[Lucas] Hello, hello and welcome
good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are. I'm Lucas, Febraro standing in
for our usual host Mehran Kahlili who's away this week and we're DiEM25
a radical political movement for Europe. Welcome to another live debate
with our coordinating team featuring subversive ideas
you won't hear anywhere else. Today, we're here to answer
a simple question: is this European Union worth joining? The war in Ukraine is disrupting life
across Europe, but some countries in the eastern part of the continent
are finding themselves at an additional crucial crossroads. Should they join the EU
or choose something else. from North Macedonia to Ukraine
to Georgia, many countries have expressed interest in joining
the EU at some point. In some cases, these are symbolic
candidacies that exist only on paper for now, but in others, especially in
ex-Yugoslavia, negotiations between national governments
and Brussels are in advanced stages. A couple of days ago, German Chancellor,
Olaf Schultz said: I am committed to the enlargement of the EU, that the EU
continues to grow eastward is a win-win for all of us. Is it really and if not, what other
realistic options are there? We have a panel today of people with
unique perspectives on this question, four of which either live in
or have roots in countries from ex-Yugoslavia: Ivana Nenadovic
and Maja Pelevic, from Serbia, Dusan Pajovic from Montenegro and North Macedonia born and
Germany raised, Julijana Zita. In addition, we have Yanis Varoufakis
and the rest of our campaigning and policy team to give us
an European take. Lastly, we have you, watching us live,
If you have anything you want to ask, put your questions in the YouTube
chat and we'll get them answered as best as we can. To start us off, let's hear from Ivana,
Maja, Dusan and Juliana about their perspectives from some of the
countries that are likely to be next in line to join the EU. Guys, the floor is yours. [Ivna] Thank you Lucas, for this
introduction and thank you everybody who is joining us tonight to discuss
this, not as simple question, as Lucas introduced it, but we will
try to clarify our stances or our perspectives a bit,
and I would like to start with giving a bit of context, because
I feel it's necessary because, even in our Coordinating Collective,
when we were agreeing about the topic, we were floating around different
terms like, ex-Yugoslavia and where it should or could move. Are the Balkan countries
next to enter the EU? Is the Balkan some joint entity
and what is Balkan? Is it a geographical term or it's
just a handful of countries from this region that are
not members of the EU yet? So I think that, first of all, my opinion
is that we cannot approach this as a Balkan question or ex-Yugoslavia
question, but we need to approach each country individually, having in mind
what was happening with each country, from ex-Yugoslavia, after the collapse
of Yugoslavia and in the last 30 years. Is this EU worth joining? A simple question, with
a simple answer - is no, however, if we answer that
simple question, the next one is: What is an alternative,
and is there an alternative? Also, speaking from a Serbian perspective
and being on this very long accession process and having this carrot
and the stick during all of the conditions and conditionings that the EU
has put in front of us. One of them, for example, being worsening
our union and labour laws to adopt them to EU laws which are precarious
and so on, while Serbia still had a good law about working rights
from Yugoslavia. So, not all of the changes are good for us
on our road towards European values. Some of them, of course, like fighting
the corruption or adjusting our report system and exterminating
corruption in the legal system, of course, should be beneficial for
each country, regardless of their membership in the EU
or any other group. Another, maybe, misconception is
that it's up to these countries, it's up to us whether we want
to join the EU or not. There is no choice basically and then,
we need to obey everything and we need to be good
'servants' of our new Lords. This might sound harsh,
but I think that's the case. In Serbia in particular, the other option,
because there is nothing in between either/or, black or white,
EU values or Russian hell. So, being an Orthodox country as well,
for Serbian people, that are disappointed in everything that's been going on
for the past 30 years and the EU, basically not wanting us,
it's not about us not wanting to join, but the EU refusing us
all the time and finding new and new levels for us to pass, the other side to turn
is 'Mother Russia', as the Orthodox country, and also there,
that we need to recognize the sentimental connection between
Serbia and Russia dating from the Second World War, when the
Russian Red Army liberated Belgrade in Serbia and so on. So there is an emotional connection.
