 Hello, hello, and welcome to another coordinating call of DM25, the Movement for Europe, featuring progressive ideas you won't hear anywhere else. I'm Meroen Kellele and the results of the German elections are in with gains for the Social Democrat Party and leaving a highly fragmented political landscape in Europe's most powerful country. What does it mean for Europe? What does it mean for the people of Germany? We're gonna put this to our panel and hopefully get some enlightening answers. And here are a few more data points for you. According to a recent poll, 77% of the people in Germany find these elections meaningless. And this time, the share of non-voters was bigger than the share of voters for the biggest party. Clearly something isn't right in the German political landscape and people are ready for change. And this is one of the reasons that after our analysis round, we'll switch gears to talk about a radical new offering that is coming to the German electoral landscape in a matter of weeks. Yes, you guess it's. DM25 will soon be announcing a political program for Germany as well as a party to bring it to the ballot box. So what can be done in Germany? What can we do in Germany? What can you do for Germany? That's what we'll be discussing. You out there, if you have any questions, comments, rants, concerns, anything, please send them to us. We're streaming live. So I put them in the chat and we will put them to our panel. So let's kick it off. Who would like to go first with the analysis round? Go for it. Janis Varoufakis. Well, thank you, madam. What a great introduction. I'm with the 77% of Germans who claim that nothing is going to change. It's going to be over ventilating over who's going to be chancellor or who's going to be vice chancellor or who's going to be finance minister. But the moment when we created the M25 was a pivotal moment for Europe. And the reason why we created the M25 is exactly the same as the reason for which 77% of Germans do not believe anymore that the political process can do anything. It's the reason why we live in post-democratic times. Think of what's happening in Italy. In Italy, you have the former president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, being prime minister. He has the highest rating of any prime minister in Italy ever. I mean, it is really mind-boggling. A degree of approval that this man has. And yet, if there were elections tomorrow and he stood, he would not be elected. Now this paradox captures the post-democratic times we live in. Somebody that people say, well, what can we do with this alternative to him? And yet, people wouldn't vote for him. Exactly the same things may happen in the German election. They will have a government that they tolerate, but nobody would actually have chosen. Not even the people who actually voted for the parties that will make up the government. Now the question is why has that happened since you met and you asked for analysis? The reason why that has happened is because we had a Euro prices, which was a fantastic opportunity for Europe to make a choice, to make the only two, to choose between the only two options that make logical sense and which are consistent with democracy and with progress. One is to say the European Union didn't work, let's disband it and move our separate ways. I'm not supporting that clearly, but there's a logic to it. The alternative to that is to say, well, we haven't gone far enough. We integrated monetarily, we have the same currency, most countries in the European Union. That was a disaster because we didn't fully integrate. We didn't have a political democratic union. So let's have one. They didn't do that either. Instead, under Mrs. Merkel, who's going to go down in history as a great paradox, rather agreeable person, quite smart and handy with negotiations and good manager, micromanager of crisis, nevertheless, she's going to go down in history as the European politician that blew up Europe in the long term, who destroyed the chances of Europe to integrate because she had all this political capital and wasted it. And the way she wasted it was by, not just she, this is not a personal criticism, the whole regime that she happened to be presiding over, not just in Germany, but across the European Union. So what they did was to, the banks went kaput all over the West, but in the European Union, there was no system for supporting, a state supporting the banks because there was no central bank capable of supporting the banks, all of the states. It was a incredibly ridiculous situation. We created a central bank without a state and 19 states without the central bank. That's what we did. So that thing blew up in 2010 with the banking crisis, the bankers blew it up. And what did Mrs. Merkel preside over together with everybody else, the Alans of the world, the South Cossies and the Renzi's and all of them, what they did, they presided over a cynical transfer of the bankers losses under the shortage of European taxpayers, German, Greek, Italian, disproportionately, of course, the weakest taxpayers who happened to be citizens, who happened to be Greek, Portuguese, Irish and some in Germany were left to carry the heaviest burden. The result was at first a wave of populism, of right-wing xenophobic populism that strengthened Merkel because she was the only bulwark against this. So she destroyed that populism and what was left was a population feeling helpless, hopeless. The pandemic hits and what do they do? More of the same, socialism for the bankers, keep printing billions to give to