 Hello and welcome to another coordinating call of DM25, the movement for Europe featuring progressive ideas you won't hear anywhere else. As usual, we're going to have our burning issues. That's our take on what's happening in the world this week and then a discussion on Catalonian independence. If you've got comments, questions, rants, concerns, anything you want to say, please put it in the chat. This is live, so we might be reading them out between interventions and putting them to the speakers. Let's kick it off, Rosemary. Good evening everybody. I'm sorry to start in our rather marvellous tradition of speaking about very dark things in this program, but I felt that I had to say something about how International Women's Day has come over in the UK this week and in particular in the parliamentary debate that takes place traditionally today in which we always read out a list of the women who have been murdered in the past year and this year this has taken on a very particular sensational aspect because of the disappearance of a young 33-year-old woman in London, Sarah Everard, who it's thought has been murdered and this has caused a lot of conversation, a lot of discussion in all the social media particularly amongst young women and has been compared almost to a George Floyd moment in the UK because people are beginning to think that we've really got to do something about violence, the importance to notions of masculinity of power and control and force and in the UK and in many many other places this is really a discussion that has scarcely begun although it's a centuries-old problem and I think that for me what it does is that it really does, it oblige us to link the fight for women's rights and emancipation and equality and their contribution and world with the fight for peace, the fight against war, the fight against violence and I do hope that DiEM25 will be thinking that one through. I've heard recently people urging in DiEM25 that we link the Green New Deal as well to a new approach towards calling for peace in the world and I do think that again this makes it a central issue that we neglect at our peril. Thanks Rosemary. Patricia. Yes thank you. Well keep following what Rosemary just said let me add something about what as DiEM25 we propose in Italy for the International Women Day. As we all know women have paid the highest price in this pandemic both at work and at home and to this tragedy we should mention also psychological damage, domestic violence and many many many other facts. The percentage of this terrible situation at the moment are terrible in Italy but not only. You muted yourself but Patricia. Yeah sorry sometimes happened. What we have done is a proposal that I also want to invite everybody who are following us right now to have a look at it on our social pages where we try to explain how we want to put people life back at the center of public space and try to guarantee in that way gender equality and make strongly true, make more strongly welfare and service guaranteed. So I really believe that we did a quite good job and once more please follow us in all our pages where we we did all these. Thanks. Thanks Katia. Patricia forgive me. Juliana. Yes hello everyone. I want to briefly talk about Germany and I think it's very interesting what's happening in the moment here because I just read an article yesterday which compares the government of Merkel to the government of Kohl previously and I think for me at least it marked something because I've never seen the German government fall apart so fast and so quickly and I'm recognizing that the media are also more and more turning against the current government in Germany. Maybe Claudia can say something about this and she saw it too but it's different from being common sense from the side of the media and being very careful with attacking the government because of COVID but that mood changed suddenly and I think there's well a lot of anger amongst the people in Germany and I had a taste of the COVID mismanagement myself the last week when my whole family was sick and you know we all feared that we had COVID and all my symptoms were perfectly for COVID except I didn't have high fever so I called the hotline which you're supposed to call and they said to me you know you can't take a test because you don't have high fever and I'm like but my husband cannot take free from work if I don't take the test and she's like yeah well take some rest so I'm sitting at home with three children sick I'm sick three children are sick not knowing if I have COVID and they won't let me test myself so it's really you know before you heard these stories but then you experience it yourself and you're thinking like what's going on here this is like how am I supposed to get along with this situation and and nobody cares because they are of course they they have I mean the people at the hotline are not my problem right it's the whole information and the whole structure around the COVID in Germany that is completely to be honest I'm German in kind of way you know it's it's such a huge mismanagement that I'm not recognizing the structures that are existing here at this moment so yeah I'm feeling like the mood is changing here very very fastly and with upcoming elections I'm not sure at this point who will have a real chance because I don't see any champion taking advantage of the situation but it's getting to move to us at this point and I think it will get even more so thanks Juliana I'm glad you're feeling better sounds like a