Diemin tiedotus (Euroopanlaajuinen sähköpostilista)

Dear all,

Right now we are preparing pages that will present the members of DiEM25's Coordinating Collective and Advisory Panel. At the same time, we would like to replace the current "Members" page ( https://diem25.org/members/ ) with one that gives EVERY member an equal chance of being presented. Every member that wishes to appear on such a page can be there (we are aware that not everyone wants to have their name and picture publicly associated with DiEM25). We will move away from a huge list of names and instead have an image slider showing random members' pictures with quotes about what brings them to DiEM25. An example: https://internal.diem25.org/en/member_presentations/full_preview/1 (the slider doesn't work on this one)

If you want to appear on this new page when it goes live, please fill out the form at https://internal.diem25.org/de/member_presentations/new . Also invite your DSC members to do so. The more people participate in this, the better it will represent the whole of DiEM25.

Thank you!

Carpe DiEM!

Judith

Dear
Antonello, dear Judith, dear all

DSC-Cagliari1 went through a large consultation (almost 20 people were questioned including other Sardinian members of DiEM25 not included in our DSC) during the last two weeks
with the aim of achieving a common position on the request of sponsoring the
“NO” campaign for the Italian Constitutional Referendum.

Notwithstanding
the "NO" position has a big support among our members, we came to the
conclusion that DiEM25 should not officially take side. DiEM25 is still unknown
to the large majority of Italians and European. Moreover, DiEM25 has just
defined its organizational structure and its democratic decision making
process. Taking side in national pure political debates, in this peculiar phase, can be counterproductive for our new born pan European movement.

There are
objective reasons for concern about the possible combined effects of reforms to
the constitution and the electoral law in Italy: a reduction of democratic
space is plausible and should be of interest to Europeans. However, the
debate, until now, has been managed in a pro-et-contra Renzi propaganda by
supporters and opponents. In our opinion, DiEM25 can not afford, at this
delicate stage, the risk of being associated to this Italian internal political
conflict, which could erode DiEM25 credibility even before being known and
appreciated.

We do also
believe that such a strategic decision should be democratically debated and voted by all DiEM25 members.

Best regards

Matteo Vespa and Alessio Satta

DSC Cagliari

I'll try to say samething without let me take by the dismay.I recived yesterday a message from Massa Critica, Naples, a Rebel City, inviting to colaborate, to partecipate every movement, every partry, every association, independing by the politc idea or other reasons but just trying to unify in 1 voice all the people against this next referendum and for this reason they propose a national and general strake of 24 hours for the next 21 octuber. In the will of this people I see, I understand a clear idea to use the strike as e message to say to the govern that italians can have still a voice, can be a nation, can be rise against the possible dictatorial derive of Italy. I was asking here around if it's possible to ask the implication of DiEM25 Italy in this strake, so as many others moviment I know and with whom I cooperate. Massa Critica, says that any movement can present to theirs contacts/associated as an their own idea, they don't want protagonism, they want change the situation. I don't know exactely which is your idea about DiEM25, but my idea is that is a great movement, good ideas, good Manifesto, but it's also a starting moviment, not still so structured and one by one, day after day we, all together, must work to do it better, doesn't exist perfection anywhere. You, Alessio, speaks about DiEM25 as a creature we have to protec, I think that the citizen must be protect, DiEM25 for me is an instrument not the end to rice the objective of a new Democratic and Solidary Europe. And the work we are beginning to do as members of DiEM25 or DSC is also to give a real, concrete and coherent mean to the world Democracy also inside the same movement.

More: what do you think about the new attitude of Renzi respect to Germany or the rising voice (euphemism) against the conditions that Europe keep about our economical situation? What's about the win of the SI and more uncontrastate power of Renzi....will be the ammount of this the result we want to achieve new democratic and solidary Europe or may open directly to an Italexit? Sure then we can go on, time and time, asking ourself : what went wrong? as we are still doing with the Brexit!

Of course we should have to vote democratically all the members of DiEM25, but I want remember thet referendum is fixed for the 4 of december 2016. Play your game!

The future will have depends from the present we build, this is the right time and the right place.

I go on with contacting all the people and movement I can to spread the general strake, also in the page and forum of DiEM Italy or FB. and i'll publish also this I'm writing here.

You used an argument to contrast the implication of DiEM25 international in this "italian Affair", the same argument I wrote in this forum, but exactely on the contrary: DiEM 25 is still unknown to the mayority of italians....what best occasion to approach italians and europeans to our movement?!?! Here around I ear different people that say we are an elitist movement! Is this DiEM25?

