 Sie haben mich angegriffen, dort jenseit und das mehr es. Auf einer Bühne, wie dieser, nichts fand man hier. Keine Grenzen, keine Grenzen können, schreien Sie nach Ihnen. Grenzen sich eine. Alles andere aus. Ihre Parolen und Pfannen bei uns daheim und hier bei euch. Gleichen Sie sich aufs Haar, das noch anders getranken wird. Geglichen Sie, geglichen Sie aufs Haar, dass nir andere geträgen wird. Unser Millionenfach, vergessenes Blut, des Frühlings, euer vergessenes Blut, vom Butterklar, das Kunstblut, im Theater, versickert in unseren Tränen. Wir sind die, die uns jagen, dort wir hier, wir gereift uns an. Sind es dieselben Männer, die aus der Heimat uns folgen, wie Schatten? Oder finden Sie schon immer hier? Wir wissen es nicht und fragen euch. Wir sind diese grauen Männer, die uns befinden und uns spalten. Haus, welche Heimat kommen Sie? Und wer vermucht in Sie zu halten, zu behürgen in der Nacht, dass Sie wieder eine Farbe werden, in der Erde abbilden, Farben brachten? Und wer vermöchte, Sie zu halten, zu beruhigen in der Nacht, dass Sie wieder eine Farbe werden, in der Erde abbilden, Farben brachten? Vielen Dank. Vielen Dank für diese sehr impressiven Präformen. Und vielen Dank an alle, dass Sie Teil dieser Sendung heute hier, hier in Wegex. Und willkommen wieder zur zweiten Seite unserer Demonstration hier, hier heute Abend. Bevor wir zur nächsten Diskussion über die Runden gehen, würde ich ein paar Worte auf die Präformen, die wir gesehen haben, oder was ich eigentlich an dieser Präformen kenne. Was wir gesehen haben, ist eigentlich nur ein Teil einer Präformen, die auf die Supplienz der Friede-Jelleneck-Stage bei der Gruppe von 2013, wie ich es weiß, in Vien, wo Menschen von anderen Ländern fliegen, in einem Stadion von der Stadt in der Stadt, und dort für ein paar Wochen, und Friede-Jelleneck hat das als die Möglichkeit, dieses Spiel zu schreiben. Dieses Spiel ist wieder auf die Supplienz von der griechischen Griechische Spielreiche Asia Los. Ja, es ist interessant, dass schon Asia Los gelten, mit dem Thema Fliegen, und mit den Rechts, oder eigentlich mehr genau, mit dem Denial des Rechts, mit dem die Menschen, die von ihren Homelands fliegen, aber schweigende Mehrheit started with this work only in 2015, so last year, right? Yes, we started when Thraiskirchen, in the summer when Thraskirchen was so full, we started as an artist collective to protest in the first part and then we drove to Thraskirchen and found these beautiful people there, and we founded a theater group, so now we are working, not only playing theater with our guys, helping them searching for flats, so when somebody has a flat or a room, please contact us and help them in the first interviews and what we can, because we don't think that only theater can change something, we try to mix artist movement with social movement. Yeah, so thank you very much so far, I think that's so far, thank you very much again, and yeah, let's go to the next discussion rounds. Thank you. By the way, I am Lukas Franke and I'm a curator here at WERKX and I'm doing the second round together with Danny Platsch. Danny, please introduce the next round. Yeah, welcome back to the second part of the evening. We will now continue with the next round table, which raises an important yet heavily neglected part of the discussion on refugees in Europe, which is refugee crisis or system crisis, capitalism and migration. This panel will be moderated by Katharina Anastasio. She, you know already from the first part of tonight, she's a coordinated change for all, a transnational platform that maps and coordinates movements all across Europe. Please Katharina, the stage is yours. Hello everyone again, this time from the very nervous and hot seat of the moderator. This round is going to last again about 20 minutes. I'm pretty sure you are also excited about the debate and I apologize in advance if all your questions are not going to be answered in one round. First of all, I would like to thank the participants. Thank you very much for being here. Saske Sassen, you can applaud in the middle if you want. Professor at the Columbia University. Thank you very much. You have a new book coming up, Exposions, actually it's post-published writing but it's going to be translated in German in the next month's Sandro Massadra and thinker, author, activist. You can also applaud again. And of course, let's go forward again. Author and philosopher. So in this very short time we will try to explore a little bit the relationships between capitalism and migration and I will start with Saske. Saske, can you take the mic away? I would sit down. Thank you. So what would you say is there a connection between capitalism and migration? Capitalism, the way it works has to reproduce itself constantly. Does capitalism actually benefit from migration? In the mainstream media right now in Europe migration from refugees but also from economical migrants is being demonized, particularly in Europe right now, something very bad, a threat that is about to breach the walls of Fortress. Migrants have long been demonized. So when the Irish arrived in the United States and they were blondish and blueish eyes and all of that, they were totally racialized. So the demonizing is a very old story. Now I think it's important to, and I like your question it's an important one, this connection between capital and capitalism and migration. I mean most countries and most areas of the world for a very long time had no emigration until quite recently emigration was not particularly widespread. There were particular regions where it was. And secondly, it's not that because people are poor, they migrate. That just doesn't hold. For centuries and certainly for decades in our modernity a lot of poor people, mostly they did not migrate. So your