It's not rational. We need just to have that in mind. So, I would like to pass the floor now
not to speak too much. I just touched upon some topics
that I would like to clarify. I myself, have more questions
than I have answers and I would like us to maybe
come closer to some answers, and also answer a question: how much is a non-EU country
really sovereign, before joining the EU, and how is it possible, if it's even
possible, to keep sovereignty at this point and also, how would
non-alignment look like these days when we have in mind that,
for example, Serbia doesn't want to impose sanctions to Russia, but then,
it will turn badly for Serbia? I'm not saying that the Serbian
government is doing anything right. Don't get me wrong, but, if we try to
practice un-alignment, then, we are not standing on any side. So this is it for me for now. Maja, maybe you would like
to take it from here. [Maja] Thank you, Ivana. Even a lot of the time, I believe it's
also from Serbia, before we pass the floor to Montenegro, which has
a little different situation than here in Serbia, which is really weird
because, until recently, we've been the same country, but the
politics are a little bit different. So, a thank you for this introduction. I think, it's very important that you
gave this introduction to the whole in a way, socio-political floor
that we have concerning our position to the war in Ukraine and
towards the EU integration. Lukas, you also mentioned one thing,
and that is that some countries are in advanced stages of entering the EU,
which Serbia is, in a way, but it's really very funny to say
'advanced stages', when our process of becoming an EU member started
in the early 2000'S, 22 years ago, and now, after of course,
the fall of Milošević and getting the first,
'democratic government' and in a way, we have been going by baby-steps towards this EU
integration and the end is not near. From 2019 to 2021 no new clusters
were opened for getting membership, in the EU and now recently, of course,
we're talking about Ukraine becoming a full member of EU, not mentioning
these countries that have been waiting for it for more than 20 years,
and now, I think we have, the new date is 2030. That's the one we got,
the last date. So it's like 30 years of waiting to become
a full member of the European Union and of course, what Ivana is saying,
we have been doing a lot of things that we had to do, towards our, in a way,
Masters If we can call it that way, thinking about us as a, in a way,
non-sovereign country. So I think this is also very important
to know, that it's been a very, very tough path of 30 years. So it's not weird to see that here
in Serbia, now, in 2022, you have euroscepticism and I'm not
sure if there was a referendum, how many people would say that
they would enter the EU, because now, I think 80% of people,
recently in samples, are for Russia, actually, What Ivana was saying of this historical,
cultural and other emotional ties we have to Russia are very strong here. They are not realistic in
any kind of way, and I think the only thing we are doing
at this point in Serbia is trying to obtain in this very,
very difficult situation, because we are a poor country,
we depend on other countries, we depend on Russian gas. Also, a very important thing
for people to know is that Serbia got the gas from Russia for a third
of the price that Europe was getting. So now, at this moment, we are trying
to obtain some kind of micro-sovereignty. And, when Ivana and I were talking,
a couple of days ago, about the non-aligned movement
or a non-aligned position we would have, I was saying that
we are now not in a non-aligned position but,
more in a too aligned like, too much aligned position
where we have to grab whatever we can, because
in one way, we are completely sure that the EU doesn't want us. We are completely irrelevant.
They don't need us. We are surrounded by NATO countries. We are surrounded by EU countries. Even, if some Russian troops
could not enter Serbia, even if they would,
they would be surrounded by NATO. So, in a way, when we think
we are relevant, we are not relevant. That is a big problem and also,
we are not relevant to Russia, also, because now, if we impose
sanctions to Russia, nothing would happen to Russia. They would be a little bit sad
and they would be: Okay, our brothers,
they gave us sanctions, but nothing would happen. So, our only position at this moment,
is a realistic one: How are we going to manage to
get through this winter? And that's what I think Serbia is
at this moment, trying to do and I think it's a big problem
to ask for Serbia to do a thing that would in a way,
maybe make a complete collapse of the whole country and the whole
baby steps we're doing towards EU, of course, we know that we will never
enter the EU before we enter NATO. Serbia will never enter NATO because
it was bombed by NATO in 1999. Maybe we can talk about that, also
because we have also these other military threats of NATO
bombing a sovereign country just recently, and at the end of the day,
also, I think it is a question of Kosovo, at the end, we have to mention Kosovo. I know that it's not a popular thing
to mention, but it is something that I think at the end of the day,
Serbia will say: Okay, so what is the difference between the situation
in Ukraine and the situation that we had with Kosovo in 1999? So I think, all of these things can be
a good reflection to think about, and I completely agree with Ivana,
and I would now ask, maybe Dusan, to give an introduction
about Montenegro. We can talk more, yeah. I completely agree with Ivana,
that I have a lot of questions and not many answers to this. [Dusan] Thanks Maja and Ivana. Basically, maybe we don't agree
in some points, but we agree in the core which is: there is no
ex-Yugoslavia, there is no Western Balkans,
it's really country-specific and country-dependent. Even though we are leftists, all of us
would probably shed the tear when we hear a song about Tito,
and stuff like that, but that just doesn't exist any more. Why it's like that, let me give
you a brief context. First of all, we all have our... I will speak in terms of Montenegro:
we have our history, our current and previous burdens, we have our
own tensions and none of that is any more in alignment with
Yugoslavia or anything which is 'the third path' of neither,
EU or Russia. That question just does not exist. Basically, if you ask:
Why it's contextual? Well, the Euro is in Montenegro,
since 2002. Euro as a currency. We already have had for decades,
multinational banks. We have a neo-colonial approach
