Press Conference: Yanis Varoufakis & Democracy in Europe Movement 25

English subtitles

Good morning. We officially start the press conference
of DiEM Democracy in Europe Movement.

This is Yanis Varoufakis as you probably
know. My name is Srecko Horvat.

We are only one of the representatives of many
people, who already joined the movement
and today during the day you will see what it is about.

And we have half an hour for the press conference
and later we must continue with our strategical meetings.

So, just a short introduction: In 1969 Theodor Adorno gave an interview
for Der Spiegel. And the journalist asked the question
"Herr Professor, two months ago world still seemed in order."

And you know, what Adorno answered?

"Not to me!"

And I think it's the same: Maybe to some people the
European Union seems to be fine. But for us, and
especially from Yanis' experience

as the Greek finance minister, it didn't seem 'in Ordnung zu sein.'

Last year the German society for language announced
that the three most popular words of the last year were
on the first place Refugees, on the second place je suis Charlie and on the third place "Grexit."

On the tenth place it was "Wir können es
schaffen" I think which is Merkel's quote
regarding the refugee crisis.

What we want to do is actually to put "Wir
können es schaffen" on the first place.

And that is the reason why we are founding
together with other comrades from all around Europe the Democracy in Europe Movement.

But I will give you the word now and then
we answer questions. I think it's better for
the press conference.

Well, let me welcome you to this press conference.
Thank you so much for coming.

It's a great honour, a privilege, to be in
the heart of Europe, in Berlin.

We've chosen Berlin, precisely because
nothing can change in the progressive
direction without

the full participation of Germany in
our European endeavors.

Unfortunately it is the conviction of some of
us, those of us, who are putting DiEM together,

that the European Union is disintegrating
and it is doing so quite fast!

Whether you're talking about the Euro-crisis,

the failure, the spectacular failure of
the European Union, both as a Union and

also as it's constituent members to
dealing with the refugee crisis

in a sensible, rational, humanist way

With a possible exception of Angela
Merkel, who's been very good at this.

The phenomenon of the
re-nationalization of ambition

The nationalization of hope

The fact, that we now have European gouvernments

adopting fully the "Not in my backyard"-mentality

Whether this is about debt , about refugees

about Schengen, about geopolitics,
about our attitude to

the Middle East, to Lybia,

You only have to put together the words "European"

"foreign" and "policy" to end up with a joke.

Or the worse: "European," "Migration" and "policy"

to end up, with a joke.

Why is Europe disintegrating?

The wrong in the thought of it, is that we have allowed

for the last decade - two decades - possibly three

decades, a process of de-politicizing decision-making

at the heart of Europe, in our core-European institutions.

And when you de-politicize a political decision process

you end up with very bad politics and sub-stand-up

economic politics. And now we have

- this is at least our estimation - a vicious cycle.

Bad policy leads to bad economic outcomes like

negative interest rates, facing pension funds in Germany

or deflation in Spain. These bad economic outcomes

give the bureaucratic-technocratic decision making process

more of an incentive, to turn to further degrees of

authoritarianism. The extra-degrees of authoritarianism

lead to more entrenchment in the bad policy framework.

Which leads to further bad outcomes

and we are in a kind of early 1930's

framework of disintegration.

The art to this mix, an extraordinary shock like the refugees

and you end up with a situation we're facing in Europe today

so we ask ourselves a very simple question:

If our analysis is right, if the European Union is disintegrating

because of its terrible gouvernance and architecture

what is the solution?

Well, we know what is not the solution:

The solution is not to return to the nation-state.

The solution is not to build walls, again.

The solution is not "Fortress Germany," "Fortress France"

"Fortress Greece" Fortress, fortresses everywhere

Those walls simply reflect our security-love failures.

That's not the solution.

It is also not the solution - ostrich-like - to burry

heads in the sand to pretend that we are

on the right path and we only need to tweak our

policies a little bit. So, if these are not the solutions,

what are the solutions?