the bankers and harsh capitalism for everybody else, austerity mostly and a lot more is coming. A lot more is coming, whatever they say. So this is a situation we find ourselves in. Merkel, I will say that once more, was the greatest supporter of a system that could not go on. So she propped it up, she built up Germany's surpluses in a manner that ensured that those surpluses could not be invested into the jobs, the science, the artificial intelligence, the green energy that Germany needed. So don't listen to those who say you can't blame Merkel for not looking after the rest of Europe. She was the German chancellor. Our criticism as DEM25 is that she didn't look after Germany, that she looked after the German oligarchy at the expense of the majority of the people of Germany. Having said that, a few comments on the greens and the social democrats. I'll begin with the social democrats who supposedly won, well, they didn't win anything really. I mean, they go 25%, which is historically very low level of support for the social democrats, right? The fact that the Christian democrats fell even lower doesn't mean anything. The socialists, the so-called social democrats, are the worst offenders when it came to what happened after the financial crisis of 2008. It was they who were in power and who introduced the debt break. Huge austerity in Germany, which then Merkel exported to Greece as a gateway into Ireland, into Portugal, into Spain, into Italy, into France, and then back to Germany. So the social democrats who are now being celebrated are the great winners of this election who will change everything. Change what? They are the ones who introduced the austerity. And Schultz is, he could be the finance minister of the Christian democrats. There's zero difference, zero difference. Maybe he's a little bit more to the right. So regarding the greens, the greens, unfortunately, are not the greens of yesterday year. They are not the radicals of the 1970s that we all admired for bringing to people's attention the ecological catastrophe. They've become or neoliberal. They've become absolutely utterly tainted through cohabitation with either the CDU or the SPD in local governments. It is clear to me, maybe, I hope I'm proven wrong, but I don't think I will be, that the leader of the hubbock, whatever his name is, of the greens is probably now eyeing a coalition with the Christian democrats because it's his fastest route to become finance minister. And what the greens are going to do, they're going to be Christian democrats with the fund. The only thing they will secure from the Christian democrats or from the SPD, Schultz may give this to them in order to become chancellor, who knows who cares. The only thing the greens will do is they will secure an off budget, off books fund. Money will go, public money will go into that fund, but according to the German constitution from what I hear and what I read, they can violate the balanced budget constrained law legislation. If they set up a fund and throw public money in there, that does not count as part of the deficit, but provided that that fund is not democratically controlled, that that fund is controlled by technologists. So they will create a green fund that will not be controlled by the demos. I despair personally. This is why we need to fight against the greens, against the SPD, with the same fervor that we're fighting against the CDU and the CSU. They are no different. And this is where the second part of the discussion is one that I'm really looking forward to. Thanks, Janis. Johannes. Thank you. I will go back a little bit to the election campaign that we were rather, in my case, suffering through here. I went through Berlin and I'm a biker. I'm going to the city a lot. I saw all the posters from the different parties and I really missed some new ideas, some content, which also this poll that Meran cited in the beginning was about people missed content, people miss actually that topics are discussed profoundly and some new ideas, some Green New Deal, some basic dividends, some job guarantees, something that makes you think like, oh, that is interesting. Maybe they have a good idea. They have a plan for the future. Then the results came in. And yeah, I think it was exactly as Janis described about the main party, but a huge disappointment was also, of course, the left party results, which was below 5% and they made it in just because they got three direct mandates in major cities. Otherwise, they would have been out of the parliament and especially there, I voted for them, but they lack a vision. They lack some positive proposal for where we should go with all the big things that we have in front of us of fighting the climate crisis, fighting inequality. And they had, for example, from the big parties, the best climate policy, better than the ones from the Greens, but they were absolutely not campaigning on it, which I cannot understand at all. I think what's also lacking there is economic expertise and attacking the government for the bad economic politics they made the last years. And I think what we also concluded in one article that we wrote comparing the party programs with the Green New Deal is that they are simply not good enough. And one small remark also to the European Progressive Party Vault, they didn't have a very good result. And there was one little story that I wanted to tell you, to share with you, which showed again that they are really not a Progressive Party, because I was reading an article the other day comparing or arguing for and against the Deutsche