nightmare Bera okay one minute I am now on my computer sorry we can hear you perfectly well better go for it Bera we hear you connecting if not I can quick jump into answer to Juliana's question because as I'm following the press very much and yeah she's totally right the situation now changes a lot and in fact that our CEO and CSU W people do you hear my voice now yes we hear you Beryl Claudia is just going to finish her statement and then we'll bring you in yeah did you know that the women movement started during the Ottoman Empire probably you didn't know it yes it is as old as one century century and they these there were feminist there was a feminist movement and these women have fought to increase women's access to education and they wanted to abolish polygamy and they wanted to abolish this islamic way and all this kind of islamic positions of women in the society so what happened 8th of March there was a march in Beyoğlu district the women there were thousands of women and they they were they didn't allow them to go to Taksim place which is the center of the city and so they found another way and walked to Karaköy district but at the end 13 women are in custody now there is no reason why they are in custody because it was a very peaceful walk but you know what happens in Turkey and the discussion is about this Istanbul Convention the parliament and is discussing Istanbul Convention which will really support the women and protect them from being killed by these horrible men I don't know how to describe these men and and every day women MPs are talking in the parliament against this feminist in Turkey and all the islamic rules about making women citizens of an islamic republic so this I prepared a video with a the member of DM Turkey will down do get all she is a designer we talked about the problems of women artists women designers in Turkey and this video was distributed through social media thank you thanks Param and thanks to you out there for bearing with us to the technical hiccups in the overlaps we move fast and sometimes things get broken Claudia you finish your statement please from before where did I stop I mean the corruption scenery in Germany about the the mass country distribution it was a really huge thing and some of those politicians have to reject from their political position and yeah this is a big issue here and I think this is only the top of the iceberg as we say in Germany because there will be I think there is much more corruption in this covid game we can see and I hope this will turn out good for us so that everything will turn out good for the people and the vaccines will come to to to our people very soon and will not stop by playing games from politicians and corrupt big pharma industries I'm really scared about that but cross our fingers guys Claudia Janis thanks madam the last few days have been a nightmare here in Greece we have seen scenes of violence that we haven't seen for decades it was all started by the police there was no police response to violence there was violence occasioned by the police so for instance let me just give you an example last saturday in a suburb a well-to-do suburb of Athens where there has never been any trouble before or ever even back in the days of 2011 or 2009 or 1999 or 1973 when Athens was burning near smirny this suburb of Athens was always tranquil and pretty bourgeois what happened was you know we're going through a very very strict lockdown hugely strict lockdown because of the complete failures of the government to shore up the public health system to have any degree of serious vaccination and people families were walking around the main piazza of near smirny um not not in any great numbers there was no high concentration ratio they were walking it's a lot of piazza and policemen special police a special police force that has just been hastily put together these are not even well trained police they've had something like three days of training on bikes with full armor looking like you know they were going to war not to a bourgeois piazza they stormed in the middle of the of the of the piazza and they started harassing families with kids and giving them 300 euro per person fees fines for having you know violated the quarantine and lockdown rules and some young people who were just hanging around there went to the police and said what are you doing these are just families leave them alone and of course they were attacked and we we had one of those videos that went viral uh of a young man being beaten to the ground a kind of account breathe actually the expression he used was i'm hurting where he was on the floor and he was being hit savagery with buttons by these policemen pseudo policemen and of course immediately within next half hour there was a spontaneous citizens demonstration on the street and then the police attacked them and this this has been happening throughout throughout the country so it's a clear attempt by the government to provoke violence in order to change the conversation um so you know authoritarianism for the purposes of ensuring that there is no debate on what is really going on with the pandemic the collapsing economy from that i want to make a leap from the very micro from this piazza in nezmi in in Athens to the macro european economy you probably haven't most of our viewers comrades friends who are watching have not seen this but we've had some truly catastrophic news from the european central banks um database investment investment in europe during 2020 fell by 50 