Greece's Varoufakis to Launch Pan-European Progressive Movement

Hoping to show Europeans they have an alternative to the prevailing system of “authoritarianism” and austerity, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has announced a new cross-continent movement with a “simple, common agenda:” To democratize Europe.

The movement, known as the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (or DiEM 25), will be launched on February 9 at Berlin’s Volksbühne theater.

Varoufakis, who first revealed the plan late last month in an interview with L’Espresso, said that he is hopeful this “activist movement” will connect progressives across the continent and enable them to take back power from the ruling elite and what he described as the “shadowy world of bureaucrats, bankers, and unelected officialdom.”

“To counter this de-politicisation of political decision making, which reinforces the economic crisis and the crisis of legitimacy facing Europe, we need a movement that rises up throughout in Europe, at once, with the same agenda everywhere to re-politicize political decisions and to democratize the decision making process,” he said in an interview with El Diario published on Saturday.

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“There is no other means by which to arrest the awful feedback between authoritarianism and failed economic policies—a feedback that, left unchecked, will wreck Europe and help ultra-nationalism triumph,” Varoufakis added, referring to the rise of ultra-right and fascist forces such as Greece’s Golden Dawn party.

Varoufakis, who has been a fierce and vocal critic of austerity, stepped down from his post within the Syriza government this summer amid tense negotiations with EU creditors.