from both sides, of course, but after 30 years of the same
party ruling, we replaced them with extreme right-wing conservatives, extreme right-wing conservatives
but, incredibly important to stress here: it's not an ethnic division
in Montenegro, it's ideological. So, when you look at the census
before the war of the 90s in Montenegro, you'd see that 90%
of people were Montenegrins and then it passed like that
for a few years and when the big parties played
internally, there are Montenegrins and conservative Serbs, people
choose one of those nations as a pool of their ideologies. It's incredibly complex and really
interesting, especially as I'm coming from a social psychology background,
and it's something that I call: 'Symbolism of Nations',
and 'Nationalisation of Symbols'. Now, don't get me wrong,
both sides have something that's bad, and something that's good, of course,
like Montenegrins are always... I cannot say always, but more usually,
prone to NATO and Serbs aren't. On the other hand, Montenegrins
are pro-LGBTQ, pro-feminist, pro-integration of immigrants,
but Serbs aren't. Serbs are more touchy about the topics
of corruption than the economy, and Montenegrins are more touchy
about the topics of social issues. I cannot say what's better or worse,
but we need to integrate what's best of it and just forget about nation
in their ideological sense of it, I mean, in a pool of ideologies. What's important to stress is that: we don't have consensus here,
in Montenegro on anything. Literally. Like, there's always 51% and 49%, but we have consensus on one thing,
which is EU integration. Before the extreme right wing won,
we had like 80% of people that were up for joining the EU, now,
after the war in Russia, it's still some: it's 75%. So, it's not bad at all. The only alternative that is
offered to either Russia or the EU is initiative called Open Balkan, which a lot of figures said is,
first of all, a big state project, and, second of all, a way of
smuggling easier cigarettes and drugs. That initiative is being supported by US
and Russia and it's not being supported by EU. Montenegrins don't want to go
in it, people from Kosovo
don't want to go in it, people from Bosnia and Herzegovina
don't want to go. But there are these imperialistic
tensions to dissolve the borders, which is crazy for me to say now
because I'm an anarchist, I'm for open borders, But we cannot talk about that
in a phenomenological sense and neglect the realistic side of it. For example, right now in Montenegro,
the biggest Imperial narrative is currently pro-Russian/pro-Serbian because they have political power. They created the government in a church. Our prime minister was appointed
by the church and put as the first person that came to politics
only because of the church affiliation and so on, and so on. But I don't want to
neglect other imperialisms, as well. Croats said that we are not yet done with the borders
with Montenegro and Bosnia. The same thing happened with Albania. So, the extreme right wing
has political power if there are Serbs in Montenegro. But Croats, for example, also have
some wishful thinking of territories. So basically, Montenegrins are united
in a slogan which was made by Yugoslavia
and by Tito, which is: XXXXXXXXXXX which means: 'We don't want what's foreign
and we don't give what's ours!' Let me say this: it's more likely that Ursula
will announce anarcho-syndicalism in the EU, starting tomorrow, then for ex-Yugoslavia
to come to life again. Literally. So, imperialism is just too strong, people just don't trust
each other anymore. The 90s are still fresh. There are advocates for border changes
across countries. And, as we speak,
I cannot get my license plates because there are Russian
hacker attacks on Montenegro, because we are the biggest link of NATO
and we have port. We are insignificant. We have 600,000 people,
no military, other than NATO, and so on,
but we do have a port. We have hacker attacks, we have Russian spies
that were caught, and we had the Head
of National Security Agency taken down after he caught Russian spies and after he caught the ruling
Green Party in cigarette smuggling. Two days after those actions,
he got taken down, because the ruling majority now
are just pioneers of Serbia and Russia, and our prime minister's brother
is opening biggest clinic in Europe with the sister
of the Serbian prime minister. So, it's a lot of corruption. It's a lot of smuggling
that's being hidden under nationalistic tensions. Or,
even worse, the battle against corruption
is being presented in a form of rising
nationalistic tensions. So, it's other way around this time. And I know this is weird
to hear from me, but for people
who are following my work in terms of article writing
or speaking, but I think there is no alternative. Montenegro is not ready for
yet another experiment, at least, in terms of geopolitics, and we need to head towards EU
if we really want to save our constitution that says that we are a multinational
civic country that's multi-religious and secular. [Ivana] I will just jump in here
because I feel the need to emphasize what Dušan was saying
about the situation in Montenegro these days, where ideology
became nationality. So, instead of declaring to which party
you are a sympathizer of you will declare yourself as a Serb
or a Montenegrin. And listening from this side,
the Serbian side, you will again hear that Serbs in Serbia
are doing something 'imperialistic' and having territorial pretensions. I think it's ridiculous to talk about the imperialistic tendencies
of any country from this region where that's tiny. But we shouldn't forget that
there are territorial pretensions from Albania to North Macedonia,
from Bulgaria towards North Macedonia. And when North Macedonia
had this question in front of them, their reasoning was - and I completely understand
the reasoning - we are tiny and alone and it's better
to join even a rotten alliance than to stand alone. Julijana, I think this is a good cue
for you. [Julijana] Yes, thank you. Yeah, exactly right. I mean, we're talking about
a two million people country here with North Macedonia. And I think just a quick recap, when North Macedonia
became a candidate I was 17 years old. Now, I'm 34. You know, I doubled my age
waiting for that to happen! And it's really for the people there... and I mean I grew up in Germany,
I live in Germany, and I go there and I have discussions. You know I'm like: 'The EU is not what you think it is.' And I I've changed my opinion
about them joining over the time because at some point I realized