percent 50 percent lower investment that has never happened in the history of capitalism anywhere in the world a drop in investment by 50 percent and that is important because it's not a drop in consumption you know consumption you cannot buy stuff today you buy tomorrow consumption can can recover quickly but when for a whole year investment goes down by 50 percent the effects of that the scarring that that causes is long term so long term the european union is going to come out weaker jobs will not be created or will be destroyed we are falling behind um you know china the united states india africa everyone and that is going to have how do i connect this to the sins in Athens low investment means more deflationary forces it means more discontent more discontent requires greater doses of authoritarianism in order to impose the the policies of the deep state of the european union and of the oligarchy so it does not go well the falling investment uh from a perspective of democracy and and freedom and fighting authoritarianism exactly the opposite now you heard that recently or bans party has dropped out of the european people's party um well don't be so quick to celebrate because urban is now his party a catalyst or seems to be a catalyst for the coming together of different ultra-right groups within europe because remember the polish right wing and the french le pen national front uh or the assembly whatever they call themselves and salvini were not part of the same thing and fraterri and our band seems to be the catalyst that is bringing them together if that happens the ultra right is going to be the second largest block in the european parliament uh let's wait and see but that is also consistent with the whole point about authoritarianism on the back of fiasco in macroeconomic management pandemic management um is creating uh a brief comment on germany because juliana and claudia mentioned it look merkel merkel's demise was always going to create instability political instability and jostling for position because you know whenever a leader like merkel after ten twelve years of dominance is about to withdraw to to to to to delete the chance to free you were going to have this but what is now what is combining with her departure is a breakdown in a consensus in Germany, a right-wing social democratic consensus, this grand coalition consensus. And from where I'm standing, I think that the FDP is going to make some inroads and that is going to change the calculation for the next government. This is probably going to be a coalition between the Christian Democrats, the FDP and the Greens. And this is a long discussion, but I think this is going to be even more detrimental to the prospects of a progressive Green New Deal for Europe and for political liberalization and political union across Europe. Now, very briefly, to finish off with three countries. I'll start with Spain and Catalonia. The removal of the parliamentary immunity of the Catalan nationalists, Puigdemont for one, is another blot on the landscape. It is remarkable that we still have political prisoners in Spain, even if you hate the idea of Catalan independence. Even if you load it, even if you really are against any kind of independence, Catalan independence, Scottish independence, Bavarian independence, the idea that you imprison people because they are running a campaign and they even have a referendum which some may think it was illegitimate. Okay, so what if it is illegitimate? Don't count, don't make it count. You cannot put people in prison because they held a referendum. Whether you think that it is constitutional or not, the idea of sedition in a European democracy is preposterous. There is no such thing as sedition in a democracy. You cannot advocate for anything you want. And especially if you have the support of a majority of the people in Catalonia trying to change their mind, but to put these people in prison and then to have the European Union saying this is not a European issue. The oppression of political dissent in Spain is a European issue. If you say it to the Spaniards and to the Catalans that it is not an issue that you have political prisoners in Spain, you are giving Orban every reason to imprison people for political beliefs. And what are you going to say to him that it is a European issue? He'll turn around and say, well, you've got political prisoners in Spain. The people I put in prison were seditious towards the Constitution. And Orban has a real majority in Hungary. Now, what we should be arguing for is that it doesn't matter what the majority thinks, that the majority does not have the right to imprison its political opponents, the minority. And two more countries that will fall in my purview are France and Italy. I shall start with France. Comrades, you have a big problem. It seems that Macron and Le Pen are going to be contesting the next presidential election, the second round. And we have a problem. Because yet again, we will have a dilemma. Do we follow an abstentionist stance where we say, you know, they're both two sides of the same coin and, you know, Le Pen represents the neo-fascist right, the racist right. Macron is representing a liberal radical center that is embracing radical racism as they have done and as he has done recently with Islam or Gauchyism and all that. Or do we say, well, one is more fascist than the other. So, you know, we do this and support Macron in the second round. I'm not saying that we should decide now, but this is a serious debate that we must