Well, our answer to this poignant question is a search

for democratizing the European Union institutions

to achieve two things: Firstly to recalibrate

existing institutions and policies. In order to stabilize

the five crisis that are disintegrating Europe: Debt, banking,

low investment everywhere, including in Germany,

rising poverty, which fuels misanthropy and other nationalism

and migration.

And to do this, in a way

that re-legitimizes political power

and re-politicizes politics in Europe.

How can this happen?

The old-fashioned system

of creating a political party

in the context of a nation-state,

making promises that you cannot fulfill

once you are in power

if you ever gain gouvernment

That system is finished.

I have watched mighty finance ministers including

this country's

being reduced to a state of helplessness

in the context of European Union Council

in the context of the EURO-group

So, if we are right,

that another political party

another organization in the context of the

nation-states is the wrong way to go,

What is the only alternative?

The only alternative is to try

something you've never tried before.

A political movement

that starts everywhere in Europe

at once, cross-border

independently of prior political party-affiliations

that has one simple objective:

To get Europeans around a metaphorical table

digital table; in forms like this one

tonight. To discuss as Europeans

their common problems

and what we want are common solutions

to these common problems to be.

The hope is that, if the consensus emerges

and our consensus will find ways of

expressing itself on the level of

the municipality, of the origin, of the state,

of the European Union,

We are very much looking forward

to answering your many and

pressing questions!

So, let's start with a question here.

Q: "President Erdogan of Turkey has today

it seems threatened Europe saying that

if Turkey doesn't receive financing

he will send masses of refugees

towards the EU.

How do these type of threats challenge

the aims that you're putting forward?

A: These threats, the clear and present

dangers that we're facing

enhance the point.

It is about time, that we decided to

treat the problem as a common one.

Not as a Greek problem.

Not as a problem to be sorted out by

turning Greece or Italy or Sicily

into a concentration camp.

But as the common problem of a large

Union, a powerful Union, a rich Union

which has failed spectacularly over the

last weeks, last months, and years

to deal with common problems,

systemic problems - systematically.

So the whole raison d'etre of what

we're doing is to be able to look Mister

Adorno in the eye, as Europeans

with a coherent policy

which is consistent also with coherent

policies in the realm of solidarity

within Europe

Economic stabilization

and an end to the race to the bottom

which is forcing Europe into the bossom

of disintegration.

Q: It does not help if you are playing

brinkmanship with these types of states

does it, when you're trying to deal as

a Europe, but your partners outside

of Europe are willing to hold this gun

to your head.

A: Well, unity's strength!

When a gun is being held to our head,

the last thing we need is a situation

where Berlin turn against Athens

Athens turns against Paris

Paris turns against Bratislava..

The next question, please

The man behind, here.

Q: You said you wanted to start a movement

in all European countries at once

What makes you believe that you can

achieve, what all social movements,

protest movements or ATTAC for example

has not achieved so far

and have bitterly failed?

A: Absolutely nothing.

But it's the only way I can wake up in

the morning and be energized

to that, what I think, is right.

Look, Harald: 2015 was a pivotal year.

It was a year, when we failed

as Europe - quite substantially to deal

with an economic policy, which condemned

large parts of the periphery to

permanent depression.

Permanent depression!

While at the very same time condemning

surplus economies, core-economies like

Germany, like Netherlands, and so on

to a slow burning deflationary process

which is undermining confidence in

the core-countries regarding the capacity

of the European Union and gouvernments

in Berlin, in The Netherlands, and so on

to deal with the situation.

For the very first time - just let me

say one thing - for the very first time

there is a possibility of a coalition

of democrats.

Whether they are liberal democrats,

social democrats, radical democrats,

green democrats.

2015 has pointed out to many people

that our system of gouvernance in Europe

is not consistent

with shared prosperity.

Now, maybe what we are doing is going

to allow this coalition to come into

being. Something that previous movements

have not succeeded in doing. Remember

that defenders of capitalism, of free

market, propose, put forward a view

that the reason that capitalism is dynamic, is because

it's a trial and error-process

where the market determines out of many

failures what the success-score is.

