations like Amazon and McDonalds.
The European Spring program aims to eliminate tax evasion within the EU, before moving beyond it. Our proposals are wide-ranging, but three stand out among them.
First, we will eliminate cash-for-citizenship schemes in Europe. Many countries in the EU today run ludicrous ‘Golden Passport’ schemes that trade foreign investment in industry or real estate in exchange for European citizenship. In other words, while the EU tolerates thousands of deaths on the Mediterranean in order to deter refugees from reaching its borders, it opens a backdoor for any criminal oligarch with $200,000 to spend on a beachside villa. We will end these schemes, Europe-wide.
Second, we will enforce a harmonized corporations tax, ending Apple’s long gravy train through the Irish sea. In order to address the underlying political cause of the problem, we support shifting from a consensus-based system at the EU Council to a qualified majority, in order to prevent Europe from being taken hostage by Luxembourg ever again.
Finally, we will introduce a mandatory beneficial ownership registry to strip away all anonymity from shell companies operating in the European Union. And we will support the introduction of a Tax Justice Authority that can investigate all these entities for tax fraud violations — a first step toward a more global system of tax justice.
ES: The commitment to freedom of movement in the manifesto is admirable. How do you propose the EU play a transitory role in eventual open borders?
DA: Europe is — and forgive the cliche — at a crossroads here.
Over the last half-century, the right to free movement has become a staple of European citizenship. Even if the free movement of people began as a tool for capitalists to shift labour toward devastated regions in the post-war era, it has evolved into something more bigger, much more profound, and much more radical: a true step beyond borders.
While the European Union established free movement within its borders, however, it also a constructed a ‘fortress’ along them. We are one of the most vocal movements in pointing out the disgrace of a migration regime that allows thousands of refugees to perish along the Mediterranean — even as its border authority, Frontex, patrols the seas — while caging thousands more in concentration camps along its periphery. Worse still, the EU has been aggressively externalizing its border control to countries like Turkey, Libya, and Sudan, where they are regularly detained, tortured, and killed. If Donald Trump is advocating a deterrence policy along the Mexican border, the EU has perfected it: migration to the EU is plummeting as its death count, and incarcerated population, rises.
This is the crossroads.
Down one road, the European Union commits to its Fortress Europe strategy. The luxury of a borderless Europe is granted to its residents — and to its neighboring oligarchs — while denied to the migrants fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries. As the climate crisis escalates, the European Union could become a pioneer in a new, regional migration regime — an Elysium on Earth, where passport privilege is everything.
Down the other, EU free movement becomes a springboard for a more global regime of open borders. More and more countries are absorbed into the EU’s Schengen area, and — bit by bit — the borders of the world fall away.
We are leading a movement toward that latter future, and our program targets Fortress Europe wherever it takes shape. We are calling for an end to the externalization of EU borders, terminating shady deals across the Middle East and North Africa. We are calling to enshrine the right to safe passage and the right to family reunification after. We are calling for the introduction of a European Search and Rescue Operation that is committed to zero deaths at sea, and a humanitarian passport issued by EU consulates around the world.
It’s a painful irony that Europe’s far right chants “law and order” while breaking every international law and treaty to which it is bound. We believe that we can reclaim that mantle and demand that all migrants have the right to seek asylum in Europe.
ES: Looking the manifesto over, it seems that every realm of life is covered and there is a correspondent commitment to make it more free, fair, and just. Everything is covered from decolonization of art to demilitarization to search and rescue operations at sea. How did you decide what to include in the program, and who were some of the people and organizations consulted?
DA: European politics today is largely dominated by Frankenstein coalitions: lifeless parts stitched together, with very few shared values, ideas, or policy proposals for Europe’s future.
The reasons why there is so little vitality in European politics are twofold. First, because the European Parliament is a very weak institution, and Europeans know it: it lacks the power to initiate legislation, and is left only to weigh in on various policy matters, its recommendations non-binding. Its little surprise, then, that turnout for the European elections remains tragically low, hovering just above levels of US participation in the Congressional midterms.
Second, transnational manifestos are really hard to write! Politics has been organized at the national level for very long, and the result is not only divergent policy priorities, but a completely different political vocabulary. Whereas our British friends love to call each other comrade, our Polish friends…. do not! Programmatic talks were often stymied by such semantics: do we refer to workers, labour, or wage labour?
To develop the programme, we relied on a vertical-and-horizontal process: moving up and down the party hierarchy (from Council to sub-Council to party activists and back up), and moving horizontally across the membership. Most party manifestos are written behind closed doors by two chief advisers (and their consultants!) who claim to have a pulse on the electorate. We ditched this model completely. Our first step was to combine all the political programmes of the movements and parties that comprise the European Spring. And then we took that draft to the membership, consulting scores of our local Democratic Spontaneous Collectives (DSCs) and collecting hundreds of proposals, amendments, and additions to the program.