question is very apropos. There is something about a capitalist economy but we can also go back to earlier forms of capitalism like plantations, the big plantations. It demands a lot of labor and certainly this was a time when you didn't have technologies replacing labor as it does now. So clearly I think in my reading, it's a second point that is important to recover is that often the receiving countries as we call them, built the bridges. So I am a critic of a lot of the migration literature. I hope I don't offend anybody in this room. I probably have offended 50% with that statement. So we tend to study migration the moment the migrant leaves. But if you take that broader landscape that for the longest time there were actually only some countries sent migrants. Then you have to ask what happened. And I often say we should actually start with the corporate boardrooms and the military apparatus of receiving countries. That doesn't cover everything but it covers quite a bit. So that we want to complete that cycle. There is something about war. There is something about plantation economies etc. Today there is something about mining. That actually demands an extraordinary amount of labor, exploitable labor. And that then becomes an incentive. Now once the bridge is built, then there is a kind of autonomy that attaches to the migration. But we tend to forget that first step. The receiving countries often are the beginners. And certainly you have that in Germany. I don't know about Austria, but certainly in Germany after World War II. They initiate it. The third point, very important, for instance Turkish migrants in Germany. Well they are mostly actually minoritized. They are not your average Turkish person. And so we discover these things gradually. But there is an extraordinary amount of generalizing about the migration question, which we should sort of really investigate. And so the Turks, they were mostly Kurdish Turks. They were mountain people. And I remember when one of the heads of the Kurdish people was taken prisoner, there were massive demonstrations in Germany, in Berlin etc., because they were mostly Kurdish Turks. So the same thing with Morocco. The Berbers. So there are these very specialized conditions that contribute to explain the migration process. And I think it's sort of worthwhile knowing a bit about it. Thank you very much, Jessica. Thank you also for keeping the time. That was an accident. I didn't have to. Thank you very much. Let's go to you Sandra. So, we're talking about, I mean we meet today also, the theme of the event today is our duty to the refugees. And from an ethical point of view, but also from a political point of view, we need to provide these people with security. We need to provide them with a life. They hope they will, when they start traveling refugees and migrants again. Still, since most of the causes of mass migration or people, the causes that push people to seek refuge in Europe, but also in other countries, are actually sourced in capitalism. And the question that I would have to you is, what limits do we have for human migration policy within capitalism? Are there limitations there? And how could we breach them, if they are? Well, it's again a very important question. We could even say that there is no capitalism without labour mobility, since the very inception of capitalism. And mobility, labour mobility has always been a kind of field of tension, a kind of field of struggle under capitalism. If you look at the way in which labour mobility, migration, internal migration, international migration has been regulated, you will find that in different historical ages there has always been a whole set of limits imposed upon mobile subjects. And nowadays we are confronted with a situation that kind of joins this long history of contested mobility of labour under capitalism. You are right when you say that nowadays migration, even economic migration is kind of demonised in Europe. But if you look at the reports that are issued by several ministers of economy, by several corporate actors, by several think tanks in Europe, you will always find a statement, a very clear statement about the fact that Europe needs migration. It needs migration from the point of view of the stability of its labour market but also for sheer demographic reasons and for the sustainability of welfare systems. And so we are confronted nowadays precisely with this kind of tension between political rhetoric which demonise migrants and a continuous need for migration. It is precisely this tension that produces the conditions for the exploitation of migrant labour in many parts of Europe. And it is quite easy to see that no big city in Europe could work, could reproduce itself without the contribution of a multitude of migrant workers. Thank you very much, Sandra, too. Also for keeping the time. So, let's go, you're up. It's a big, big challenge to keep the time, too. My question to you would be the following. So, since the beginning of the summer, after the European spring, after the first months of euphoria and European solidarity, not only the political situation in Europe has changed but also the way media talk about what is happening right now and the borders of Europe, meaning by that, all of a sudden we talk only numbers. The whole deal, the whole European Union and Turkey deal in numbers. How many would you take when Hungary and Poland with their very, very disturbing governments right now want to counter out the deal to say we don't take more than 900 and they have to be Christian. And people are reduced constantly in numbers. We live also in a time where the UN seems weaker than ever in its mission. The treaties, including human rights starting with the Geneva Convention are being discarded from governments officially. Just