Wun and Eignen, the expropriation campaign against big housing companies. And I went through the pro argument, which was an activist of the Deutsche Wun and Eignen campaign, arguing for why this is a good idea, and I agree. And then I came to the contra, the against argument. And it was the leading candidate of the Vault Party in Berlin who argued against the most, the only highlight of this election, the only thing that can show that there's some hope that there's possible majorities for very left proposals in the German societies. So this shows that this party is unfortunately really not Progressive and Progressive should really search for a different place to do politics, especially if they are pro-European. And I want to close with the Deutsche Wun and Eignen campaign that you all should really have a look at. It was the only inspiring highlight of this election results. It was radical, it was concrete proposal, and they had a very positive and good communication, which I think was going well with the very radical proposal of them. So they won this vote. Of course, they're only halfway now. Now they have to kind of put the necessary pressure on the next government, which will be led by the social democrats who don't want to implement this proposal. So the fight goes on there and this was the thing that sparked some hope in my heart. Thank you, Johannes, for ending on a positive note there. Judith from Berlin, Judith Mayer, go. Yeah, hi. I wanted to add to Jan's excellent analysis and that is that apart from this special investment vehicle for green investment, we may also see higher carbon prices, more emissions trading because that is what the FTP proposes for fighting climate change. Basically, FTP is a very business company. They represent the rich people and the big companies. It actually used to be their byline, Partei für Reiche, they actually used to put it on their campaign post as Party for Rich People. I think that's what it can get. Yeah, this time they're trying to be a bit smarter and I noticed that in their Facebook ad campaigns, they're actually promising to rich people, say, frequent flyers. They were targeting frequent flyers with ads promising not to make flying more expensive. And then for more green-minded voters, they were saying, yeah, we're fighting climate change. We need to all get together to mobilize the economy and modernize the economy and fight climate change. So, yeah, they're basically promising whatever. And for me, what was particularly disappointing is that even the Green Party only wants to get to carbon neutral in the 2040s. I think the Linke wanted to be 2035. So it's kind of ridiculous and this was driven home even more when I recently read a tweet by the CEO of Volkswagen. And even the CEO of Volkswagen is asking for an end to fossil fuel subsidies and end to non-electric cars and end to car subsidies and end to fantasizing about hydrogen driven cars, better promotion of cycling, more pedestrian-friendly cities and so on and so on. So it's like if you want to have a green government, you might as well start with the board of directors of Volkswagen. You'll have a better outcome than if you ask the Greens. Thank you, Judith. I have a question from the chat asking our take on the recent referendum in Berlin to expropriate major landlords and decrease the price, decrease the rent. Clemens Holtmann, can you speak to this? Yes, absolutely. I wanted to. First, I absolutely agree with Janus that we will see more of the same version of the budget of the book budget with more green investment, but not good enough and return of the debt break and so on. But I wanted to add some points first about Die Linke, which is the left party now more on the Social Democrat Party of Germany and then about the referendum because one very, very interesting slash dramatic result about this election was the result of Die Linke, which as Janus said, they didn't make the threshold. They barely got in because they got three candidates directly elected. And this might be a bit controversial, but in my view, they are finished. And they have now huge internal fights which are between the urban folks. So urban left wing people in Berlin and Leipzig and so on. And then you have a group of the left in western Germany around Sarah Wagenknecht. And then you have this old left eastern Germany. And I think this is a fight, a conflict that they cannot win because it's too complicated. It's going to be loose, loose, loose. And so I think it's a wrong fight and what they should discuss and what we should and already do a discuss is about personnel, it's about policy, it's about communication and also organizing, which are, I think, much more important issues where in each one of them Die Linke did a very, very bad job in this election. The personnel was bad on the national level also on the regional level. The policy was not good enough, not radical enough, was social democratic, just not good enough. Then the communication was bad and they don't have any on the ground organizing. They have a bit, but not good enough. And this brings me to Deutsche Wohnen and Eichmann which was the campaign also Johannes talked about to expropriate big housing companies which have over 3,000 apartments in Berlin, which was successful. They got 56% of the votes, which was a huge success and I think there's a lot we and other left movements can learn from because they did so, so many things right and I think a lot of people are very, very excited because such a radical demand to expropriate and we have this in the name and