Well, maybe we need to try out many different

movements in order to come to the

one, that allows Europe to integrate

as opposed to disintegrate.

Maybe this movement will also be

failure as you say, but we have to keep

trying until the evolutionary process

the historical process in Europe

is put into the direction, onto the

pathway towards integration

And in a mode, that arrests the current

deconstruction.

OK - we take one more question from

the right. And the we turn to the left.

Q: I want to ask you about media-

terminology and Orwellianism

Corporate media here in Germany

and in the US uses terms like

structural adjustments,

labour market flexibility,

rescue packages,

as if the whole nation was rescued,

Savings program, Noam Chomsky says

liberal market flexibility is another

term for a person not knowing if

he wakes up tomorrow with a job.

So, I want to ask you if your movement

will take these terminologies and change

them around to provide a more accurate picture

to what's happening on ground.

A: Well, we should all, every single one of

us, beware Orwellian Doublespeak.

And the way which language is twisted

in order to hide what's underlaying

particular sentences and policies.

And effectively to throw rays of light

and transparency and what people

actually mean. Would it not be good,

if our language was useful in the

content of a dialog, so what we meant

was conveyed to our interlocutors.

My favourite one is an example of

such Doublespeak. During our

negotiations with The Troika,

the term they used for reducing pensions

"Intergenerational restoration of justice"

Yes, please.

Q: ..."Radical Lefts?"

A: If you read our manifesto - hm -

it is quite clear, that it's a manifesto

for the democratization of Europe and

it is an open call to all democrats

independently of ideologies,

conceptions of the good society

political party-affiliation. Now, I

of course, like you, like all of us

we have our particular prejudices

our particular ideological take.

But DiEM is not me, not Srecko,

it's not any of the people who will be

at the Volksbühne tonight.

It's all of us together and it is

it's manifest.

It's as good as the word of the manifesto

that it seeks to embrace every one

who cares about re-democratizing

putting the demos back into democracy

in Europe.

Q: Do you really think that Center-left / center-right can be with?

A: This is, what we want. You see,

Some of my greatest political friends

associates, if you want "collaborators"

are people who'd be described in Britain

as Thatcher-Rights, as new-liberals.

People, who are incensed by the

vacuum of democracy, the lack of

democracy in Brussels, in Frankfurt

in the institutions of Europe

which are doing such a bad job at managing

Europe. If I can be friends with these

people, I think it is perfectly possible

for DiEM to embrace every one

who simply agrees on the necessity

of re-politicizing politics in order

to arrest the economic crisis

and the crisis of excessive authoritarianism

in this democracy-free zone, which is

Brussels and Frankfurt.

Q: Re-democratization also means to

defend the constitutions of the

member-states?

A: The problem with... Of course!

We are constitutionalist-democrats.

But let me say this to you Sir:

The moment, we created a common currency,

we transferred sovereignty

from our nation-states into a black hole.

We didn't create a federation,

if we had created a federal gouvernment

we had transferred our sovereignty

from the nation-state to the federal state.

And we would need a constitution

to do that, that will be over-arching

and towering above the constitutions

of our nation-states. We didn't do that.

So, now there's no sovereignty.

Now there is just opacity, there is

authoritarianism, there are officials

that you or maybe you know who they are and

what they are called, but the crashing

majority of Europeans have never even

seen their face or heard their names

who make the important - crucial -

decisions, behind their backs

And the problem is

that the vast majority of Europeans,

whether they agree with me or not,

feel that there is this lack of legitimacy

that problem with this is, that in the

context of an deflationary spiral

with refugee crisis that are not being

dealt with collectively

there is a very serious danger

that this discontent

for the lack of legitimacy

and the disrespect to the constitutions

without having an over-arching federal

constitution, leads to

disintegration, to nationalism, to an

attempt to recoil back into the

nation state. In other words

to put it very so simply

A postmodern version of the 1930's

Democrats must stop this.