to remind also the room, it was November where it was actually decided that the crossing between Greece and Macedonia is closed for everyone else except Iraqis, Afghans and Syrians, meaning practically that everybody else coming from other countries didn't have the right to seek refuge. So we live in these times where we can see the trend of dehumanizing migrants and refugees devaluing human life, giving a value. They cost so much. You have Denmark passing law saying you have to confiscate their belongings in order to feed them. And from your point of view as a philosopher, how do you think do we counteract? And what is it actually capitalism self destroying itself in this society where dehumanizing people? Okay, you just took my two minutes. You're gonna get another two. But I will take it back. Yeah, you're gonna take it back. So it's a very good question because what you see with the refugee crisis is precisely the contradictions of capitalism today. Namely, you mentioned that some of the refugees, Iraqis, Afghanistan and so on were not let in into the European Union according to the definition of the difference between economic migrants and asylum seekers which I think is the best embodiment of ideology today. Why? Because I think there is no difference between economic migrants and asylum seekers because economic migrants are also victims of capitalism. People from Afghanistan now you stole me half a minute. Please don't applause. So, I think it's part of the same problem and speaking about contradictions. I don't know if you read the news recently that recently, several months ago in Syria one rebel group, sponsored by Pentagon and another rebel group sponsored by the CIA are fighting each against each other. I don't know if you heard about the very curious case of Berlin Gildo who is a Swedish citizen who was brought up in front of the court under the accusation that he was a rebel in Syria but the whole case felt down because they realized that the British intelligence was supporting the same terrorist group in which Berlin Gildo was taking part. So you can see capitalism is full of contradictions. To answer your question and to bring actually this discussion to a geopolitical level because I think what we missed today is precisely geopolitics. I'm not so optimistic thanks. I'm not so optimistic when it comes to solving the refugee crisis. You mentioned numbers. Yeah, we speak about numbers. We speak about quotas. Now we outsource the refugees to a dictator in Turkey. Then we import again. So what you have is actually export import. First we export wars in Syria, then we import refugees and then again we export money to Erdogan and then what? Then again we import the so-called democratic values to Germany where you have someone like Burnemann for instance who could end up in front of the court a leading member of the German pirate party ended up in prison because he was making fun out of Erdogan. So you see the contradictions. What is the problem? The problem is that the refugee crisis is not solved. It cannot be solved because it's part of a bigger problem and it's part of a bigger geopolitical picture. The refugee crisis didn't start in Syria. It didn't start in Libya. It didn't start in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in all the forgotten wars. It started in the Pentagon. Yes, in the State Department. Just to finish because I think it's very important to note it will go on. Recently WikiLeaks a secret document on the so-called Operation Sofia. I don't know how much you know about it, but you should Google it, go to WikiLeaks and check it out. It's a military action in the Mediterranean Sea led by French forces, UK forces, Frontex and so on. We're the first step, so it consists of three parts. The first step is military action in the high seas of the Mediterranean in order apparently to stop the smugglers bringing refugees in. The second step is it's not high seas anymore, but they want to come and they already are in the territorial waters of Libya. And now when you read Operation Sofia, the secret document which is not secret fortunately anymore thanks to WikiLeaks, you will see what is the next plan. You have an Italian commander asking from the European authorities for an invasion of Libya on the ground. And what is the reason? That's the reason and here I end with two speakers. The reason is economy again. So the situation in Libya is completely unstable. Why is it unstable? Of course, because of us again, because of France, or London, so on. And the United States. And it's unstable and what they need is actually a new intervention in Libya to bring again the economy back to Europe. So I think as long as we don't question geopolitics, what is happening in Syria where you have more than 20 players in the sense of the refugee crisis. And what it shows, and this is an announcement for the next round table as well, is a complete failure of foreign policy of European Union. Thank you very much. So, we have another question. We're going to try a new method. We have to go back to normal after this. This is tough. What I would like, the situation is very depressive also. Not only for us, we are driven in front of the television. Also for the people of solidarity on the ground. They are the verge of burning out frequently. So, let's take the last three, four minutes with all three of you to imagine a little bit our situation in 20 years and how we're going to look back to the time we're living right now. And I pledge for some optimism. Just in key words. Would it be better for all of you? Kando, you start. No, no, I will take all the time. Wow, I hadn't thought about that question that you ask. Because right now, when you look at the current situation, it does look pretty dismal actually. And you