Thank you, sorry for my passionate and long letter but I'M sorry, I' m an euro-mediterranean man.

Dear all,

What is very clear here is that our Italian members, to a varying degree, feel that this is an urgency. Here are my thoughts, reformulating what I have said before. (I speak only for myself, not DSC Paris).

First of all, deciding what is "national" and what is "European" is not simple. Let's not forget that designating an issue as "national" is a way in which the powerful delegitimate the voice of others. This is as old as the nation-state itself.

Second, DiEM25 is based, in my view, on a deconstruction of that artificial border, building a transnational, democratic political movement for real progressive European politics.

Therefore, the strategic issue for me - and here I disagree with Alessio and Cagliari - is to take a stand on the Italian referendum. In my view, the constitutional changes proposed serves one purpose: being able to enact TINA-policies more effectively and with less resistance. This is what 'governability' means today in the EU, don't forget.

Let's remember that our objective is to start the process towards a democratic EU constitution. Before that can happen, and to be legitimate to do it, DiEM25 should take a stand when ever deliberative and substantive democracy, human rights and social conditions deteriorate anywhere in the EU, on any level. Is Polish abortion rights a DiEM issue? Of course it is! Politicians in power now will tell you that austerity measures are national. Using 'national' is a tool to delegitimate criticism. So let's think critically about what is national.

By the way, Yanis Varoufakis intervened in Irish tax policy today. Tax policy is "national" isn't it (I'm being ironic).

The EU can never be more democratic than its member states. So when national democratic governance deteriorates, the battle becomes longer. That is more important that protecting DiEM25. DiEM consists of grown-up, thinking and competent people. DiEM can take care of itself.

My vote will go to pan-European support for DiEM Italy to promote a 'No' in the referendum, with any other movement that they choose to work with.

I'm not Mediterranean, but you can get a lot of fire from me too !

Carpe DiEM

Ulf from Paris

Dear
Dome Nolo, dear Ulf, dear all

I would like to reply to your emails expressing my personal opinion (not the one of DSC Cagliari1). To better frame the actual Italian
debate on the referendum I will to introduce few elements concerning the history
Italian Left in the last decades. I hope this will contribute to stimulate the interest
of our Europeans comrades.

Since more
than 30 years, the “Left” militants in Italy feel deeply orphaned of a leader
and a project. We can date this starting from the death of Enrico Berlinguer
and certainly from the end of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). Nevertheless the
Italian Left, after the earthquake of "Tangentopoli" in 1992, and the
end of the PCI, found a new reason to exist: the ''anti-Berlusconi” battle.
Berlusconi has taken a symbolic value, the emblem of the capitalist Evil with
all its worst defects. The Italian Left concentrating all its energies in this
war to the Evil incarnate person has completely lost sight, renouncing for over
20 years to build an alternative social and economical project in Italy.

After
Berlusconi's departure, in part facilitated by the intervention of the European
Commission (I still wonder why our comrades, never protested against the
interference of the EC and the “financial powers” at that time), and the
arrival of Monti, Letta, and Renzi what remained of the Italian Left shifted
its ideological battle from Berlusconi to Renzi. In Italy, the Left has passed from the fight
against the "berlusconismo" to the "renzismo", nouns have
changed but the result is the same: the Italian Left has given up on building a
political project choosing to exist just as the antithesis of something or
someone.

In this
deep rift between the Left and the Italian people, the 5-Stars movement has
taken root attracting broad masses of the proletariat (from left to right) and
especially young voters, deprived of their hopes. Although the 5-Stars
movement, as is well known to our Italian colleagues, have clearly shown that
their ideas and perspectives stand in the field of the Right.

The Italian
constitutional referendum falls squarely in this “anti-renzismo” dialectic. The
reasoning of the average Left militant (including dozens of my friends) can
thus be sintered: "Renzi proposed the referendum then I will vote NO and most
of all I will vote NO with the real goal to topple his government".

The thing I
find even more amazing is that the front of the NO was formed even before
knowing in detail the content of the questions contained in the same
referendum. This should not, however, distract us from the need to understand
the impacts of this potential reform and to inform as many people as possible
as suggested by many members of DiEM25 in this email exchange and in the last one by
Andrea.