have as part of DiEM25's internal debates. Finally, some of you may have noticed, but the other day I just couldn't stand. I couldn't stand. I just could not hold on. And I could not contain myself. And I tweeted when I read the remarkable news that the new Prime Minister of Italy, ex-Goldman Sachs, employed, gave a contract to McKinsey in search of advice on how to distribute the recovery fund money in Italy. And I don't remember exactly the words I used in the tweet, but apparently it was a tweet that was very much discussed in Italy because I said, oh, so, you know, it's sad to hear that PM Draghi has employed McKinsey to help reorganize or organize the spending of recovery fund monies. What next? Employ the mafia to help him organize the Ministry of Justice. And all hell broke loose. I was threatened. I received many threatening letters. My life was threatened by some people in Italy. I was threatened with a legal suit against me for having defamed Draghi and the Italian constitutional order by likening McKinsey with the mafia. I'm sorry. McKinsey is worse than the mafia. Have you noticed what they have just been charged in the United States? They were given a fine of 600 million by the American government for having peddled drugs effectively, for having taken part in the peddling of opiates that cost the life to 450,000 Americans. And if you read the advice that McKinsey gave to those companies, to the pharmaceutical companies pushing those opiates, it is mafia style. It is precisely, I mean, the mafia one are not as sophisticated as McKinsey. That's why I'm saying that they're far worse. So that's what Italian democracy has come down to. The political system has not managed to produce a prime minister through the electoral system. So you take an ex Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs is a criminal organization. They should have all been put in jail in 2008 for crimes against logic, financial stability and human beings. There's no doubt about that. Even people who work in Goldman Sachs agree with what I'm saying. So you have an ex Goldman Sachs employee who then became the president of the European Central Bank, shut down our banks in 2015 here in Greece in order to blackmail the Greek people to accept another credit card on behalf of creditors that didn't want their money back. They just wanted to plunder this country. So this guy employs McKinsey that that pushes in the United States to help organize their recovery fund disbursement. That's what Europe has come to. And this is how I end. Thanks, Yanis. A lot to unpack there. McKinsey, the mafia, Catalonian independence. Who would like to respond? Rosemary. I'd like to go back to a phrase that struck me that Juliana used. She talked about such a huge mismanagement of COVID, but I don't even recognize the structures. They're not German structures. And I have to tell her that I have exactly the identical response in the UK and that we're not alone. I think millions of people are struggling to recognize the structures of decision making that are beginning to be exposed in this period. And I'm particularly grateful to Yanis for talking such a lot of sense. This is an unusual event on any questions in the UK, but he talked a lot of sense on our any questions. And in particular, about the travesty of 37 billion pounds being spent on a completely useless circuit, track and trace system, and only 1% offered as a rise for the NHS workers that we've all been clapping assiduously on the streets. There's not even a rise. It doesn't cover inflation. So under these circumstances, we are dealing with commonalities. And for people, it's really difficult to see where the alternative is. And I take to heart very much Yanis' question about what on earth we're going to do when Macron and Le Pen are up against each other in France. This is a question searching for the alternatives. And how can we construct those? But I want to finish really by returning to the waiver of parliamentary immunity for the Catalan MEP. For me, this is part of a degradation of democracy that is happening all too fast around us. What on earth is the plenary of the European Parliament doing, choosing which votes it's going to honour and which votes it's not going to honour in the European polity? This is disgraceful. And it's quite clear that it is on the back of Spanish waging of lawfare against political dissent in Spain. And so I think this is an appalling situation. For me, it smacks very much of a general degradation of democracy. There used to be a time when democracies were assessed by the litmus paper of how majorities treated the minorities. And here we're even talking about people who've succeeded in capturing a majority of votes not being allowed to take elective office in Spain and now not being allowed to have parliamentary immunity from the imprisonment and all the rest that's going on in their country. So for me, this is a reminder of what happened to us under Brexit when a large minority was just carved out of the polity and we were left with the lever, hard lever politics as the will of the people everyone else was ignored. This is happening in country after country after country. To defend democracy today, we really are going to have to get a lot more nimble and articulate about all these events. Thank you. Thank you, Reg. We're coming up to quarter two as that concludes the livestream part of our coordinating meeting. Thank you. Thank you for watching you out there. Thank you for bearing with us through the hiccups. See you.