mentioned this heart and you didn't quite use that word, but something along that line. Also a kind of fatigue. I mean, there are many points of entry to create a landscape that might allow me to answer your question. So, one of them is our political classes. Our political classes are lazy. They don't do their homework. Wie sagt man das auf Deutsch, wissen Sie? Wenn die Studenten zurückkommen, von ja, die Arbeiter, what? Hausanwerber. Ja, Hausanwerber also. And they should do a bit of it. So, the easiest solution to the situation of politicians right now is to let this weird anti-immigrant fear, etc. Just, you know, they don't have to do anything. Instead of explaining a bit of adding knowledge, etc., they enable. And we see it in the United States in an extreme form, because the United States is a bit simple besides brutal. And that is a very dangerous mix, I must say. So, here is my take. My take is that one mode, and it's just one, one mode of beginning to contest that is to sort of transversalize, you know, there are many aspects that different communities share. And you begin to see that in Europe a bit, right? And so that we begin to learn from each other and that we can push our political classes to do a bit of harder work, etc., etc. And I can imagine, I can imagine but so I have a bit of a negative view of what comes next in the next 20 years. I think capitalism is truly in an epoch of decline. Epochs of decline are often handled via the militarizing of solutions, you know, that's, it's not a good moment. Declining empires are brutal in a way that they are not when they are rising. The civilizational project disappears. And it's power and fear and so, so I think we must start working like after this conference is over like that's in a few hours we should start mobilizing my clock. Cross communities, you know, look, I don't like the word community very much but localities. We need to create mass. We need to create territories that are our territories. And to cut across whatever, you know, the superstructure of national sovereign, the conventional geopolitics we need to make a new geopolitics. Literally geographies and politics. And that means really cutting across all kinds of stuff. Those who don't want to come with us, forget them. We move on, right? And the political classes, maybe they'll wake up, maybe there will be some brilliant ones. There always are, you know, some good politicians. And so something along those lines is what I see. But we have got to start working now. How's that? Are we ready? Well, I'm not particularly good at forecasting the future. I prefer to look at the present and I prefer to urge us all to try to develop a different gaze of the present in order to unearth the potentialities of the present and to start building a different future. From the point of view of what is currently discussed as the refugee crisis I think that we are confronted with a situation which is full of such potentialities. We don't have to see only the kind of violence, the kind of dangers that are undoubtedly there. But in order to confront these violence, in order to confront these dangers, we have to look for the potentialities that are hidden in the present. And these potentialities are huge. Both if you look at the stubbornness of movement of refugees and migrants. And if you look at the multiplicity of solidarity initiatives that you have everywhere in Europe. This is a kind of glimpse of the future and the future that we need is a future that is of course predicated upon these new geographies that Saskia was evoking now. But part and parcel of these new geographies is also a different Europe. Is also our ability to conquer Europe as a political space for a new project under the sign of radical equality and radical freedom. So Sandra mentioned the future and the present. I would like to start with the history because Hegel said Hegel once said if you learned anything out of history is that we didn't learn anything out of history. So let me give you just a very short story from his book developed from Gestan, described in the beginning of the 20th century two world wars and took his life in Brazil later. These two stories are the following ones. First it was summer 1914 Stefan Zweig was having vacation near Vienna I think it's baden or something like that and he said it was the more summer in German the summer was summerlich denier. And people were, you know taking a bath, swimming in lakes and so on. And then the next month boom, the first world war. Okay, this is still not the end. In his book developed from Gestan Stefan Zweig describes very well he was living in Salzburg then and he says the following. So this is just before the breakout of the second world war. My house in Salzburg lay so close to the border and so umgebracht as Garden Mountain on which Adolf Hitler's house stood a very disturbing neighborhood. This proximity to the German border however gave me an opportunity to judge the threat to the Austrian situation and the national socialism that was effect Austria. And I think precisely in Austria today we find ourselves in such a situation. So I cannot end up with optimism I can only end with hope Denn ich denke, das ist das, was wir heute brauchen. Wir müssen uns den naiven Konzept der Optimisten erheben, aber wir brauchen Hoffnung. Und seit wir ... Wir haben es gemacht. Vielen Dank. Und wir geben Daniel zurück. Was ist der Grund? Was ist der Grund? Was ist der Grund? Was ist der Grund? So viel für diese wunderschöne Musik. Ich denke, diejenigen, die verstehen, dass Deutschland die Origin der Musik verwendet. Es ist eigentlich based auf Trendscripts von Interviews mit Asylumseekers von den Austrian-Authoritäten. Sascha, willst du vielleicht uns ein paar Szenen über die Origin der Musik? Ja, wir haben das