We must give the average people out there

especially those who would never want to hear

anything from me, or people like me,

we must give them hope

that Europe can rise up to the occasion

of reclaiming constitutional democratic

processes in a way that is consistent

with their anxieties and aspirations

Q: I still wonder why we need your movement, this new movement? As we have other political leftwing parties who fight for democracy, who fight for more integration.

A: I hope, you know, it would be a dream

for me, not to have to do this.

It would be great, if existing movements

could have done the job!

But I don't feel they can and

I don't believe a left-wing movement can

do it. Look, I'm a left-winger, I make no bones

about that, I think that you all know this,

but I have to be brutally honest:

The Left suffered a major defeat in the

late 1980's, early 1990's. We carry a

major burden of guilt. For all the crimes

that we carried out as leftists,

Not as individuals - the collective

guilt of the left.

Over the 20th Century.

The Left has not succeeded

since 1991 and especially after 2008 the

major, the great financial crisis

which it was the impetus, the trigger

of the crisis of the Euro, the crisis of

the European Union, now.

We've failed as The Left to break out

of that past to break out of that very

strict confines of a minority.

We did this in Greece, briefly

but this was not replicated in Germany,

not replicated in France.

The issues that we're facing however

just like in the 1970's, are issues

of that are existentialist for the

survival of Europe and well beyond

the limitations of The Left

This why we're calling for a broad

coalition of liberal, social, leftist,

radical, green democrats,

who agree on one simple idea

that the "demos" must be centrally in

"Democracy."

And not be treated with contempt by

bureaucrats that have usurped power

without anyone even having noticed.

Q: As the Refugee situation is always been mentioned

as a threat. I wonder if it is possible, if you view it possible for your movement as a positive thing? as a common project for europe, as population growth rather than just a threat.

A: If you read our manifest, it's very clear

on this: One of the epithets we have

attached to the Europe of our dreams

and our aspirations, is an Open Europe.

A Europe that understands

that fences and borders reflect insecurity

And spread insecurity in the name of

security. Speaking as Yanis Varoufakis now, not as DiEM

because DiEM has to be genuinely democratic

and therefore we have to convene sessions

of this, before we have a position about that.

I will speak to you now, personally

not as a representative of DiEM.

Two points about refugees:

Firstly from the ancient Greek tradition

of philoxenia when somebody knocks on

your door in the middle of the night,

they're wet and they're hungry

and they're blooded and scares,

you don't do a cost-benefit-analysis

to find out whether you should open the

door.

You just open it!

And you worry about the percussions

of what you have done, much later

after that person is dry, fed, watered

and not scared.

Point number one.

Point number two:

Europe must come to terms with its

history. For hundreds of years we have

populated the Earth.

We've exported Europeans to The Americas

to Australia, to Asia, to Africa.

We've colonized. We've killed off tribes

and have taken over the world.

That was fine, it was part of the great European exodus.

Well, you know what? Guess what!

The demographics of the planet are now

changing and Europe is going to be

repopulated to a very large extent

by people from outside of Europe.

We better accept that.

Learn to live with it

and learn to draw from it

all the energy that we can.

We are Aging Europe

and concentrate on how to handle this.

What polices are needed in order to make

this dynamic transition.

Come much closer to humanist values

and European values.

Q: While reading your manifesto I saw some short-term goals like transparency and openness

and some midle-term goals like constitutional assembling directly

from the people of Europe

Would you please adress the means you have in order of leverage to achieve those

goals, in a european context?

A: We have no means whatsoever.

We're starting tonight

Before tonight, we don't exist.

They're who have no leverage.

This is the whole point about a movement,

you state principals, you state objectives

you call upon fellow citizens from all

over Europe to join in, if they think

that there is a lacuna, ther is a dearth, that

there is a lack and that they feel that

they need to come with you and promote

collectively those objectives

So, our leverage will be absolutely

proportional to the number of people

that join DiEM and take an active part

in the pursuit of our common objectives

That's democracy.

