"Needled" – My latest opinion column for Catalonia Today magazine

[Photo: Oriol Duran, Barcelona.]

You could call me one of the lucky ones; one of the chosen few.

A week ago, I had my second dose of Moderna Covid-19 vaccine at Bellvitge Hospital in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat just outside Barcelona. 

This was the same medical centre that successfully operated on me to transplant a kidney 3 years ago, giving the reason for why I stood in line on a Friday evening with mainly 70 year old’s, some of whom undoubtedly have malfunctioning immune systems, as I do.

I’m in this category because since the campaign started in Catalonia on December 27 last year, at the time of writing, 1,572,518 residents had been given the first dose of the various vaccines. 

That represents just 20.36% of the total population. Of these, just over half a million people have also been administered the second dose (6.49% of the populace).  

Naturally, I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I don’t want to sound at all petty. I’m one of the biggest supporters of public health systems anywhere on this planet of marvels and mysteries. 

It just strikes me as disappointing that organisation from the EU, Spain and our government here wasn’t better. It disturbs me. 

You could say, in another meaning of the word, it needles me. 

There are even large numbers of school teachers (for example, my wife who’s in her mid-50s) who have not yet had their Covid protection maximised with a simple injection.

I accept that some causes for delays have been outside local authorities’ control. One case in point was the closure of the Eurotunnel in the English Channel just before Christmas. 

Reportedly, the main reason for the slow vaccine rollout speed in Catalonia was fridges (used to store doses) being trapped in Dover, one of England’s main ports.

Of course, that was 4 months ago now. And yes, I know there are plans to quicken the pace so that 70% of the population have been covered by the end of August. Plans don’t impress me. Well-coordinated action does.

There are other parts of the world that have done this task much more efficiently. Unsurprisingly maybe, places like Australia and New Zealand who’ve had relatively few cases of Covid have also already begun vaccination programs. 

Even that obscenely corrupt, malfunctioning corporation called the United Kingdom is looking pretty flash on this question.

While I’m all riled up, I’ll mention another related point. Now that it seems agreed that there’s going to be some kind of special travel “passport” for the pre-vaccinated elite like me in Europe, I have to ask about what’s going to happen to everyone else in the next few months leading into and through the summer?

What about the opportunity to travel across borders (is it even a human right?) Children, young people, many immigrant adults and all those not lucky enough to be immunised are clearly going to be discriminated against.

And here's another crucial error. I was arguing from the very start of scientific investigation into a vaccine that it should be centrally run by the World Health Organisation and an enhanced European Medicines Agency. 

The pandemic was, and still is, much too dangerous and long-lasting to be handled by local governments as prisoners of private interests who make medicine for profit.

Surely, one single contract should have been given to the most effective vaccine company and the patent for that vaccine should have been waved in the interests of global public health.

But I suppose that wouldn’t have been a financial shot in the arm for the pharma giants, would it?

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, May 2021.]

I vote, therefore I am? -- An opinion from Lenox

From the editor of BoT (Business Over Tapas) news service...

"News arrives that an elderly Briton living in Italy was finally successful in his long-term campaign to persuade the British Government to allow Brits living abroad the right to vote. 

Each country has its own rules about this chestnut. The British either lose their vote after fifteen years abroad; or they don’t, because they never had it in the first place (being born abroad or leaving the UK as a minor). Most other nationalities do not lose this right. 

The idea is that we Brits abroad should finally have representation in the World’s Greatest Democracy. What this means is unclear, since the Parliamentary Member for North Norfolk (for example) might have a few dozen supporters living across the world – all of them clueless about sugar-beet and the price of Norfolk wherries (it’s an obscure type of barge). 

Much better we expatriate Brits, all thirteen million of us (Wiki) of which 1.2 million are estimated to be living in the EU (here) – that’s about the size of the city of Brussels by the way – get some useful representation where we live. 

Just for comparison, the official number of Brits in Spain (even after Brexit) is around the same size as the city of Alicante, or ten times the size of the city of Teruel (here). 

Having the vote – probably even swinging the vote – for the Brexit referendum would have been very useful, but it's not much use to us expatriates any more, unless Westminster allows foreign-based constituencies.

The French have eleven of these, representing the French citizens who live outside of their motherland (Wiki). The MP (deputy) for the French diaspora in Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Monaco is called Samantha Cazebonne. I’m sure she is kept busy.

So, unless we have someone who solely represents us Brit expatriates in Westminster, there's not much point. 

My constituency was North Norfolk, and I haven't been back there since I left the UK (via public school somewhere) at the age of 16. Would the different candidates write me glowing testimonials about their work with sugar beet futures? After careful consideration, which one would I chose to represent me (or rather, not represent me) in Westminster? Hmm, tricky.

In general terms, having the vote – or rather representation – here in Europe would be much more useful and fair. So thank you Beacon of Democracy, but I’ll not be bothering to vote. "

                                                                                                                    Lenox Dixit

Nobody says it better...