Song 3,5 Jahre ago gemacht. Es war ein Teil der Performance. Wir haben es für ein Festival hier in Vienna, Wienwoche. Wie gesagt, es ist based auf Texts, Trendscripts, Interrogationen von den Austrian-Authoritäten. Es ist ein Teil der Musik. Es ist ein Teil der Musik. Es ist ein Teil der Musik. Es ist ein Teil derốiress authority, Elemente. Es ist eine Monica-Star knee方面. elemental Australien jongb cars, hier, wo il flosht. Interrogationen student. Do you actually know have been interviewed? Yeah, me personally know. There are some people in the course, everybody bought your tickets, or you entered the theater, and we announced to donate half of the entrance fee to the initiative Helping Refugees. I just wanted to tell you to whom exactly we thought of giving the money. First of all, one part will go to the Schweigende Mehrheit, you saw the performance at the beginning of the first part, Another part shall go to an educational project working with refugee system Austria. It's called PROSA. And again another one to the eight. One part goes to the assistance of Macedonia and NGO that emerged during the recent crisis, or the actually ongoing crisis. These four will be the recipients. Now let's go to the next round table. I'm moderated by Robert Miesig, a Vienna based journalist and political author. Robert, the stage is yours. Yes, the stage is not only mine. It's the stage of my three guests at this last panel. Katja Kipping, Walter Bayer und Janis Varoufakis. If I may say that three comrades and friends since years and decades, I'm very glad to have all of you three here at our evening panel. And I'm also very glad that we have you here. You, the not really audience, the people who share this evening with us and share these common feelings and this common energy. We want to bring out of this room. Thank you everybody to be here. Katja Kipping is a member of the German parliament and head of the German party, Die Linke. Welcome Katja. I'm glad that I can be here with all of you. Walter Bayer is the Austrian guy in this round. He is from Vienna and he is an Economist and Coordinator of Transform Europe in Vienna. Thank you very much for inviting me. And Janis Varoufakis is an Economist too. And he is former Minister of Finance from Greece. The issue of this last panel is Europe's failing foreign policy. And we don't even know in which way foreign policy is failing because at the beginning European foreign policy is the foreign policy of the member states. And the foreign policy of the member states was that everybody is making policy against the other member states. So, beginning with that, it's relatively difficult to come to a practicable and humanitarian European policy on the refugee issue as we saw in the last months. Given that we also want to be in a way, not optimistic, but looking for solutions, looking for our options and our possibilities. And I want to give the first question to Katja. If we would think to a practicable and humanitarian solution for this challenge, which has for sure a lot of problems to handle, open the borders for the people, but also supporting countries like Lebanon, Jordania, Turkey, as you mentioned, the countries which have really a refugee crisis, what would you say, what would be a progressive policy mix to tackle this situation? Well, a good start would be refrain from doing the wrong things because European foreign policy is characterized by doing the opposite of what could be a solution. And reframing from doing the wrong things such as dirty deals with dictators like Erdogan could be a good start or no more export of weapons and arms. So, stop arms. And unless we don't all over Europe accept that the right to asylum is a human right and it's not about granting mercy, we won't be able to do the first step to a progressive European foreign policy. And speaking about, for example, the Middle East, or for example, about Syria, I just can say that military intervention are definitely no solution for it. And let me point out one thing clearly. I don't know whether anybody will be able to find a proper solution for Syria, but I'm convinced without the Kurdish people there won't be a democratic solution for this country. And the fact that the peace conference about Syria from this conference, the Kurdish forces will be excluded underlines that right now European foreign policy is led by the wrong ideas and by wrong people, of course. The refugee questions underlines the necessity of transnational cooperation. So those who are in favor of a withdrawal into the national cocoon are clearly wrong because the big question of humanity can be solved only within the national cocoon. But the question is not whether we do need more or less EU. I would say we do need a definitely totally different EU. This Europe does need a fresh start. And regarding the refugee question, we do need a pen your ... ... taking in refugees. And if you now would ask me, okay, how can we convince those member states who are under a right-wing government, for example, or under just a conservative or neoliberal government, I would say, okay, I propose a special financial support for those countries' origins who are taking in more refugees than they are responsible. And this could be financed. The European level just has to take a bond, a European bond. And this should be used for housings as well as for refugees and for people with just low income. We do need a European bond. This could be refined by a European wide taxing of millionaires. So I am convinced without the old left claim for redistribution, we won't be able to find a proper solution for those questions. Thank you. Thank you, Katja. I want to ask my next question to Walter. Also, because we are now in Austria in a very difficult, let's put it frankly in a very tense and