April was the month when we all found out that those running the European Union, and our countries, are prepared to destroy the EU before allowing for the creation of financial solutions that would help the weakest in our society, or shift some power away from the elites.
This is a disastrous resolution, but it is useful for us: it makes certain things clear. Solutions will not come from Brussels. They will not come from our elected governments. Now, more than ever, we need a strong, capable movement to push ahead our common-sense agenda for Europe and its people. Our fellow citizens need it, and it’s the only thing that might save the EU from itself. Here are the steps we took last month to make it happen.

External Actions

• We launched the “Beyond the Balcony: Organising for European Solidarity” series of online discussions, between the pan-European Coordinating Collective of DiEM25 and our national organisers around Europe. Through these calls, we aim to identify the main struggles around Europe where DiEM25 can make a difference, and inspire our members to join those fights!
• We called-out the Eurogroup meeting, where the Finance Ministers of countries with the Euro failed to reach any meaningful agreement to bolster the economy and condemned Europe to yet another catastrophic recession. The criticism can be summarised through this quote by Yanis Varoufakis: “Netherlands and Germany benefit enormously from an exchange rate of the euro which is low because you’ve got deficit countries like Italy, Greece and Spain in them (…) If they want to keep those benefits, they will have to keep Italy in the Euro, and the only way to do that is by mutualizing debt.”
• We also issued a statement predicting the Council of the European Union’s failure to reach a meaningful agreement – not that we’re bragging, it’s not a hard thing to predict. Here’s an extract: “The only thing that truly matters about tonight’s EU Council agreement is that the ruling oligarchy will impose upon Europe’s most vulnerable new national debt that guarantees massive new austerity.”
• We continued building on the immense success of DiEM25 TV (increased our YouTube channel subscribers by 35,000 and received well over 2 million views in the past two months alone), with diverse sessions touching on everything from rock and roll, to activism and the environment, as presented through the thoughts of Roger Waters, Tariq Ali, Stephanie Kelton, David Graeber, Shoshana Zuboff and many others. To view the discussions or to follow our channel, follow this link
  • Our Greek political party MeRA25 followed suit by launching MeRA TV. In the first pilot episode they had no one other than the great Academy Award and Palme d’Or winning director Costa-Gavras (article in Greek)
  • Our activist also started the grassroots programme “DiEM25 TV goes local!” (and it’s sister programme: focusing on the Green New Deal for Europe) where local political issues are discussed in various languages, bringing DiEM25 closer to the struggles of communities around Europe
• MeRA25 continued its quarantine-adapted actions by organising more local discussions with citizens, organisers and members from various regions of the country. The party also expanded its financial contribution (started in the previous month with the “Day of Solidarity” initiative) to the ever-deepening economic and healthcare crisis in the country by contributing 50% of the income of all MeRA25 MPs for the support of three hospitals in the country.

Internal Actions

• The Coordinating Collective published the Implementation Plan, outlining the next steps towards materialising the vision for DiEM25 2.0 that was presented in the movement’s Assembly in Prague in November 2019. A consultation period on the text of the resulting six All-Member Votes is currently ongoing and will be coming to an end on 6 May
• Following the resignation of two members of the Coordinating Collective members, two new members have replaced them: Rosanna Martens and Fotini Bakadima!

Next Month in DiEM25: May!

Keep an eye out for these exciting initiatives next month:

• The continuation of DiEM25 TV and MeRA25 TV, as well as the “Beyond the Balcony” series
• Our National Collective in France is launching a pan-European Rent Strike! If you want to find out more and get involved, email them at montagne@fr.diem25.org
• The votes on the Implementation Plan will go live!
• The IT team published new features for grassroots networking and organising! Watch this video to learn more
• On 1 May we will interview Chris Smalls on DiEM25 TV, who called-out Amazon’s foul practice of forcing employees to work in conditions that expose them to the coronavirus, and was fired for it! Apart from supporting Chris’ inspiring work in the USA, we will follow his example and call for people to come and speak out against bad practices in their companies (Amazon but also any large corporation) in Europe!
• And much, much more!

If you wish to send a point to be included in the next newsletter, or want to help drafting it, please contact us at office@diem25.org

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