I will not
bothering you trying to explain all the elements of this referendum because the level of technicalities of the reform requires a robust legal background. Nevertheless
I started building my own idea and I found several elements that do not
convince me of this reform, mainly built into the rooms of the governing
parties for a game of political power.

One of these is the risk of reducing the democratic participation by
eliminating the selection of senators by the citizens. These are in fact will
be appointed by the parties through the choice of mayors and councilors who
will go to the Senate being elected for other functions. In broadest outline
the reform provides for a bicameral system in which the Chamber of Deputies
will have the maximum of legislative powers and a reformed Senate, which will
have some legislative powers, will be possibly conflicting with those of the
House.

In addition
to reforming the Senate the referendum provides for the elimination of the
CNEL, the provinces, introducing a centralization of some powers from the
regions to the central state. We are facing a review of the constitution whose
long-term effects are difficult to predict even for the most constitutional
experts already deployed for the "NO".

My opinion
is that we can definitely talk about a “botched” reform, which rather than
simplify the operation of democracy in Italy will make it more confusing and
interpretable maybe paralyzing the legislative process. However, we are very
far from a "possible dictatorial tendencies of Italy" as stated by
Dome Nolo (Tommy) as well as far from a scenario that could " being able
to enact TINA-policies more effectively and with less resistance".

Unfortunately these options are not predictable at the present state of
knowledge.

Dear Ulf
agree with you when you say that it's time for our movement to start the
process towards a democratic EU constitution but we are sure that it is that of
the Italian constitutional referendum the good fight?

A large
part of Italians believe that this reform is wrong and it will not solve
Italy's problems as our prime minister tries to make us believe, but do not
forget that one of the strongest reasons to vote NO is to bring down the government
Renzi and his arrogance.

We found
our enemy and the battlefield became the constitutional referendum and to win
it we are willing to use rhetoric and emphasis.

Citing
Bersani (former secretary of the PD), who expressed is willingness to vote NO, this referendum is typically "Italo-Italiota"
expression that denotes its nature closely related to settling affairs of
Italian powers that have little to do with the great democratic principles
evoked by you.

DiEM25
should not take sides in this conflict not because we are small or because we’re
unknown in Italy, we must not take part in this controversy because it is
just a national issue and / or not enough European but simply because this is
not the “mother of all battles” to save 'Italy and Europe from dictatorship or to
protect our citizens (from Renzi?).

This battle is not decisive to save democracy
in Europe but it is crucial for maintaining the proper functioning of the
Italian institutions.

Let me askyou a question. The official commitment of DiEM25 in favor of NO Campaign who
would benefit? The movement itself? The NO Campaign actors? And most of all which is
the specific weight of our movement between the forces in the field? How many
members of DiEM25 we’ve in Italy right now? Hundreds? Which will be the message
of DiEM25 in adhering to the NO Campaign? “We want to save democracy in Italy”?

I would be
very careful in case DiEM25 decided to join the NO Campaign on how we intend to
communicate our support and above all on the basis of which objective criteria?

You’re perfectly
right when you write that I want to protect our movement and I want to protect
it from the quicksand of the Italian referendum!

The rush to get things done and to let us know, must not detract us from the need to consolidate our strategy to achieve full success in our actions.

The DiEM25 project
is the only breath of fresh air that you breathe in Europe in recent years and
we must all protect it to make it grow like a seed just planted until his
strong roots will enable us to shake up the European institutions and to raise
the consciences of all Europeans. Too much water in this phase might drown it
destroying one of the few avant-garde movements in defense of democracy and
human rights in Europe.

At the same
time, I believe that even at this stage DiEM25 should support the battle of
Polish women against the drafting of the “Stop Abortion” law as well as
the enslavement of non-EU workers in the tomato fields in southern Italy. These
are in my opinion the battles we have to fight against injustice and inequalities
with no geographical or linguistic boundaries for the civil rights of all
European citizens and emigrates.

Let me
conclude saying that is not a matter of who’s more “Mediterranean” even if in
this peculiar challenge being a Sardinian and working in Maghreb and Mashrek for
the last 15 years I think I could have my chances to win ;)

Ciao a
tutti!

Alessio

Dear Alessio, and dear all

I think you just articulated the issue in precisely the way we need to hear it. The main point of my previous comment was to say that we should not go into the debate with an ex ante filter saying : this is a national issue, this is a European issue, this is not for DiEM, this is for DiEM. What I wanted to point out is that, rational, critical voices have always been silenced that way. This is something that we must resist.