maybe the most dangerous situation maybe since years. How do you think that we in Austria can bring forward the solution to the challenges we are, the Austrian left is now? How can we come out of this dead end? Well, let me start by quoting a saying by Bruno Kreiske. Lernen Sie Geschichte, learn history. And from this point of view, the refugee issue is quite close to me because here in Vienna we had before 1938 a Jewish community of 170,000 people. And after the war we had only 10,000. And 50,000 of them were killed and exterminated in the camps, but 120,000 of them could escape. And what they found when they escaped, closed borders, prison camps in the UK, in France, in Switzerland, you may know the story of Josef Schmidt, a world-famous tenor who ended up in a prison camp in Switzerland and when after an international campaign he was released, he lived only for three days because he fell ill in this camp and simply died. So I would say first of all that people, ordinary people must understand that there is a moral duty to open the border and to receive people and to treat them humanistically and friendly and welcomingly. And now to your question in particular. During the debate one comrade said, what did change after the summer of Solidarity? And I would say it changed because the same people who helped the refugees are still there and doing the same things. The only thing which actually has changed is the attitude of the government, the coalition parties and the big media. And that leads to a change in the population because people who formally did not dare to speak out against the refugees, still dare to do so. And they occupy public spaces, they go to assemblies, they gather in front of refugee sites and refugee homes and they make noise and this has changed and this is the responsibility of politics, of political parties and of mass media and we must cope and we must oppose this. And let me say one open word as a member of the Austrian Trade Union Federation. It is scandalous that the chairperson of the Austrian Trade Union Confederation raises his voice in favor of coalition with the free party. And it is not only scandalous, it is crazy. Right? Is the outspoken enemy of the labor movement, of labor rights and of the trade unions. And for this reason, the ÖGB has in its statute, I think it's paragraph three stated, the ÖGB opposes any kind of radicalism, any kind of racism and any effort to take away democratic rights of the people. And they must apply to this statute. Only this thing. And the last sentence which I want to say in this context is, well, there is what to do. There is of course an easy answer, the popular answers, they stay together, talk to people, do good things. I'm afraid the answer is more complicated than this. I believe that we must recuperate politics. Meaning we must not leave politics to those parties who have created the mess in which we are in. Yes, thank you. I think I can't earn more applause than this. Thank you very much. We hope for the time where you don't get applause for that. That would be a great time. Janis, I want to touch a little bit another field or interconnected field if you allow. How is the social crisis and the humanitarian crisis we are now facing, which means the negative attitude to refugees interconnected. Because also in the question of foreign policy we have this European disaster that every country is working against the other country. We had it first at the question of the financial crisis. Now we have it again with dealing with this humanitarian challenge. On the other hand, we can only solve this humanitarian challenge if we leave austerity politics. Am I right with that? What would you say to that? You're absolutely right. The disintegration of the core of the European Union which is due to the economic crisis which was inevitable given the way we constructed the European Union and in particular the common currency is turning a sequence of three words into a joke. Put together the words European foreign policy and you end up with a joke. Before I come back to the relationship between the economic crisis and the joke that is European foreign policy let me say that it is absolutely impossible to have a coherent, let alone humanistic European foreign policy as long as Europe is under or within the black cloud of NATO. It is really very simple. Speaking to what Sretzko Horvath was saying before about the geopolitics, we will not be able to solve the geopolitical equation that leads to refugees streaming all over the world. If we maintain the Cold War alliance with the United States that is firstly, besides the point now, when the Cold War is finished and we have the relic of the Cold War which is trying to find, constantly to find reasons for perpetuating its existence and at this point I want to draw everyone's attention to a delicious paradox, a terrible paradox but it would be delicious if it was not so toxic. It is this. Let me take you back to 2015 when our government was elected of lenders to a port of austerity to reboot Europe by ending the toxic bailouts the extent and pretend loans which were coming to us to the whole periphery of Europe attached with Australian strings that furthered the deflation and in the end came back to Austria and to Germany in the form of negative interest rates that as Volkan Schäbler correctly said is inflaming the forces of reaction to the deathday of ultra-nationalism and so on and so forth. During that period, what was the position of the United States of America? What was the position of the administration? When we were elected, let me remind you President Obama came out with a very good statement. He said, I don't know whether this is verbatim but the essence of what he said was that the principle of the greatest austerity for