Primarily, our capacity to inspire a broad coalition of democrats from all over Europe. Not just leftists (like myself) but also social democrats, Greens, activists from a variety of movement, even liberal, centre-right, democrats who – like the rest of us – can now see that the anti-democratic nature of EU institutions constitutes a clear and present threat to liberal democracies everywhere.

So, how are we going to bring about this broad, democratic coalition? People will not coalesce just because our manifesto reads well. They will only come if they can see there is a process for creating pan-European answers to pan-European problems. Answers that will reinvigorate our national democracies by democratising and, crucially, rationalising EU institutions.

To become that pan-European movement we need to turn DiEM into the infrastructure that European democrats will use to develop jointly policies/positions on the 5 major ‘Battlegrounds for Democratising Europe’:

(i) A comprehensive Green New Deal for Europe – a policy options Green Paper that fully outlines DiEM’s proposals on how to tackle the sub-crises of Debt, Banking, Low Investment, Green Energy/Technologies Development, Poverty

(ii) Europe’s Money – our policy [in line with (i) above] regarding the integration of economic and monetary policy across the Eurozone-nonEurozone divide, DiEM’s strategy against the establishment’s violent rejection of any agenda that opposes its own austerian/troika policy choices (including threats of shutting down the banking system of any member-state that adopts DiEM’s policy), a policy on parallel payment systems as well as parallel currencies, a broader perspective on how to organise the global monetary system (of which Europe is the largest economy)

(iii) TTiP, WTO, World Bank, IMF – DiEM’s position on Europe’s membership of international agreements and organisations whose rules and arrangements determine Europe’s (and, indeed, the world’s) social outcomes

(iv) Migration & Refugees – DiEM will piece together a comprehensive policy on refugees (based on basic human principles and Europe’s obligations to the UN) and on migration. For centuries Europe has been colonising the world, exporting people, disease, war and various institutions to the rest of the planet. Now, the altered demographics guarantee that the trend is reversed, with non-Europeans migrating to Europe and institutions devised elsewhere determining outcomes in Europe. DiEM will propose policies for managing and maximising the benefits from this inevitable reversal both for Europe and for the rest of the world

(v) Decentralised Europeanisation & Constitutional Assembly – DiEM is committed to restoring sovereignty at the municipal, regional and national level by Europeanising crises [see (i) and (iv) above] that presently neutralise Parliaments and cities. DiEM rejects the notion that Europeanising these crises and seeking solutions at the European level can only come at the cost of further loss of sovereignty at the municipal, regional and national level. For this purpose, DiEM will present a policy options Green Paper explaining how its policies regarding (i), (ii) and (iv) above return power to the local, regional and national level in preparation of the Constitutional Assembly whose purpose will be to draft a Democratic European Constitution. DiEM will attempt to draw a draft of such a constitution.

PROPOSED PROCESS FOR PRODUCING THE ABOVE FIVE POLICY PAPERS

Step 1 –  DiEM will compile a list of questions/issues for each of the five ‘battlegrounds’ and will call upon its members to convene locally, and in the spirit of self-organisation, in order to propose to the rest of DiEM particular solutions and policies. We envisage Town Hall meetings, meetings in theatres, cinemas, cultural centres etc.

Step 2 –  All policy recommendations, concerns and suggestions will be compiled by a dedicated DiEM committee (one per ‘battleground’) with a view to putting together a Policy Paper Proposal that will be submitted to a DiEM Assembly – see Step 3

Step 3 –  Between now and the end of 2016 DiEM will fix five dates and cities, one per ‘battleground’, where the relevant Policy Paper Proposal will be debated and the DiEM Paper on the ‘battleground’ will be finalised

Step 4 –  Once each DiEM Paper has been finalised, it will be put to a vote of all members using DiEM’s digital platform.

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