something essential. For the people, it's not about
what the EU is, and what all these politics... how all of this plays out and the geopolitics behind it. For the people it's about their future. It's like, for me, for example: people ask ask me: 'Why don't you have a German passport?' And I'm like: 'Because I have to give up
my North Macedonia passport and I have family there.' I'm not a patriotic person,
or it's not about nationality. but it's about choice. It's about the choice to keep
my nationality and have the German nationality,
for example. I cannot have that choice
until North Macedonia enters the EU. My family, people want to work
somewhere else in the EU, everyone who is in the EU knows how
you can pack your stuff and you can go work in another country. And you can go back and forth
how you want. It's really about freedom
to cross the borders. It's not about everyone wants to
leave the country and then North Macedonia
and all the ex-Yugoslavia would be empty. That's not true. I don't think that will happen. But it's about the freedom of choice and this is what people actually look for
when they seek to join the EU. It's not about the things we think
about the EU while living in the EU
and being a part of it. And it's easy to condemn these aspirations
of countries and say: 'You don't understand what the EU is
and therefore you want to join,' because coming from a place now
I can, I have my green card, I can move around the EU
and I have this opportunity and I can work everywhere in the EU. and this kind of blinded me to the fact
that they don't have this opportunity. And this is the reason why they stick
to that choice. And with North Macedonia, we all know the one reason why
it took so long: on one hand, it was the veto from Greece. And I think the veto of Greece
did even much more damage because it actually gave rise to a kind of very protective nationalism
in North Macedonia. But, we're talking about
two million people, so we're talking still about
a part of that population. It's not like, everyone. But all of those corrupt politics... I mean North Macedonia had 10 years
of a horrible government. A really, really horrible government that took all the money from the people
and put it into fake projects, putting it into their pockets. They emptied the whole country of its money
that the people paid in taxes. And that happened
because they were the party that was standing against Greece. And this is how they get their votes. And I was happy when
the Prespa Agreement was done. I didn't, and many people
in North Macedonia, didn't care about
what the actual name was. It was just the relief of
having this dispute gone. And it was very important. And now, here comes Bulgaria, vetoing, and going: 'Yeah, wait a minute! You're Bulgarians!' And it's driving you insane! And I'm still,
and I have to say this at this point: I'm still proud
of the North Macedonians, though, because they haven't lost their nerves
at this point. They have changed their constitution. They will do it again. And they're still hanging on this path. And they're like: 'Okay, fine here go ahead. You can have rights, you can have rights. Just let us in for God's sake!' And I think this is for a small nation something that even larger nations
can look at and learn something from, to be honest. So much for me. [Dušan] I completely resonate
with Julijana. We are part of a small nation
like Montenegro scale, 200,000 Montenegrins
or something like that. And I cannot emphasize enough
the similarities of imperialism. That's why I want to reply to Ivana. Because, you know it's public,
that half - I named them literally,
you can read it in my article - more than a half of parties in Montenegro
are being funded at least by a Serbian Orthodox Church
or by Aleksandar Vučić directly. When you hear speeches - so, I will name some of the key sentences
from either the president of Serbia, defence minister of Serbia
or MPs of Serbia that are in government. One of them said: 'Montenegro will be a small Ukraine.' One of them said: 'Russians in Ukraine,
Serbs in Montenegro.' One of them said: 'It's Serbia's fault that Montenegro
has its independence.' I don't want to turn this into
nationalistic tendencies, but you can just open the books that are being taught in schools
for children in Serbia and you'll see that all of
the Montenegrin dynasties are being called Serb dynasties. I even had the situation in DiEM
where a friend of mine - and I know it's not ill omens - said 'freshly formed nation
of Montenegrins.' That's just not true. That's just not according to history. And I don't want to talk about history. I don't care about it. But even if the Montenegrin nation
was formed today - and it wasn't! but even if it is, it still has the same
relevancy as any other nation, because that's how nations are created. You know that when you
walk across Montenegro, you'll see much more Serbian flags
than Montenegrin flags. The key party that's in government
is calling for a referendum again to be together with Serbia. That part is being funded
by Serbia directly. We cannot neglect those issues at all. That's it. [Lucas] A lot to ponder. And we've got a lot of comments
coming into the chat, as well. Dylan Hardy says: 'It's better to be a member
of a bigger club like the EU than being alone. The EU can be reformed, but the dictator-minded authorities
such as Russia, Turkey, China, Iran and many more,
would be worse.' And I think that's sort of pervasive here. And I'm interested in hearing
your take on this, Yanis because there seems to be
this sense of fatalism almost which, when we talk about EU enlargement, when talk about the Eurozone
enlargement, as well. We just saw it being announced
recently, that Croatia is going to be joining the Eurozone,
starting next year, which is interesting
because there's a sense of almost that it's unavoidable
for some reason, even with the entire experience
that we've had in the past decade with the euro, And especially now,
with all the instability going on in the Eurozone. What's your take on all of this? [Yanis] I'm very seriously
and severely problematized. We've been around,
as a movement for six years. It feels like six centuries. The EU that we were hoping to reform,
to democratize, when we formed DiEM25, no longer exists. It is far more toxic than we ourselves
imagined it would become. You saw in the last days,
what Borel has said, about this being a beautiful garden, about being invaded
by the riff-raff from outside. This is quasi-Nazi talk, coming from