the slogan. So we have in Berlin everywhere there are posters saying Deutsche Wohnen and Eichmann which means Deutsche Wohnen is one of the big housing companies expropriate them, which is a word never used before or very rarely used and they managed to get a majority even though the left party in Berlin lost votes they got 14% of the votes in Berlin for the regional election they managed to get a majority 56% for this very, very radical demand and I think there's a few things we can learn from first that they concentrated on one very, very popular very burning issue which is housing and rents. So in Berlin it's a huge issue and then secondly that they have a clear opponent which is big housing companies which own over 3000 apartments Vonovia Deutsche Wohnen and so on a third that they had a very straightforward, clear plan to win this so it's very is just two steps the first is collect enough signatures and then second win the referendum and so everybody got this everybody knew okay we have first collected all the signatures and then we have to win the referendum and then I think this is also the communication was very good, very bright, very positive but I think the most important step what they did was a massive, massive underground organizing so they had dozens of groups in Berlin with hundreds of volunteers who just joined who never met the leadership I mean they have a leadership but it's not like very popular they don't have any, they have a few speaker but they are not, was very, very on the ground organizing and many, many people joined because they liked the idea because they knew what they had to do just collect signatures in the first step and then in the second step they went out to get flyers to people to knock on doors and many, many people joined and I think it's the first time in a long time that people actually won against big business so this is something everybody is very excited about but then on the opposite side now because it's not directly goes into law now it's just something, a demand to the parliament so now the next step is the parliament needs to take the measures to actually expropriate this housing companies and the SPD, the Social Democrats in Berlin already said they are against this now they said they will check it but everybody knows they don't want to do it the Greens already said they want to make a deal with the housing companies and use the referendum as leverage so they are not really interested and the left party is too weak to actually do anything about it so now we have this strange situation where we won this referendum and everybody is really excited but we don't have any strong representation in parliament who can actually implement it and I think we need one Thank you Clemens, Claudia Claudia Trapp, you're muted Can you hear me now? Great, perfect, thank you and thank you everybody for your analysis it was pretty much sad everything I was thinking about actually since I did not have too high expectations for that federal election I must say I'm only partly depressed even the poor performance of the left as incredible as it is was predictable with internal differences and the party damaging person of Sarah Wagenknecht this left is unelectable for many young and diverse people I can't feel them really what I observed is that most of the people can actually get along with the traffic light in Germany simply better than another grand coalition or lasher as a councillor for many a government with the SPD and Green sounds like a slight trend to the left how much they will be mistaken if they believe that this will save the climate or is the end of the social division of the country will become clear in four years by then we should be really with the electoral wing in Germany to take on the role of the party that we all lacked last Sunday we are on the right track our electoral wing will be transformed into a real party at the party congress in November 13th in Berlin and from 2022 onwards we will be able to take a lead at the local level also in the national level and the European of course as well my approach is I'm not too sad I mean what Janne said this is not the end of the world it was predictable and let's go on and find a better way to do it better than the left and all the other did in the past so that's my attempt on it Thanks Claudia and traffic light there a reference to a coalition between the SPD and the Green Party and Greens yeah because it sounds like yeah and the Libertarian free Democrats thanks Claudia Rosemary Bechler Hi I just wanted to say that Felix Hoffmann, a GM25 member did a really excellent presentation on the street by street organisation for the referendum in Berlin and he gave that at a meeting of the deliberative democracy group and we recorded it in some of the discussion I do hope that we can put that somewhere on our website because it really is the thing that's given me most hope for the future as I've heard in many a long month Thank you Rosemary Srećko Yeah I mean many things were already said I hope I can add something new I mean as someone who lived in Germany and as someone who comes from a country which has like more than 400,000 people in Germany of course the German elections are very interesting and important for me and it will also have effects on the periphery especially on countries such as Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Serbia and so on but what could we learn from the German elections I think first what we can learn is that the young voters are actually really interested in politics they still believe