Q: Again from Lesbos. Now you find a very militarization in Lesbos..

What is your answer to find a way out of this situation,
because you don't find Europe, nor institutions only volunteers are working.

I want to hear from you more concrete, what you can send appeal here in the evening, to go another way, not militarization, to find a political way to solve the problem, Its really time to act now.

A: Precisely! This failure that you just

described is a fundamental reason why

we believe: We need a new movement

in Europe, that offers Europeans an

opportunities to discuss this as Europeans

not as Greeks or as Germans or as Slovaks.

But allow me, this is not the time to

articulate the fully fledged policy

response, but allow me to make a

very simple point: Last summer

our gouvernment in Greece - since you

talked about Lesbos -

was forced to capitulate to a deal

that lends our bankrupt gouvernment

another 85 billion. Before that

we were forced as a nation to accept

against the protestations of many of us

on the streets, 130 billion in 2012.

In 2010 we were forced to accept another

110 billion, all supposedly as part of a

solidarity to Greece - solidarity for

the bankers - but anyway

If all those tens and hundreds of billions

can be forced down the throat of a nation

that simply can't afford it, surely

we could find one or two, by which

to make this humanitarian part of the

crisis go away - in the most humane way,

in a way that does not constitute a

stepping stone towards militarization.

The fact that we are squabbling

over the few hundreds of thousands of

euros, when at the very same time

bailouts of hundreds of billions

of toxic loans are being banded about

with abandon, this is another sign of

the disintegration of the European Union

History is going to pass very harsh

judgement on us

Q: You always talk about more democratic practic? Are we more democratic e.g. Communist

Party of Greece called Greece to leave European Union

A: Let me put it very sincerely:

Maybe we should not have created the

European Union the way we did.

I'm convinced we shouldn't

we should have either not create it or

very differently, but once we've created

it, the disintegration of the European

Union is going to bring about

a very rapid collapse that will resemble

in terrible ways, what happened in the

1930's and what I respond to my friends

in the Communist Party, radical parts of

the left, who are articulating the

position, that maybe disintegration,

going back to a national currency, to

an nation state and so on, is that

the solution, is I remind them

that, when we had such disintegration in

1930's, it was not humanism

and it was not the left, that benefited

It was the fascists, and it was the Nazis

and Europe fell into a terrible trap

with immense human costs

Do we want the same?

I certainly don't.

We have time for one last question.

Those who are accredited we invite to ask

later. We also organized live-stream.

Q: How wil you engage people from small countries in DiEM?

A: We are great believers in acting locally,

in the context of an over-arching

pan-European agenda. So, there will be

many different layers of participation

There will be an application, an app

on the peoples' phone; there will be a

website, so the digital platform, which

is these days essentially in anything

one does at the collective or even at the

individual level, those are digital

platforms will allow people in Slovenia

in Ljubljana, to find out who is around

them, that is engaged. Our idea is to move

very quickly from these forms of digital

communication to town-hall events

in towns, in villages, in cities.

On themes, that we decide collectively

throughout Europe. Leading to bigger

events like the one we're having today

On a rolling basis

so, that the digital communication can

become analog and take the form of

face-to-face meetings, at the level of

the local, the state, and the pan-European

Thanks a lot. Maybe Yanis, you want a

final message or..

Well, the final message is, that

there's absolutely no doubt

that, what we are doing with DiEM

seems quite Utopian.

The idea of starting a European movement

not from a particular country

not from any existing organizational

basis, but from a horizontal perspective

throughout Europe, in order to change Europe

and to stop the descent into this hole

that disintegration is opening up for us

It sounds pretty far fetched, and it may

very well fail, but what is the

alternative? The alternative is either

to keep pretending, as the powers that be

in the European Union are doing

that they can maintain this European

Union, that we now have.

They can't - that's far more Utopian than

what we are doing!

And finally: The alternative to this

Utopian project is a horrible dystopia

that is going to punish severely everyone

except those, who flourish and find ways

of profiting it - Profiting from human

disasters.

Thank you very much!