DiEM25 chooses Vienna as the hotspot where European democrats will meet to address:
- The EU’s shameful response to the refugee crisis
- How a humanitarian emergency became symptomatic of Europe’s loss of integrity
VIENNA, AUSTRIA, April 18, 2016– DiEM25, the Democracy in Europe Movement, will hold its Second Assembly on Thursday, May 5th in Vienna. DiEM25’s first event in Austria will focus on one of the movement’s key battlegrounds for democratising the European Union: Overcoming the fear of migrants and refugees!
Entitled Europe’s Duty to the Refugees, Europe’s Duty to Itself, DiEM25’s assembly will be hosted at Vienna’s WERK X Theatre. The event stems from DiEM25 Manifesto’s pledge to forge an “Open Europe that is alive to ideas, people and inspiration from all over the world, recognising fences and borders as signs of weakness spreading insecurity in the name of security.” Organised as a series of round table discussions on subjects such as xenophobia and right-wing extremism, capitalism and migration, and solidarity and open borders, the assembly aims to ignite the pan-European conversation that will produce a white paper on refugees, migration and solidarity with ‘others.’ Speakers include, Yanis Varoufakis, Srecko Horvat, Saskia Sassen, Sandro Mezzadra, Fanny Müller-Uri, Erich Fenninger, Teresa Forcades, Walter Baier and Katja Kipping among others.
“The refugee crisis is a manifestation of the disintegration of the European Union,” underlined Varoufakis, as he warned against the dangerous revival of “early twentieth century’s European black plague of misanthropy, xenophobia, and poisonous nationalisms.”
Asked about the Austrian government’s stepping up border controls and erecting a fence on its Italian border, Varoufakis said, “Winning votes by erecting fences and violating international law on refugees is the last resort of politicians ready to sacrifice their nation’s integrity for their own miserable petty reasons.”
DiEM25’s Vienna assembly follows up on the proceedings from its assembly in Italy last March, where the movement launched its “Transparency in Europe Now!” campaign. Founded in Berlin on 9th February, DiEM25 is rapidly becoming the most influential pan-European initiative to gather a broad coalition of political agents, social movements and European democrats in the struggle to democratise the EU as an antidote to its disintegration.
A 10 Euro entrance fee will be charged, of which half will be donated to refugee support organizations in Austria and the other half will be destined to partially cover the event’s costs. The assembly (19:00 – 22:00) will be livestreamed in English.
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