in politics unlike some other people we can also learn that I mean what was missing at least to me personally but I guess also to many younger people that's why you had the hunger strike in Germany a massive climate movement just before the elections in front of the Bundestag is that the programs of the existing political parties in Germany lacks vision it lacks radicalism it's not radical enough I mean what we learned again is what Janis actually said that the German voters that not much did change in ex-Yugoslavia we had this saying that after Tito so I would say in Germany it's similar in a way after Merkel not in the way of similar to Merkel it will be a big chance for but in the sense that the German voters have chosen this myth of stability instead of any kind of radicalism what I find interesting as well is what Clemens said already there were a political party for instance the Linke in Berlin who are of course in a coalition where the coalition partners didn't support the referendum on expropriation when the left goes into social material questions such as social housing and so on they have a possibility to win and I think this is a big lesson what was really lacking is these social questions and also approaching the climate from a social mass perspective because what Judith said previously it doesn't give me a relief that the CEO of Volkswagen is against fossil fuels and opting for electric cars I think electric cars are part of the problem and what's happening now is precisely a continuation of stability but instead of fossil fuels we will have green capitalism where the big German car industry is actually on the one hand in competition with China while they will be exporting diesel cars to the periphery so I think one of the biggest lessons is definitely that there is a young generation which I think will become even more radicalized maybe similar to the 68 or not to mention the German spring you never know but I definitely think that the youngsters in the next months and years will be very disappointed by politics in Germany and I think that's a big chance also last point but not last is I think the class issue is the crucial one whether it's about social housing healthcare system citizenship or something which the proletariat or the workers in Germany care about that's it Thanks Srećko the German voters have chosen the myth of stability over any kind of radicalism and this brings us to the end of our conversation where we're going to discuss the party that DM25 will soon be launching in Germany. Johannes Fähr could you put us in the picture with regard to that since you're one of the people shepherding this process with pleasure thank you I think Claudia already announced it on 13th of November we will have a big event in Berlin and we will present a new real force for Germany a party we will also present our program with some radical demands such as Deutsche Wun and Eignen to really speak to make it realistic to people out there this is something that can change that we can win together if we come together and actually build this force that we need on the left in Germany because we know we are in front of a huge transition that we need to make because of the climate crisis will get worse we have to tackle this also in this election campaign there was talk about the climate change and the issue a lot but all the proposals on the table are actually not enough even the Greens don't have a proposal that is radical enough so there is a big transition ahead of us we also have the possibility to change a lot of other things that are burning issues that we need to change for example the inequality in Germany the housing in big cities many other things that are close to workers' demands workers' rights, we will be on their side we will have realistic proposals we will have a rebellious attitude about them we will be confronting the big players who are in the way of this because there is no other way we cannot be playing a soft game of making small changes to the system because there are big things that need to be changed and we need to tackle them so we will have a quite radical program that we will present but at the same time this will be a vision and this is something that was also lacking from the German political landscape a positive vision for the world that we all want to live in there are so many parts that we need to change in terms of using less oil and gas this is oil and gas is the sun energy that was in the ground for millions of years we took it out we burned it in a couple of dozens of years and now we need to switch away from that and that will be really demanding a lot of creativity from us and a lot of investment into these sectors like energy, infrastructure mobility, agriculture digitization we will need a lot of change in those sectors and those changes are always also a chance all these changes are undone work all these changes are good jobs that we will demand with our program and that we can put in place so people can profit the low income sector can profit from good jobs that we can bring to life with this and all of this will be presented to you on 13th of November in Berlin and then of course in the months and years to come with elections we are going to be active in starting on the regional local level and then going bigger and bigger thanks Johannes, Janis the Judith it is remarkable isn't it that this election took place without any discussion about Europe now I have to mention this because we are the democracy in Europe movement and we are the democracy in Europe movement