Thanks to you, we now have a formulation, a framing of the issue that abstains from the national/European dichotomy and that is a very important step forward.

Now, on the substance, the problem that you describe is not uniquely Italian. All over Europe, we have had the emptying out of the Left, gutting it of it’s substance. In my country of origin (Sweden) social democrats have been the best of neoliberal pupils. In my second country of residence, New Labour « progressives » were neoliberalism with a human face, giving new life to Thatcherism when it should have died in 1996. In my adopted country of citizenship, France, the Socialist Party should just be called the Party, because Socialist it is definitely not.

What is left of the radical Left has largely lost any sense of a project, as you describe. As the writer John Harris wrote recently, the Left is good at demanding change, but not very good at understanding change. The situation that you describe is not a dialectic, because the antithesis is empty! And and empty antithesis makes for bad dialectics. Neoliberalism relies on this emptiness on the Left in order to stay in power.

DiEM is in this sense an essential project. To me, it represents the last hope of a Left with substance, the Left that discovers and fights for the alternative. And the only way to reach this is for the cross-national conversation that has be initiated to be sustained. This is why circumscribing particular questions with the label ‘national’ is a strategic error. We are the European left grassroots movement.

So lets turn to the discussion of substance - what is really going on, and what are the substantive arguments around the reforms that are proposed? You have already given a number of elements, that are very useful. You say that the risk for DiEM is to reproduce the errors of the existing Italian left. I’m inclined to agree. But how do we get around this? Do we need to get around it? Is there a case for saying ‘No’ and, if so, how do we do it without falling into the trap you describe?

For your information, all the French parties on the right are now campaigning with the promise to rule by decree, to enact the legislation that they see necessary to « turn the country around » without consulting parliament. Especially in their sights: labour rights, social security and pensions. This is possible under the French constitution. One right winger even says that it is not normal that it takes two seconds to tweet but two years to make a law, as if these were comparable magnitudes. At some point in time, I’m sure that DiEM France will ask DiEM for support against such stupidities.

Let’s keep this discussion running, shall we ? It’s a beautiful night in Paris, I’m going to enjoy it with my kids.

With all my friendship

Ulf

[DSC-coordination] Involving members in DiEM25's policy-making

Hey,

I'd like to share an awesome message I saw from Virginia (Amsterdam DSC) - see below. She encourages the local members to contribute to the Progressive Agenda for Europe. Can you share something similar with your members?

Note that there are some translations of the Policy Papers Protocol document and the European New Deal Questionnaire, you can find them by going to https://diem25.org/progressive-agenda-for-europe/ and then using the language switcher at the top.

Best wishes,

Judith

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Hi there,

Now is the time to build together DiEM25 Progressive Agenda for Europe!

Some DiEMers have announced the specific questions and policy sections they want to work on. Please check our Meetup Message Board and join them if you are interested or post other specific topic or policy question you want to work on.

http://www.meetup.com/Ams.../messages/boards/thread/50175508 ( http://www.meetup.com/Ams.../messages/boards/thread/50175508 )

The policy papers guidelines (https://diem25.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/160920DiEM25_PolicyPapers_protocol_EN.pdf ( https://diem25.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/160920DiEM25_PolicyPapers_protocol_EN.pdf )) encourage DiEMers to get together and develop concrete proposals for our first three topics:

1. Transparency

2. Refugees & Migration

3. the European New Deal

Every proposal must come out of the collaboration of at least 5 people. These people can work together in any way they like, as long as they all agree with the final document they submit as a group.

Policy proposals will also be discussed at the DiEM Citizen University (DCU) seminars in Amsterdam.

Note that we do not expect the whole Amsterdam DSC to talk about one topic and come up with a common proposal for that topic. Different DSCs members probably have different interests. Read more about this in the Policy Papers Protocol.

The policy paper coordinators will make questions available in order to facilitate the process. For now, we only have the questions for the European New Deal, which you can find at https://diem25.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/160920_DiEM25_European_New_Deal_Questionnaire_English_Final.pdf ( https://diem25.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/160920_DiEM25_European_New_Deal_Questionnaire_English_Final.pdf ) . Feel free to come up with a proposal for just one of the questions, you don't need to answer many or all (it will be a very long Whitepaper).

Carpe DiEM!

Virginia

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[DSC-coordination] About an official sponsorship by DiEM25 of the campaign for NO to italian costitutional referendum

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Guilherne Serodio wrote:

short P.S.