the centre of our institutions. The EU has become nasty, brutish, and a threat to civilization
over the last few years. Having said that, and with deep-seated respect
for those of you in Montenegro, in Serbia, and so on, who feel that,
the EU, despite its toxicity, the despite its deep
reactionary nature these days, despite it having become
anything other than a union, and during a war that has rendered the EU,
an appendix to Washington DC. Nevertheless, I understand
your position, that, you feel - not the position,
the feelings that you have, that it is a kind of a safe port
in a big storm that you're facing. When you have Bucic on the one side,
and Putin and so on, and so forth. So, allow me to just, share some thoughts. Firstly, there is a very big decision
to be made when you enter the EU, because there is no way out of the EU,
that is not exceedingly painful, as Brexit has demonstrated. It's one thing to consider entering, it's quite another thing,
to consider exiting, So, there is hysteresis,
as mathematicians say. So, be very careful. Once you're in, you're locked in, and you have to be 100% sure
that you really want to get in. The discussion that I heard,
from all of you, from Ivana, from Dusan,
Juliana, from Maja, reminded me very much of the discussions that were raging here in Greece
in the 1970s, when I was a young man, and Greece was on the verge of becoming
a member of the European Union, which was back then, called
the European Economic Community, same thing. Same arguments, same arguments. On the one hand, we were facing
the spectre of orientalism. The condescension with which Europeans,
Central Europeans, Northern Europeans, the Brits, the Americans,
were looking at the Greeks: as part, an appendage
of the Ottoman Empire, what you experienced, too,
in Serbia, in Montenegro, and so on. Then, it was the Iron Curtain,
just a few kilometres from Thessaloniki. The idea that - not the idea, the reality
- that my mother grew up
in a fascist dictatorship, I grew up in a fascistic dictatorship. In between, we had a civil war, between the forces supported by Stalin,
on the one hand, and forces supported by
the Pentagon on the other, and the British intelligence services. And I was also caught up in this wave
of feeling that the EU is somewhere, where we can be Democratic and not have to fear the secret police
in the middle of the night. So - and this is why the majority
of Greeks were in favour of entering the European Economic Community. But mind you, it was never tested
by referendum, because opinion polls at the time,
even though they were tricky, but they're always tricky, opinion polls -
always done safe - They were not showing
a clear margin of victory for entering
the European Economic Community. So , I am conflicted about it. You mentioned, Lucas,
Bulgaria entering the Euro, and Croatia entering the Euro. These are criminal decisions by
the governments of Bulgaria and Croatia. It's nothing more than criminal
to enter the Euro today. Effectively, you're giving up sovereignty, in a manner which guarantees
austerity forever. You just give away the right, even
to discuss Economic Policy, effectively. Now remember, if Serbia becomes
a member, or North Macedonia, or Albania, become a member of the European Union,
you're signing up to the euro. You're effectively committing
to enter the Eurozone, as well, so I think that we should be very
respectful of people in Montenegro. The people of Macedonia who say: 'Well, you don't know
what it's like to live here, and we feel that entering
the EU is a lesser evil.' If that's what you're saying
to me, Dusan, I will respect that, and I would support that referendum
amongst Montenegrins to enter the EU. I would never support the entry into
the EU without a referendum. Right? If I were a Montenegrin,
I would vote against. I'm telling you this, but only because I've had 40 years
of experience, of being in the EU. So, being in the EU gives you a different
perspective to not being in the EU, so I respect that. But let me finish on a self-critical note. Self-critical personally,
and also, Diem-wise. A criticism of DiEM. When we set up DiEM25
in February of 2016, we were hoping to transform
the European Union in such a way, as to make it a good place for your
countries, for the Balkan countries, and other countries to enter. We've done exactly the opposite. We've failed and the EU is a toxic place
for the people who are within it, ruled by intellectual dwarves, who very quickly slide towards
Neo-Nazi language. This is the EU that you want to join. So, it simply highlights
the complete tragedy of Yugoslavia, that after so many decades, you feel that
things are so desperate that your best bet out of a bunch of bad bets,
is to enter this toxic EU. It's a collective failure
of the whole of Europe. That's how I want to end. [Lucas] Thank you Yanis and to use this as a sideways,
as you mentioned, towards the end there,
the intellectual dwarfs with the almost the Neo-Nazi language recently the EU's Foreign Affairs Chief,
Joseph Borrell, used the appalling language
in a public appearance in which he made an analogy, and he
referred to Europe as a garden and the rest of the world
- most of the rest of the world - as a jungle that has a growth capacity and
it wants to invade this garden, and we should protect the garden . We condemned it and we launched a petition
and, as a matter of fact, calling for his resignation and the link
will be in the chat and we invite you to sign it and while you're there
to join the DiEM25 as well if you like what you're hearing
here in this discussion. Eric, can I bring you in? Eric Edman, our political director. [Eric] Sure, I also was conflicted,
preparing for this, for this live stream. I didn't know what my position was. Do we want countries to be
joining the EU? And I say countries and not
ex-Yougoslavia, West Balkans or anybody, because I think as DiEM, we have
a responsability to at least try and have pan-European positions. So we either think that the EU is worth
joining or it's not. if we sit there and say that it's worth
joining for Montenegro, but it's not for Iceland or
whatever have you. I think we should be doing more than that. And the answer to whether or not
it's worth joining, I think, hinges on our answers
on two points. The first one is: does the EU
do more good than bad? We all agree, it does bad. We know that - this is DiEM,
we're very critical of the EU - But if we're saying that countries
should be joining it, we're essentially saying that there's
a little bit more on the side of good than there is on bad on the balance at the end of the day,