in Berlin back in February 2016 because as I kept saying back then if it doesn't start in Germany it won't start anywhere I have to mention that this is not the first party we have created in Germany there was a kind of a party that we created democracy in Europe with which we are running the European Parliament elections but I do believe that we have to make it clear to ourselves before we can make it clear to others that this is a very different party the democratic Europe project was about running in the European elections and I was the candidate Serge was the candidate we were running in Germany with a pan-European agenda we were telling German voters if you care about Europe if you care about the place of Germany in Europe this is the agenda we believe we should follow but now this is not what we are doing it's related but not the same we are creating a party for Germans by Germans for Germans we have to appeal to the voters in Germany with a program and the name and the logo that speaks to their heart about their own country a country that is embedded in Europe a country that is part of a pan-European project and a party of a pan-European project but nevertheless this party must be a party that speaks to the German heart or to the heart of the people who live in Germany not those of us who live in Greece or Croatia or Britain or whatever else this is important the broader point I want to make is that if DM-25 has been useful at anything it is at breaking down the fantasy the dangerous illusion that there is a clash between Germany and Greece between the north and the south but we always made clear from day one of our existence as a party as a movement is that it was never a clash between countries or regions of Europe it was always a clash of the alliance between the oligarchs of Germany and the oligarchs of the rest of the European Union against the people of Germany the people of Greece, the people of Italy our political party in Germany must make it clear and we must have a program for elevating the well-being of the majority of Germans which we make absolutely consistent with our pan-European transnational practice and ideology this is what I think is of the utmost importance it is important to be able to speak to all the streets in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin in villages, in rural areas and answering the questions that they have in their mind even if they don't speak the words what's in it for me we need to answer the question what's in it for me now if we manage to connect this with a pan-European transnational project that's success but we have to address that question and we have to remember that when the second question that we will be asked is why are you further fragmenting the left the left is already fragmented between the left of the SPDE the Linke, some of the Greens who still are progressive why are you creating yet another party further to fragment the left the answer is because there is no radical offering in Germany except for the AfD the only radical party that was on the ballot box in Germany the other day certainly the only political party that managed to get elected into the Bundestag was the alternative for the Germans the radical to the extent that the Nazis the fascists are radical there is nothing radical about the SPDE there is nothing radical about the Greens and there is nothing radical about the Linke because the Linke, although there are radicals in the Linke they are too scared to come up with a radical program in case they are being accused of being radicals so nobody has been voters did not have a radical program to vote for except for the crypto fascists of the AfD this is why we are creating a party it must be clear you know the alternative would be to be entrists to enter the Linke party to enter the SPDE to enter the Greens and hoping to change from within well you know what I am 60 and I have waited for these entrists to succeed in taking over those parties now for the last 50 years of my life and instead of taking it over they are being taken over themselves they start advocating centrist policies or neoliberal policies because they say this is the responsible thing to do so let's be clear as to what we are attempting to do on the 13th of November to create a German party that speaks to the Germans this is why I am against calling a democracy in Europa I don't think we should call it a democracy in Europa that was for the European Parliament elections there must be a name that includes references to the question that the Germans asked as a German citizen and secondly it will be the only part that offers a radical progressive agenda thanks Janis I wanted to connect to what Janis said about internationalism and I do think that this is a special advantage that we have as the 25 which is also relevant to elections I mean the one thing is that we are now seeing the rise up of the precariat especially delivery riders and so on when I was in Athens just now I saw first ever big demonstrations of delivery workers and a few weeks before that here in Berlin we had a strike of delivery workers where they actually barricaded the stores where they would have gotten the goods and they prevented all other riders from serving the company's goods so that is definitely one group that we need to mobilize and we can mobilize because a lot of them are international themselves and because they are organizing internationally and we can help them organize with our international experience but also when it comes to topics that people might think are very national