the most bankrupt nation, he meant Greece was, that's what we were saying. So what did Europe respond to that? Get off our territory. We are not going to be lectured by the United States of America. We just hold this for a moment. But when it comes to foreign policy it's NATO and it's whatever the United States Administration says except that the United States Administration is confused and they are fighting each other. So the State Department has a different policy in Ukraine than the Pentagon. The Pentagon has a different policy to the CIA. You have the same country sponsoring different terrorist organizations, different resistance groups and different political forces throughout the world. So the only conflict is between different agencies of the United States. Europe is waiting for the line, because if we were in a Communist Party. And the Washington Line, once Washington decides what it is, it simply regurgitated, recapitulated, repeated. So compare and contrast. We have a unique capacity in Europe to import only the bad things from America. So the new deal, the idea that austerity must end in the periphery of Europe is rejected with contempt by Europeans wishing to insert their own independence in the United States. The good things are rejected. All the terrible things that come from the United States immediately will up the map. And I think that in this paradox you understand how advanced a stage of disintegration we labor under here in Europe. We have now two minutes and 25 seconds, maybe some seconds more. So let's come to the last round where we should really talk about what kind of difference we can make. Because it doesn't make a lot of sense to say, okay, the government of Germany, the government of France, the government, they are all bullshit. They don't know anything and if they do something, they do the wrong thing. We know that. But what can we do? What can DM do? What should DM be? Is there, put it in the question of a panel, is there pressure for another European foreign policy possible, pressure by the people, by the citizens of Europe, by us who are in a kind of discontent with this policy? What would you say? I think it's free, maybe. Yeah. Well, first of all, I share Jan's passion about NATO, the dark cloud over Europe. But let me say, here in Austria, we are not a member of NATO, we still are a neutral country by the way. This neutrality of Austria was recognized in the Lisbon Treaty. So it is not so that there is a complete congruency between NATO and the European Union. And I think and I believe that the Austrian left should stick with defending the idea of neutrality, which is not the idea of isolating existing in a large sea of violence, but which is the idea of demilitarization of foreign relations, of creating spaces of cooperation, of being welcoming. I mean that 150,000 Hungarian refugees after the revolution could come to Austria that approximately 50.000 Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union could go through Austria and then to Israel. This has to do. Firstly was the particular international status of being a neutral country. And secondly was the wise policy, which at that time was applied by Bruno Kaeski and Rudolf Kirchschläger and other people here in the country. I think we should stick to this tradition. And finally the issue of optimism and pessimism. There is this wonderful quotation of Gramsci. You ought to be pessimistic when it comes to analysis and you ought to be optimistic when it comes to election. What justifies pessimism is the very fact that we are living in a country where maybe, hopefully not, but maybe we are going to have a president who says culturally, linguistically, historically this country belongs to Germany. Can you imagine this? Can you imagine a Greek president saying our country belongs to, I don't know to which country you could belong. Can you imagine a president of the United States saying because most of us are speaking English we belong to the United Kingdom, this is absurd. And the possibility that such a thing happens is definitely not a reason to be optimistic. But there are reasons to be optimistic because we need reinventing the left but that must be a broad left and it must go beyond party borders and it must go beyond philosophical borders. I mean take the Catholic Church as an example. I have in my mind a picture when Pope Francis took 12 refugees from Lesbos and Syrian refugees, Muslim refugees and brought them to Rome. The Pope was an Austrian citizen. He would be dubbed as a good man and most probably he would shoot for human trafficking. So actually there are things possible. Maybe at the crossroads as we are we have the possibility to create something new to create a new Austrian left to make an off-book a departure and if this happened maybe the rules of the game could change and that's why finally I'm pretty optimistic. There is no guarantee that at the end of the day we will make the difference but I think we have the obligation to try it. And just one concrete suggestion right now we can see that with the TTIP a massive attack against democracy is planned and the good message is we still can stop it and I think it's our obligation to put pressure on every government who wants to ratificate this attack against democracy and this treaty will influence all our lives. So I would say it's the right of all people living in Europe to have a referendum about this and we would of course vote against this treaty. And I would say if the government is not allowing us such a referendum we should take it in our own hands and say ok then let's have a wild referendum because it's our continent. And one tactic remark I suggest we should concentrate our protest on the social democracy because for Germany I know it for sure from the surveys 