Yanis Varoufakis and MERA25 Bremen’s Jan Genin talk international solidarity at event in German city
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Bremen, 3 May 2023,
Last Tuesday 2 May, MERA25 Bremen – part of DiEM25’s network of international political parties – were joined by Yanis Varoufakis to present their electoral programme in the event "International Solidarity needs Bremen Solidarity", in the run up to the May 14 elections in Bremen.
Varoufakis, Greece’s former Minister of Finance, is currently a Member of the Greek Parliament for the MERA25 party he leads in Greece. Together with Jan Genin, spokesperson for MERA Bremen, they reaffirmed the international solidarity upon which the MERA25 political project is based. Both MERA25 Bremen and MERA25 Greece will be contesting elections a week apart (May 14 and May 21, respectively).
Excerpt from Yanis Varoufakis’ speech:
"[When we talk] about rents, about energy bills, about prices in the supermarkets, to the minimum wage, all of which don't keep up, don't even come close to keeping up, with the increased cost of living. When we talk about public transport, the abolition of public transport and the ongoing privatisations: all these things we have in common! And we demonstrated that we understand that our problems are the same by founding DiEM25 in Berlin.
We chose Berlin to capture the positive solidarity that existed in 2015. Remember: We had the Indignados in Spain, we had massive demonstrations, the Nuit Debout in Paris, we had Blockupy in Germany, there were movements in Italy, in Portugal, in Ireland, and we tried to capture the spirit of this rebellion, a European, internationalist, progressive rebellion everywhere Europe, by creating DiEM25 in Berlin. To signal to the world that this is not a struggle between the North and the South of Europe, between the Germans in Europe and the Greeks in Europe, but that it is a struggle between the oligarchs in Europe who are German, French, Italian, who are Irish, Portuguese or Spanish and the peoples of Europe, the many, the working class, the precarious, women and LGBT communities who are left completely alone if they don't adapt. We have 7, 8 years of united international struggle behind us.
The fact that we are running in an election at the same time with MeRA25 Greece and with MERA25 Bremen is a ray of sunshine in a dark European Union."
Excerpt from Jan Genin's speech:
"’Prosperity for the many instead of wealth for the few’ is our maxim. And under this simple sentence, people all over Europe, hundreds of thousands of people, all across borders, and from all walks of life, are uniting. And to this goal we subordinate ourselves and stand in solidarity with the environmentalists in Portugal, with the human rights activists from Turkey, with the environmentalists from Montenegro, and even with the workers from Brazil in the framework of our sister organisation, the Progressive International. And what holds us together is solidarity. In Bremen, carried by this international wind and by this idea, we have worked out a great election programme."
MERA25 will run in elections in Bremen on 14 May. Their fitting slogan is: "For the new Bremen solidarity". The party aims for radical change in the most important policy areas that improve the lives of Bremen's citizens, such as transport, housing, democracy and climate. A new solidarity means new ways of thinking, new ways of acting, new ways of living.
The spokesperson of MERA25 Bremen, Jan Genin, is available for interviews.
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Nadia Sales Grade >> DiEM25 Press and media relations - European coordination Mobile + 351966404444 | E-mail nadia.grade@diem25.org