for example unaffordable living or the pension system these are really European topics because if the pensions in southern Europe decrease they have one more argument to decrease pensions here in Germany the same has happened with wages the argument has always been Germany cannot afford a higher minimum wage because the southern Europeans are working for cheaper so we really need to tackle this with the European spirit and I think that this will be the key to convincing people that we can make a difference and obviously we have all these new ideas and we can communicate them internationally by pointing out in which cities or regions they are already being implemented or whether being tested and what their experiences are with that and I think that this is an angle that we need to pursue Thank you, you did Jochen Schulte Hello everybody very very interesting sites of these electrodes tonight and that's what I'm used to because I'm not living in Germany anymore I'm living here in Greece for the last 40 years and I tried to collect some of the views my family has my friends have and actually the picture was nobody really is interested in what would come out in these elections so that's what I have in my head, I'm completely confused I don't expect anything what has to be said about the parties is all I read in all the the analysis on the internet and yes we desperately need our electoral win in Germany I had the luck to be part of the team which was preparing all these next steps and I probably will be present on the 13th of November there too and I can say that I admire all these people who have been part in the preparation process and of course we have them here it is and there are a lot of other young people as well which is important we need young people what we have seen in the elections now that was each the free democrats and the greens have voted young people under 30 have voted for them and I think the other 50% will be voting for us in the next elections thank you thank you Jochen and let me put it to the whole panel if somebody out there is watching this and they're part of the 77% of people that felt the German elections were pointless 77% of people in Germany and they like what they're hearing what would you say to them they want to get involved they want to do something how could they get involved how could they do more and step up and help to make this make this party strong Johannes thank you I think when back then I was not a founding member of the DM25 for a co-founding member I read about the founding in some newspaper back in the days in 2016 and I thought wow this is this is cool this sounds really good this is something I want to be part of I went to the website I signed up and I received newsletters for 6 months I never did anything and then I was travelling I was travelling to Paris and Barcelona that summer in 2016 I thought I was travelling alone at that time and I thought like ok I'm part of this European movement shouldn't I maybe try to meet someone I wrote into the forum and I met people I met DMers in Paris I went to them on a huge work demonstration for working rights I went to Barcelona afterwards and I met DMers and I discussed in Spain the problems that we have in Germany and after that I went to meetings in Berlin and I just started to get active started to see that really it is there's no real special skills needed there's really something that to do for everyone as a group as a part of a collective even if you have never done politics if it sounds theoretical just start doing it there's a German saying the other's also just cooking with water so I can just tell you come I've also haven't been couldn't been having imagined being part of a party actually back then which now I think it is absolutely necessary that we all get involved into politics because if it seems far away we need just everyday people that have passion that come, that have some time and that help building the future that we all need so I can just tell you go to www.deineuropa.jet which is a German address I'm sorry I'm sure someone can put it in the chat and you can figure it out and join the now still called Democratic Rupa Party already let us help to build up until November and then afterwards and yeah don't be scared really we need all of you thank you for that personal anecdote Maya, Maya Petrovich you're muted Maya sorry I just wanted to add the small thing I think Johanna is that this thing you were just saying is very important because I think a lot of people actually when they want to enter politics in any kind of way are not aware that they can do it at any point and in any kind of way and I know a lot of people that wanted to join Diem asking me okay so do you really think that things can change do you really think that this is a party that will change something I think that a lot of people have this sense of hopelessness and have a sense that all the things that we talk about also in the left are meaningless in a way and of course the German elections now are similar to much other elections that we see in Europe and so I am a bit jealous that this launching of this Diem party in Germany is a really huge thing and I really want to be directly a part of it of course as living in Serbia I can be a part of it internationally the way I am but I would also hope that this idea will spread to other countries in Europe because I think this is also a very important thing that we all think that communicating on the level of this international story is very important that we do it all the time and of course it