A quick and actionable idea to make DiEM a valuable support for transparency, to help people understand and express their concerns on the italian referendum:

• maybe we could organize something like this http://ballot.fyi/ ( http://ballot.fyi/ )or design something like a googlequestionnaire, where the referendum propositions are briefly and individual explained (I understand a lot of changes are suggested, but all goes under a yes-or-no question?)

We could ask one by one which are the proposed changes to the Constitution that concern people the most and why? This could give us valuable insights on how the population is perceiving the referendum, where we can focus information efforts, and how DiEM can better position to support transparency and democracy. It could also get us in the media, and assert DiEM as a supporter for transparency, engagement and participation...

I can help brainstorm something like that if you want

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About an official sponsorship by DiEM25 of the campaign for NO to italian costitutional referendum

---

Dear Friends,

I agree with Roberta that a short “impartial” briefing on the constitutional referendum is virtually impossible. For this reason, we don’t think it’s of paramount importance that Diem25 take an official stance on it. However, this doesn’t mean that most of us are indifferent about the issue, far from it. Tomorrow we’ll hold a public meeting (see attachment – in Italian), in which we’ll try to link the issues of the constitutional referendum to the issues of present-day European governance and European democracy. In the meantime, I’m sending you a link to a recent article in the Financial Times, in which the columnist, in an unexpected U-turn from a previous stance, declares the new constitutional law to be quite useless in terms of “legislative process” and only in the interest of Renzi’s power: https://www.ft.com/content/5430f982-8a28-11e6-8cb7-e7ada1d123b1 (unfortunately I don’t have access to it any longer, I wonder if anybody can copy and paste the article and share it with everybody?). Quite enlightening, however, is this brochure from the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, intending to attract investors to the country: http://www.investinitaly.com/pdf/en/news/overview-business-environment.pdf . Look at the foreword (p. 3) It says: “Economy is recovering and political stability made it possible to adopt a radical plan of reforms aiming at simplifying our institutional mechanisms and making Italy a much better place to do business […] New legislation has been passed to streamline our labour market, to make our judiciary more efficient and simplify our tax system. Even our Constitution and our electoral system have been changed in order to insure stability and streamline our legislative process” . What for, you may ask? You’ll find the answer in the list of reforms passed by the government in education and labour market, the ultimate consequences of which are in the graph on p. 33 and are spelled out as follows: “Italy’s labour costs are well below other peer economies, like Germany and France. Furthermore, labour cost growth rates registered in Italy over the last three years (2012-2014) are lower than those recorded by Eurozone countries (+ 1.2% vs. 1.7%).” Feel free to draw your own conclusions.

I wish I were able to provide you with a short impartial briefing, but I’m afraid I can’t. I can only say “THEY will vote for the reform. Which side are you on?”.

All the best,

Francesca

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About an official sponsorship by DiEM25 of the campaign for NO to italian costitutional referendum

---

Greetings to all the members,

thank
you for inviting us to the conversation. As Diem25 Napoli we think that
it's important that Diem25 sustains NO at the constitutional referendum
in Italy. Some of the most important constitutionalist professors have
demonstrated that the constitutional reform proposed by Italian
Government will not reach the proposed results, and that will create
lots of disfunctions in the system. It will reduce democracy in Italy,
and will remove some important power counterweights.

The
constitutional reform proposal by italian government represents
everything against which the Diem25 fight against. It introduces a
dangerous idea of governance, an idea that Barbara Spinelli says in some
of her speeches at the European Parliament means reduction of popular
sovereignty that allows the politicians to have freedom to actuate anti
welfare politics, laws that go against the public good, against the
interests of the populations, and that favor some sovranational and
economic powers that are destroying the European Union, those are the
powers under which the people who are governing Europe are submissive.

It
is also widely known that this constitutional reform proposed by the
italian government has been directly suggested by the bank JP Morgan.
Tony Blair, who actually works for that bank, has encountered italian
prime minister Renzi to suggest this reform.

The letter by JP
Morgan to Renzi asking for a less welfare centered and more governance
oriented constitutional reform, and the encounter by Tony Blair and
Renzi, have been widely documented on many important international
newspapers, and you can find more informations about it by searching "JP
Morgan Renzi" on google.

Tony Blair has suggested that Italy
will be the first country where this reform will be experimented, and if
it will succeed, it will be adapted by other european countries.

It's important that this reform fails in Italy also to stop this kind of "governance" to be spread around Europe.