DiEM25 members from across Europe and beyond have voted, and our renewed Coordinating Collective (CC) has emerged.
Meet the women and men chosen to guide our movement in the months ahead!

• Noam Chomsky, re-elected (76.2%)

American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT. Noam Chomsky has been a member of DiEM25’s Coordinating Collective since its conception.

• Virginia López Calvo (56.57%)

Virginia is a Spaniard member of DiEM25. In the past 14 years she lived in London, Istanbul, Brussels, Rome and is now back in Madrid. She has been active in the 15M and Occupy movements; organised Southern European migrants to counter austerity in London (P.I.I.G.S. Uncut); participated in pan-European initiatives to network activists for a democractic, just and sustainable EU as part of European Alternatives and the Alter Summit; co-founded the Festival of Choice, and was a board member at Women in Development Europe (WIDE+) for several years.
She has also been active outside Europe – fighting for women’s rights and economic justice in Central America and Turkey as part of the Central American Women’s Network and Women Living Under Muslim Laws. Virginia currently works as a campaigner for We Move Europe (WeMove.EU) and dedicates the rest of her time to the Provisional National Collective in Spain.

• Brian Eno, re-elected (49.31%)

Brian Eno is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer, writer, and visual artist. He is best known for his pioneering work in ambient music and contributions to rock, pop, electronic, and generative music. A self-described “non-musician”, Eno has helped to introduce a variety of unique conceptual approaches and recording techniques into contemporary music, advocating a methodology of “theory over practice” throughout his career. He has been described as one of popular music’s most influential and innovative figures.
Eno is a member of the Labour Party, and he is the President of the Stop the War Coalition. He is also a trustee of the environmental law firm Client Earth, Somerset House, and the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, set up by Mariana Mazzucato. Brian Eno has been a member of DiEM25’s Coordinating Collective since its conception.

• Renata Avila, re-elected (45.43%)

International human rights lawyer and digital rights advocate. She currently directs the Smart Citizenship Foundation, operating in 17 countries in Latin America, with offices in Rio and Santiago. In her practice, she represented indigenous victims of genocide and other human rights abuses, including the prominent indigenous leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum. She also represented awarded journalist Julian Assange and Wikileaks since 2009. Avila sits on the Board of Creative Commons, is a trustee of the Courage Foundation, – an organisation set up to assist whistleblowers at risk – and is an advisory board member of DiEM25, a movement to democratise Europe launched by Yanis Varoufakis. Her book Women, Whistleblowing Wikileaks” was published by OR Books. She is currently writing a book on Digital Colonialism and regularly writes for several international newspapers.

• Rosemary Bechler, re-elected (38.64%)

For nearly two decades I have been an openDemocracy mainsite editor. My partner and I live in north London and both joined the UK Labour party relatively recently. I was at the DiEM25 launch in Berlin and became a mid-term member of the coordinating committee in April 2017, liaising with the UK pnc. In April this year, I was elected onto the DiEM25UK National Collective as a ground organiser. I joined the movement because I wanted to secure and share my cultural and political commitment to a democratic Europe, at a time when the UK is heading for Brexit, given the rapid rise of the very dangerous Nationalist International. I also joined it because I believe that self-organising social movements are highly creative agencies for the changes we want and need.

• Eírini Mítsiou (35.15%)

Irene Mitsiou is from Thessaloniki, Greece. She ha a degree in business administration and finance and has worked in the private sector for over 15 years. From 2012-2015 Irene was regional coordinator with SYRIZA in Thessaloniki area fighting against austerity and left when the cause was betrayed by the leadership . Nowadays she is a member of a school club because she is a single mother. Irene is a member of the Parents Union in the Municipality of Oreokastro. Also member of the Municipality Committee of Oreokastro and a member of the Education Committee too. She is a member of DiEM25’s Thessaloniki3 DSC. Irene believes in team work and in working diligently and responsibly for a common purpose, setting goals and achieving them. She speaks Greek, English and French.
(Percentages refer to the number of people who included these candidates among their six choices)
The newcomers above will be joining Srecko Horvat, Yanis Varoufakis, Lorenzo Marsili, Marianne Dufour, Gianna Merki and Ivana Nenadovic on our 12-person CC.
While the following candidates did not win election to the CC this time around, we thank them all for participating and hope they’ll continue working with us. DiEM25 needs you and your commitment to make our movement better!
Runner-up candidates: Fotini Bakadima (31%), Julijana Zita (24%), Steffen Wirth (24%), Rosita Allinckx (21%), Vincenzo Fiore (21%), Platon Florin Emilian (18%), Hugo Alvarez Fernandez (16%), Christos Dellasoudas (16%), Jakob Mohr (15%), Michael Fromm (12%), Johannes Fehr  (11%).

The power of grassroots

By making their voices heard in this pivotal internal democratic process, our members have sent a loud message to the status quo: at DiEM25 we really mean it when we say that we believe in grassroots power!
This is exemplified by the 17 DiEMers who ran for a seat in the CC, as they all represent the pan-European, grassroots essence of our movement: women and men from very different backgrounds and countries, and from across the political spectrum. They all stand together ready to fight for the movement we all believe in. No other political organisation can pride itself on this level of openness and inclusivity, at such an international scale.

Background to the vote

Following DiEM25’s Organising Principles (OPs), six of the twelve seats in the movement’s CC were up for renewal this summer. Candidates could send their submissions from July 6 until July 26, and the voting period, which started on August 25, ended at midnight on the same day.
Candidacies to the CC were open to all DiEMers who adhered to basic criteria like how long they have been a member of the movement, and how much time they could give to working on the CC, among others.
Similarly, to ensure transparency and a genuine democratic process, voting was open to members that joined the movement before the elections were announced. Additionally, members’ accounts needed to be verified and active, for them to be able to vote.
As with all DiEM25’s internal democratic procedures, all transnational votes had equal value and were anonymised upon being cast. Furthermore, the results of the vote are in line with our OP’s gender-balance principles.

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