will be a party that is going to be very important for Germany and it will raise the topics of Germany and of course the German economics and the German situation but I also think by reading the manifesto that a lot of us in different countries also in non-EU countries can be inspired to make a similar movement in their own countries in Serbia we had a similar problem with this question of the left being very much not centralized in the idea we have a lot of left parties that have a lot of ideas that are not radical enough and I think that this is a moment in time with all the crisis that we're going to face the economic crisis of course and the climate change crisis that this is a moment where we can really raise these questions in all the countries and support each other all the time and never forget this international principle even though we are of course raising it now in Germany so I hope that this launching of the party of course after Mera and now with Germany as being a huge party will inspire the other parties to go in a similar direction in the future Thank you Maya very well put and reference there to Mera our political party in Greece which of course is in parliament Jochen, Jochen Schult Yeah exactly this is a great example for what we can do from scratch right from zero with the help of our European structure in DM and I want to add to what Johannes said that we can also become directly online a member of DM and be at the same time a member of the German electoral wing and through the web page of DM we can we will find our German electoral wing as well and be part of a discussion in the forum and everything and reading the announcement what is the what are the party members active with at the moment and offer help or just attend and listen or read what to what they are doing I have to apologize because I forgot to mention Claudia who is the very important person to do the all the press business for the electoral wing in Germany and sorry Claudia it was just at the moment I didn't see you so and yes we are simple people and we are not professionals we have never most of us we haven't been busy with in politics at all so don't think you need to know about politics you will learn by doing and that's our experience in Greece too nobody was a politician and now we have a party with nine party members in the parliament and we are doing a very very important and successful job thank you thank you Jochen Janis spontaneous organizing self-organization those of you who are listening can't wait until the 13th of November even after the 13th of November we are a small organization you can't expect our organizers to go to every village every town to every neighborhood to organize cells groups collectives organize yourselves come together two, three, four, five, six of you form one of our new parties committees, local committees organizing collectives, committees, whatever you want and start doing work and contact us and say we're here but it's important that somebody should give at least on the chat an email or two for people who are listening to this and who want to contact us immediately and directly for material, for advice, for support for taking things further thanks Janis, Claudia yeah, thank you Janis this is a good turn over to me because I was just thinking about telling you something about our Hessin tour because this is exactly what everybody should find as in the summer we had ten weekends with some of our members in Hessin which is Frankfurt and Wiesbaden some countries, some cities we visited and we did some information afternoons okay it was summer, it was in the holidays it was in the afternoon it was a bit difficult but in the end at every single city we had some new people we could talk about and to find them to build local groups as Janis said cells and from there we can grow bigger and that's it sometimes it sounds a bit depressing being there just with three or five people but in the end if these people being multiplicators it can be really huge in the end so and we will start one tour also in Bavaria and also in North Rhine-Westphalia and this will be a blueprint to put it all over Germany at first and perhaps we can also go into the UK to France to Italy and make a great tour out of it and this would be my dream come true that everybody is joining us so you can check out our social media channels where we will be announcing the dates and yeah just join us thank you Claudia and as Claudia said anybody can join those tours or create their own the website the URL to join is dm25.org your Hamas to wrap it up thank you I think this was a very exciting call thank you all for your contributions and thanks to the listeners I also just got a small message from a DMer in Portugal wishing us the best of luck and rooting for us so thank you Miguel it's good to know that there are actually some people watching and listening to this we hope that we'll get more feedback on the calls to actions that we already made one more thing that you could do is to do a people's gathering to gather some people and to discuss some of the radical proposals that we are going to put forward and me and Clemens we are actually now going to run out the door and go to one of those little meetings that we have in half an hour in Kreuzberg in Berlin so if you are around you can still make it where we will discuss the radical economic policy that we have in our program proposal at this stage so thank you all for watching and Carpe Diem thank you Johannes thanks for watching see you again in two weeks at our next live stream