7 Repairing capitalism in Europe?
driven by finance-capitalistic interests and nationalistic member state governments. For sure, it will come to political and legal showdowns. What will the Secretary General answer to Belgian authorities, administrations, courts, or the media? May be the following?“ As Secretary General of this organisation I have no authority over DIEM’ s political work. I am only the legal figurehead.” Nobody would believe such statements. DIEM were making fools of themselves. Be sure they will blame DIEM of deceit and abuse of Belgian law.
Why making this big fuss about a legal association? The Principles explain why the Belgium state is needed:
“ Diem 25 needs to have a firm legal standing throughout the European Union. This is crucial not only to avoid legal complications but also to ensure that our fund raising, and disbursement, are fully transparent and beyond reproach – both politically and legally.” 26
It seems historically unique for a radical, base-democratic movement to be in need of a control over its financial resources by authorities of their political opponents. I am no expert on legal issues but there surely are other options guarantee an internal, reliable, and transparent fund handling and to disclose but a minimum to the opposing side. I say this as a German Lenin had once made fun of noting they would buy a platform ticket before assaulting the railway station.
What are the two DIEMs good for, then? What do we need such a legally constituted association of Belgium Law for, which – to be true- is nothing else than a political party w i t h o u t a social movement? At this point the“ Modest Proposal” comes into play. Originally, at the launch of DIEM25 in February 2016, it was a medium term matter after
“ very long and serious deliberation among all Europeans who want to join us in that deliberation. We are going to present detailed policy proposals for Europeanizing and therefore stabilizing the crisis of debts, of banking, of extremely low investment”. 27
26 Organising principles, sect. 7. 27 Yanis Varoufakis, speech at Volksbühne( youtube, 02.2016, 19:31 – 20:39).
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