70% of the social democrats are against the TTIP. Unfortunately the leader, the president of the social democrats is in favor of the TTIP. So we have to concentrate our protest on them because they are the weakest target and they have to be turned in this question. And let me, well, speaking about the refugee question in the media and in the talk shows there always this word problems appears. Problems or potential problematic developments so I'd like to add an optimistic note. Generations have been raised in the idea of post politics. Politics was something considered to be more or less boring and you know you could decide this way or this way it doesn't make any difference. And now with the refugee question we have a question where people in all generations are asked to take sides. And when everybody in the media is speaking about rising, writing populism let's not forget that now there is a new generation who is passionately taking sides for solidarity and I think there is hope and if in these days there is still hope in Europe it's not the achievement of the EU elites it's the achievement of the volunteers and the activists and the pan-European networks for solidarity and this is something we can go on with and let's say clear this continent belongs to us, it belongs to the many and we don't leave it to the EU elites. Thank you. We need to overcome an illusion. There is this illusion, the specter of the illusion in Europe that there is a tension between democratizing the European Union or democratizing and democratizing the nation state, the region, the municipality, the city. At the moment your parliament in Austria has very little power because of the lack of democracy in Brussels. It is a mistake to think that you can democratize Austria better by moving away or allowing the process of disintegration of the European Union to continue. The reinvigoration of democracy in your locality, in your nation passes through the democratization of European Union institutions. European Union institutions do not want to be democratized. They will fight tooth and nail. They have a deep, deep contempt for democratic process for the Austrian people, the German people, the Greek people. They are like a cartel. We need to confront them, to democratize the European Union in order to give more degrees of freedom, more sovereignty to our parlaments and to our city halls. This is the challenge for Europe. And to do this we need a pan-European movement. This is why we set up the democracy in Europe movement. Not because we are somehow Europeanists who believe that the nation state is finished, but because we are Europeanists who believe that the only way of empowering the nation state, of empowering local governments, of empowering communities, of empowering human beings, of allowing individuals to be citizens rather than no man's land, wandering atoms. We must confront the deep anti-democratic streak in Frankfurt, in Brussels, but also in Vienna, in London, in Berlin, in Athens and in Madrid. So, let me finish on a very practical note. Go to dm25.org and become members. Thank you, Janis. Thank you, all of you. Maybe some words from my side. I think it's very important that we as people and citizens from Europe come together, meet regularly. That's the first thing which started with dm25. And it's a huge step that we know each other, that we know each other better. That we start organizing. And what we saw in this last autumn in Austria and in Germany, that there are millions and hundreds of thousands of people who want to get active, but who don't know on which point they can act together. And if we make it possible, these people to act together, then we are, as the great Austrian said, then we are unstoppable. Thank you very much. Thank you for this amazing panel, the closing panel. You don't have to leave now, we finish in ten minutes. But as we're slowly coming to an end of tonight, of course there needs to be a small commercial break. So I'm happy to point out that this event is accompanied by a fantastic brochure called Specter Europe. You can buy it outside at the entrance if you're interested. It's edited by Lukas and Hannah Wallenfels. And it does not only contain pieces of Srećko and Janis, but the famous essay We Refugees by Hannah Arendt and also pieces of the two philosophers Jean-Luc Nancy and Rossi Pretotti. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for that one. So, yeah, we are really coming to an end by now. You won't believe it, right? After the last song, you will of course have the opportunity to get another drink outside and to grab some food. And we will also have a DJ here. So, you are really warmly invited to stay with us and to celebrate with us. At this point, let me also thank for the fabulous catering from the Migrating Kitchen, who did all our catering tonight. As we not only left their food, but we left also their slogan, where art and activism meet labour and politics. We are really matching to this event. So, now we come definitely to the end with the last song, which is a very special and a very famous one. It was written by a legend of German punk music and it delivered both the slogan and the soundtrack for an entire generation of protestors. And yet, it appears to meet our situation today as well. Yes, it's a last song by Lord 29 November, but you might know it from Ryu Reiser and the Thunstein Scherben. Destroy that, what destroys you or in German macht kaputt, was euch kaputt macht. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Stay with us. And now, stage three for the last song. Wer T-Shirts kaufen will, wer CDs kaufen will, kann uns ansprechen gerne. Thank you. I just said, stay with us, celebrate with us, bars are open or the bars actually are open. Thank you very much for joining us tonight.