DiEM25 and its co-founder Yanis Varoufakis were well received in the city of Patra in Western Greece. The “Royal” theatre was packed with people who were keen to hear about DiEM25’s “New Deal for Greece”.
In his speech, Yanis noted that: “The MoUs have made all Greek governments utterly powerless. Parties who are not willing to disobey the troika, cannot make any promises to the people and keep them.” Answering a question from the audience about alliances, he replied: “We want to cooperate with all democrats who are against the establishment, but if the other political parties are not willing to cooperate, we will have to form our our political organisation to do so.”
“We want to represent all Greek people who are victims of austerity,” added Yanis, “but especially those who voted NO to the referendum of 2015. Their will was not respected.”
On refugees, Yanis said: “Italy and Greece take a lot of responsibilities but so far, Europe has let them down. We don’t have a refugee problem in Europe; the problem is that we have lost our soul. Lebanon, a small country, is accommodating one million refugees, whereas Europe, a whole continent with a population of 500 million, claims that 2 million refugees are a significant problem.
DiEM25’s concept of transnationalism is the exact opposite of globalisation: It’s about regulating transactions of capital and letting people move freely.
Yanis also commented on Brexit and the outcome of the recent German elections:
“We hoped that Brexit would shake up the establishment and make them think again about the consequences of their arrogance. Alas, it is clear that Michel Barnier’s team has a mandate to wreck any mutually advantageous deal. It’s this same arrogance and religious obsession with austerity that led also to the disastrous outcome of German elections. In 2015 I warned Merkel and Schaeuble about the consequences of crushing the Greek Spring, while practising socialism for bankers. I said that monsters would take advantage of people’s despair; and now those monsters are here.”
“But the 20%+ rise of the FDP and AfD means one important thing as well,” added Yanis. “Macron’s strategy for a federation lite is dead.”
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