compared to the alternative. So first we need to answer that,
and the second question is: if more countries join the EU,
does that make our task, our mission, our challenge of radically
transforming the EU, easier or harder? That's the other question
that we need to answer: is it better for changing the EU radically
f we have more countries, more governments joining THIS EU? So taking the first question:
Is it more good than bad? You know I'm not going to go
into too much detail. Essentially, the point of these live
streams is to talk about these things The EU's killing refugees
left right and center unless they are
white Christian Ukrainians. The EU has become essentially
a geopolitical annex of NATO. The EU, you know, in the 2008 crisis,
in the pandemic, in the refugee crisis, now, with the energy crisis,
every opportunity, it's had, it's tried to bail out
the ritch and powerful, put more money in the one percent
and throw the rest of us under the bus. What has the EU done to help Hungarians,
Poles, the Catalonians from their governments? The Greeks from their governments? How have they helped in Romania? we're running a campaign to renationalize energy
which was nationalized and is essentially owned
by a bunch of European central, German and French - essentially -
companies to the point where Romanians are now
paying more money to get energy to their houses
than the state would be paying to have free energy for everybody. That's also, that's the EU anybody
would be joining who joins today. In Greece we have a political party
and government who's, one of its core pillars of existence is
fighting the European Union, all the European Union has done,
together with the IMF. But the European Union was one
of the main architects of this. So this is the European Union that
we are basically asking other citizens to want to join,
compared to the alternative. And you know back in 2015, during
the renegotiation of the Greek debt, we said that, if we're serious
about really changing Greece's position within the Euro, we need to be prepared
for Greece to leave the Euro. I think we also need to apply
the exactly the same principle when it comes to radically
reforming the European Union. If we're going to have this fight
with the EU, we need to also be prepared
to not be a part of this EU. That's not saying that this is
what we're aiming for, but we're saying that
that is a preferred alternative to this European Union continuing
to exist another day longer. Or for us being a part of it,
for for that matter. So that is my, I think, position,
after a lot of soul-searching that at the end of the day,
this European Union is worth existing and, although it has, it hides behind, it's toxic, how it hides
under small perks. This idea that you know you have
cleaner waters in the EU or you know, in the EU, there's a
Pandemic Recovery Fund which is pushing us further into debt or that you know,
we bailed out the Greeks. This is all EU talk, which basically
throws ashes in the eyes of radical activists and makes them think
that it's worth, not even that it's worth, it just
plants, little seeds of doubt, and it's really really dangerous. And we need to be very honest about
what the reality is about this EU and what you're really buying into,
when you join it. That's the answer to the first question and the second point about whether or not
it makes it easier to reform, the more governments
that have joined the EU, the most sclerotic and inflexible
and chaotic it's become. You can draw a line in 2004, before the
enlargement of 2004 and after, and that is because this European Union
was not designed to deal with this kind of
political plurality, because it's not democratic. Democracy can absorb absorb that. This EU is not Democratic,
It cannot deal with it. So it's been completely failing
consistently from the beginning of the 21st century onwards
and by adding more countries, more governments, more people
to that, we're basically making that problem even worse. So I think - and I know this is
quite heavy sounding because you know, I live in Brussels and I moved
to Brussels because I love the idea of the European Union, which is why
I hate this European Union so very much. And if we're going to be honest about
what we're trying to do in Europe, I think we need to be unequivocal
about the fact that it's really, there is no circumstance under which
we can suggest that anybody should be in favour of joining the
European Union, regardless of the circumstances,
it's never a worthy alternative. [Lucas] Thanks Eric,
Julijana, I think you mentioned
you have a question? [Julijana] Yes, and it has to do with
something that Eric said just now. I mean, as you said Eric, I mean
it got more chaotic, the more members it got and if we
look at members like Poland and Hungary, for example, they are
giving you a completely unnecessary new spin
of nationalism and so on, but couldn't it be also true that if you
would have those countries like Serbia, like North Macedonia,
if they would join the EU, that you could maybe also change the
dynamic of the EU with those countries. I mean, imagine all of Europe,
what we consider Europe as a country on this continent,
would be in the EU. You're right, it would be more chaotic,
but it could be also maybe an opportunity to meddle things up
and to change things, because it would also matter to people
in Serbia, in North Macedonia to get themselves involved in the
debates in the EU and in all of that, which we do now, already,
as people who live in the EU countries, We are politically organized because
of the EU and because we wanted to change it and now, we are at
a different point where we have to re-negotiate, ourselves, what do we
want to do with this Union? But it can also be like more
helping hands, more people pointing
to the faults of the EU. So, this is kind of my question:
that maybe and yes, with the Euro I agree with Yanis completely,
if I imagine like North Macedonia having the Euro, it would be a really
really shit life for the people there. They wouldn't maintain
what they have today, even. I think, when North Macedonia would
join fully that's true, but can it not be also an opportunity to unite the people
and therefore change the EU with all its citizens and not just
with those who are now members and the rest is outside waiting for
a union that's joinable, you know. So yeah, I think you got
my question, right. So, can it not have a
positive effect for us? [Lucas] So who goes first, Yanis, maybe? [Yanis] Danae wanted to ask a
question of me as well. [Danae] Also, the very quick one