It was a long slog — 10 months of development in total — but the result is something powerful: a comprehensive vision for Europe’s future. The EU tries its very best to prevent citizens from such imaginative thinking, training their focus at the national level. Our hope is that the New Deal for Europe — as the only such pan-European manifesto – can set the agenda for the next European parliament, creating coalitions for our policy proposals that are much wider than our own movement.
ES: What’s something you’ve read lately that you recommend?
DA: My dear friend and DiEM25 co-founder Srecko Horvat is publishing a very beautiful book this year, Poetry from the Future (Penguin). It is a stirring call to global struggle, and a powerful reminder of the great joy of resistance. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
David Adler is the policy director of DiEM25. He lives in Athens, Greece.
Emma Steiner is a candidate in the Georgetown School of Foreign Service’s Master of Arts in Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies program.
First published here
April 17, 2019
First they came for Assange…
So, here is an idea: Let us join forces to block Assange’s extradition from any European country to the US, so that he can travel to Stockholm and give his accusers an opportunity to be heard. Let us work together to empower women, while protecting whistle-blowers who reveal nefarious behavior that governments, armies, and corporations would prefer to keep hidden.To read the article, please click here
April 16, 2019
Το 2015 σε τρία λεπτά
Την 25η Ιανουαρίου ο ελληνικός λαός είπε όχι πια σε πέντε χρόνια υποκρισίας – σε πέντε χρόνια προσποίησης ότι η πτώχευση του ελληνικού δημοσίου μπορούσε να ξεπεραστεί με νέα μη βιώσιμα δάνεια που καλούνταν να αποπληρώνουν με το αίμα τους οι ασθενέστεροι Έλληνες, τα παιδιά τους και τα εγγόνια τους.
Πέντε μήνες διαπραγματευτήκαμε για το δικαίωμα να ακουστεί αυτό το λογικό επιχείρημα – όχι νέα δάνεια πριν αναδιαρθρωθούν τα παλαιά – όχι νέες περικοπές των ισχνότερων εισοδημάτων – ναι στις πραγματικές μεταρρυθμίσεις που πλήττουν τους πακτωλούς των εσόδων της διαφθοράς.
Ο τερματισμός της ανερμάτιστης λιτότητας και η αναδιάρθρωση του μη βιώσιμου χρέους ήταν οι δυο διαπραγματευτικοί μας στόχοι.
Δυστυχώς οι δανειστές αρνήθηκαν κάθε ουσιαστική συζήτηση. Από την πρώτη στιγμή σχεδίασαν να μας κλείσουν τις τράπεζες ώστε να μας ταπεινώσουν στα δύο αυτά μέτωπα: της Λιτότητας και του μη βιώσιμου χρέους.
Να μας επιβάλουν δήλωση μετανοίας για την κριτική που ασκήσαμε στα αποτυχημένα Μνημονιακά Προγράμματα αρθρώνοντας για πρώτη φορά στο Eurogroup επιστημονικό λόγο στον οποίο δεν είχαν αντίλογο.
Αυτός ήταν ο στόχος του τελεσιγράφου της 25ης Ιουνίου το οποίο σήμερα ο λαός τους επέστρεψε.
Από αύριο, με το γενναίο αυτό ΟΧΙ που μας προίκισε ο ελληνικός λαός, με το ΟΧΙ που είπε αγνοώντας τον φόβο που δημιούργησαν με τις κλειστές τράπεζες και τα ΜΜΕ της ολιγαρχίας.
Με αυτό το εργαλείο θα τείνουμε χείρα συνεργασίας προς τους εταίρους μας. Θα τους καλέσουμε έναν-έναν να βρούμε κοινό τόπο.
Θα δούμε θετικά το ότι το ΔΝΤ πριν δυο μέρες εξέδωσε, προς τιμήν του, έκθεση που επιβεβαιώνει ότι το χρέος μας χρειάζεται αναδιάρθρωση.
Θα αντιμετωπίσουμε θετικά την ΕΚΤ που κράτησε την περασμένη εβδομάδα στάση αναμονής – μια στάση που δείχνει την κοινή μας αγωνία για την ανάγκη εξεύρεσης αμοιβαίως επωφελούς συμφωνίας – λύσης.
Θα αντιμετωπίσουμε θετικά την Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή που, όπως κι εμείς, θέλει να παίξει θετικό ρόλο στην επούλωση της ελληνικής πληγής που πληγώνει και την Ευρώπη.
Από αύριο η Ευρώπη, της οποίας η καρδιά χτυπά στην Ελλάδα απόψε, αρχίζει να γιατρεύει τις πληγές της, τις πληγές μας.
Πέντε ώρες αργότερα. 03.50πμ 6ης Ιουλίου. Στο σπίτι του πια ο Γιάνης Βαρουφάκης, λέει τα εξής στην σύντροφό του Δανάη Στράτου:
April 15, 2019
April 12, 2019
Yanis Varoufakis's Blog
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