just to put another perspective that I'm thinking: Okay, because you
mentioned 20 and 30 years of waiting, if this waiting by itself, I'm sure,
creates a different strategy, in the economy of the country and I'm
wondering what would have happened in those 20 or 30 years or what will
happen if you don't want to get in any more, if there's a referendum
whatever, hypothetically, would all this energy and dynamics
that are going to waste, I suppose, in a way, have changed the economy? Those countries could have
been in a better position? I mean, the waiting itself, I suppose
drains out possibilities for other things and that's a question. [Yanis] It didn't in the case of Turkey. Turkey has been waiting as long as,
actually longer than any other country In the process, Turkey stopped
wanting to be part of the EU. It maintains it's place as a candidate
member state just in order to annoy the EU, but I have zeroed out that,
even if you begged Erdoğan in Turkey, indeed even the opposition
to enter the EU, Turkey would say:
'Not on your Nellie!' So, it's not necessarily the case
that you're waiting long enough then not getting in is a tragedy. Look folks, to your question, Juljiana:
might not the entry of Montenegro and North Macedonia help us progressives
reshuffle and transform the EU? No, I don't think so. Firstly, from my experience,
small countries are completely and utterly ignored
by the powers that be. It really doesn't matter, whether the
North Macedonian or the Montenegrins is going to say, in any EU Council meeting - in any case, EU Council meetings
do not decide anything - it's all done by a central European,
cartel-like decision-making body. And what happens is, the local
kleptocracies that are presented either representing Greece or
Montenegro or North Macedonia, they simply fit into the model trying
to extract some economic events for themselves which the central
hidden directorate allows them to have to keep keep their mouth shut,
get out of the way and stop meddling. If you look at the most successful... Compare and contrast, the government
in which I served, of Greece with Orban and their respective
relationship with the center of the EU, our government in 2015 tried to
prevent the loss of 100 euros a month from, you know, pensioners who were
eating out of rubbish bins, because their total income was 300. They wanted to bring down their
income from 300 to 200 and they shut down
our banks for that, which is the equivalent of an
invasion, a financial invasion, the equivalent of terrorism,
financial terrorism. You close down a country's banks
if you want to terrorize the population into submission. This is what they did. What did they do to Orban to the Poles? Nothing, absolutely nothing. The neo-fascists in Budapest, very smart people,
extremely smart people, know how to stay out of the euro. Look at the Polish government, they don't
fall into the trap of entering the euro. They know how to use the single market
in order to propagate the exports and the sales of the companies
that are owned by the kleptocracy in the centre of those regimes. They know how to support
the worst parts of the EU and fight all the progressive
things of the EU. So, having countries like that,
that are ruled by very right-wing kleptocracies is not going to help us
reform or transform the EU, it doesn't make the EU
a more Progressive place and it does make those countries
more prosperous. Especially not from now on because,
one one could say with some reason that Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary,
benefitted a lot financially from the EU. They did, that was a different time. They EU was much richer,
it was before the crisis and those countries that I mentioned,
were wired, hardwired into the German industrial machinery, something
that would not be the case for Northern Macedonia, it would not
be the case for Montenegro. If anything, the German industrial
machinery is now rusting away as a result of the collapse of
the German economic model. So, I don't think that, the scales are weighing on the side
of the pros versus the cons that Eric mentioned. This is my view. Again, I'm perfectly willing
to defer to you folks who are in Montenegro, in Northern Macedonia,
in Serbia , while maintaining my right as a member of DiEM
to have a final view on this. But Eric is right, I think that we are not going to come to conclusions today, but it's a good start of a DiEM
debate amongst ourselves, leading perhaps to a series of AMV's or
All Member Votes for those who don't know
what our acronyms mean. One question that Eric raised is: Should
we have a homogeneous position? That is, either: yes to countries entering
- to all of them - or to anyone that wants
to enter, or no? Should we have a homogeneous position
or could we, for instance, say that in the case of Turkey, we're against, because the people of Turkey
will be worse off? And they will be financially
worse off, if they enter the EU. There's no doubt about that. The working class of Turkey is going to
do much worse if they are inside the EU, whereas to say that, in the case of
Montenegro, because the circumstances are very different, we would favor
the entry of Montenegro to the EU. The examples I gave are
neither here nor there. Do we really need Eric,
to be homogeneous? To say: one rule for all, either all of them stay out
or all of them come in? That's one question. I don't have an answer,
but this is a question that we can debate amongst
themselves and formulate a policy. And the second question is:
Okay, if we decide homogeneously, is it yes or no? And if it's heterogeneous,
which ones do we propose should enter and which ones do we
propose shouldn't enter? This is a very interesting discussion
to have to be had within DiEM. [Lucas] Yeah, definitely, Maja? [Maja] Yes, I would just
want to add, because I think I had a question
for Yanis, but I think that he actually answered it now,
but I just wanted to add one thing, because it's not a black
and white position. I think that now, after hearing Dusan,
who is completely pro entering the EU and his position of Montenegro,
that I can of course, understand and then hearing the whole position
of Yanis and Greece and having the whole reflection on how it went
off with Greece and us thinking if we should enter the EU after 30 years
of waiting and if we're good children and do everything we can and recognize
Kosovo and impose sanctions against Russia and stuff like that. And I think that it is also a question
being raised, maybe to think about it in the future, and that is that, there is
a problem that at this moment in history, entering the EU and being
a part of the EU or European story, is being a part of the
right side of history. That is what they are telling us here:
If you're now, which we started at the beginning of this discussion,
that they are telling us that, if you're not pro EU you're, not on the right side
of history, but now, hearing everything that Yanis said and other people,
is this the right part of history and is there a third alternative? I think the most maybe difficult thing
is to imagine this utopistic other alternative, and maybe we
can try to imagine it in another live stream in the future. I just want to add that. [Lucas] Thanks Maya
and I think that's a great point, because, I think this is part
of why it's so difficult to have these discussions as well, is that the EU has done
such a good job over the course of decades to really present itself,
not only as inescapable, but also as something that sort of
distant but positive on the whole, and that we should just accept
and sort of admire, in a sense, even though, as we know,
if you look closely, it has a lot of problems. Amir, what's your take on this? [Amir] Well, I've been trying to get
through this long report issued by the EU about where Bosnia
and Herzegovina is regarding joining the EU and well, apart from
the conditions being very market friendly and that's all that matters,
of course, we know that. The goal posts also keep shifting,
looking at even what Ivana was saying earlier on. So, it's not only the 14 key priority
areas that Bosnia has been communicated, that they need to fill
and additional aid got added on just very recently. I want to just quickly focus on this,
because we were talking about these countries joining or not joining, but you know, we've also got our
constant narrative around the lack of democratization
in Europe and how there's internal contradiction
in this process. Let me just give me one minute
to just go through one critique of the EU over Bosnia and then
maybe help illustrate this because in this report, the European
Union is critical of the lack of constitutional electoral reforms
in Bosnia, but it's completely fine and shamefully comfortable with the
draconian use of power invested in the office of the High Representative
for Bosnia and Herzegovina This office is currently occupied by
Christian Schmidt and benefits from zero accountability and there's no
possibility of appeal on any decision that this office makes and just
also, to mention that the Deputy High Representative happens
to have always been American from the United States State Department
and the previous High Commissioners were German, Austrian and so on
so, we can see perhaps you know, that there's no democratic choice
here at all, in terms of advice for making decisions for the people
of Bosnia and Herzegovina and this person is chosen,
is picked by the so-called Peace Implementation Council,
which has no basis in international law. So, again we have zero Democratic
participation in any decision making here and so again, the EU is critical of how
the Bosnians are you know, running their fragile democracy
in a way and at the same time, they have a draconian person that
overrules anything that is not fit for the sort of mercantilist EU future. The latest use of this excessive power
was on the 2nd of October. Mr Schmidt imposed a new electoral law
as soon as the elections closed. So, people went to the polls,
put their choice in the ballot box, polls closed at 7pm, for argument's
sake, and then a new law was put in place by the office of the
High Representative just like that, and this imposition actually further
entrenches internationalism in a country where voters are trying to
get away from internationalism and interact with just daily issues,
and actually, this law was first first voted in July and there was broad
popular protest against it: civil society, the public
and political parties. But of course again, when it comes to
the EU, as we know, the will of the people be damned, because a representative
of 'the garden' knows better. [Lucas] Thanks, Amir and yeah,
it's something that, say what you will about the EU,
but something that they will always have endless supply of,
is unelected bureaucrats, right? Ivana, can I bring you in
to wrap up the discussion? [Ivana} Yes, thank you. Lucas
and thanks everybody for this hopefully beginning
of this discussion, because there are many layers
and it's not just about whether or not five countries from this part of
Europe will join the EU or not. It uncovers multiple layers and I would
really like to to continue talking about this, also reflecting on some
of the things that were good in Ex-Yugoslavia. Most of the people who have
any idea about this former country, think of war and how badly it ended. But Yugoslavia was a functional
socialist country and there are lessons to be learned, both from
those things that were good as well as from its disintegration
because you know, looking at Yugoslavia, six republics
in Federation, they didn't separate it's ways,
in a peaceful manner. If the EU is going to collapse, I'm afraid that it's not going
to be in a peaceful manner, but we can already have a glimpse
of a bloody war that might come to end this Union. Not to end it on this depressive side,
I always believed that, and that's why I joined in 2016,
that it's not possible to fight the EU bureaucracy
that you just mentioned on your own, that you need more
countries and more parties for the beginning in the Eu parliament,
in order to fight this system from within. in these six years, a lot of things
changed, and it's even worse than six years ago, but as DiEMers,
we should not give up the idea of a United Europe for the people
and not corporations. Carpe DiEM. [Lucas] Thank you, Ivana. It's good to end on a positive note
after such a thorny discussion and it's a thorny discussion that
as a lot of people mentioned, we will continue, it's a discussion that
we need to have within DiEM, not to mention European
society as a whole. And the good thing is, you can be
part of this discussion. If you're not yet a member of DiEM25,
you can join by going to DiEM25.org/join The link is in the chat and you can
be part of this democratic process as Yanis mentioned earlier. All our major decisions on policy
are taken through a vote involving all members. You can shape policy and you can
essentially be part of the the only movement out there
really that is transnational, and that is having those discussions
and is Progressive as well and radical. Thank you so much for joining us. We will see you again.