   
I've never read anything that undestands what's behind support for Brexit or explains it better...

Definitely worth reading from start to finish.

A.A. Gill (Sunday Times journalist and food critic) writing about Brexit before his death in Dec 2016:

“It was the woman on [BBC] Question Time that really did it for me. She was so familiar. There is someone like her in every queue, every coffee shop, outside every school in every parish council in the country. Middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow, over-made-up, with her National Health face and weatherproof English expression of hurt righteousness, she’s Britannia’s mother-in-law. The camera closed in on her and she shouted: “All I want is my country back. Give me my country back.”
It was a heartfelt cry of real distress and the rest of the audience erupted in sympathetic applause, but I thought: “Back from what? Back from where?”

Wanting the country back is the constant mantra of all the outies. Farage slurs it, Gove insinuates it. Of course I know what they mean. We all know what they mean. They mean back from Johnny Foreigner, back from the brink, back from the future, back-to-back, back to bosky hedges and dry stone walls and country lanes and church bells and warm beer and skittles and football rattles and cheery banter and clogs on cobbles. Back to vicars-and-tarts parties and Carry On fart jokes, back to Elgar and fudge and proper weather and herbaceous borders and cars called Morris. Back to victoria sponge and 22 yards to a wicket and 15 hands to a horse and 3ft to a yard and four fingers in a Kit Kat, back to gooseberries not avocados, back to deference and respect, to make do and mend and smiling bravely and biting your lip and suffering in silence and patronising foreigners with pity.
We all know what “getting our country back” means. It’s snorting a line of the most pernicious and debilitating Little English drug, nostalgia. The warm, crumbly, honey-coloured, collective “yesterday” with its fond belief that everything was better back then, that Britain (England, really) is a worse place now than it was at some foggy point in the past where we achieved peak Blighty. It’s the knowledge that the best of us have been and gone, that nothing we can build will be as lovely as a National Trust Georgian country house, no art will be as good as a Turner, no poem as wonderful as If, no writer a touch on Shakespeare or Dickens, nothing will grow as lovely as a cottage garden, no hero greater than Nelson, no politician better than Churchill, no view more throat-catching than the White Cliffs and that we will never manufacture anything as great as a Rolls-Royce or Flying Scotsman again.

The dream of Brexit isn’t that we might be able to make a brighter, new, energetic tomorrow, it’s a desire to shuffle back to a regret-curdled inward-looking yesterday. In the Brexit fantasy, the best we can hope for is to kick out all the work-all-hours foreigners and become caretakers to our own past in this self-congratulatory island of moaning and pomposity.

And if you think that’s an exaggeration of the Brexit position, then just listen to the language they use: “We are a nation of inventors and entrepreneurs, we want to put the great back in Britain, the great engineers, the great manufacturers.” This is all the expression of a sentimental nostalgia. In the Brexiteer’s mind’s eye is the old Pathé newsreel of Donald Campbell, of John Logie Baird with his television, Barnes Wallis and his bouncing bomb, and Robert Baden-Powell inventing boy scouts in his shed.

All we need, their argument goes, is to be free of the humourless Germans and spoilsport French and all their collective liberalism and reality. There is a concomitant hope that if we manage to back out of Europe, then we’ll get back to the bowler-hatted 1950s and the Commonwealth will hold pageants, fireworks displays and beg to be back in the Queen Empress’s good books again. Then New Zealand will sacrifice a thousand lambs, Ghana will ask if it can go back to being called the Gold Coast and Britain will resume hand-making Land Rovers and top hats and Sheffield plate teapots.

There is a reason that most of the people who want to leave the EU are old while those who want to remain are young: it’s because the young aren’t infected with Bisto nostalgia. They don’t recognise half the stuff I’ve mentioned here. They’ve grown up in the EU and at worst it’s been neutral for them.
The under-thirties want to be part of things, not aloof from them. They’re about being joined-up and counted. I imagine a phrase most outies identify with is “women’s liberation has gone too far”. Everything has gone too far for them, from political correctness — well, that’s gone mad, hasn’t it? — to health and safety and gender-neutral lavatories.

Those oldies, they don’t know if they’re coming or going, what with those newfangled mobile phones and kids on Tinder and Grindr. What happened to meeting Miss Joan Hunter Dunn at the tennis club? And don’t get them started on electric hand dryers, or something unrecognised in the bagging area, or Indian call centres , or the impertinent computer asking for a password that has both capitals and little letters and numbers and more than eight digits.

Brexit is the fond belief that Britain is worse now than at some point in the foggy past where we achieved peak Blighty.

We listen to the Brexit lot talk about the trade deals they’re going to make with Europe after we leave, and the blithe insouciance that what they’re offering instead of EU membership is a divorce where you can still have sex with your ex. They reckon they can get out of the marriage, keep the house, not pay alimony, take the kids out of school, stop the in-laws going to the doctor, get strict with the visiting rights, but, you know, still get a shag at the weekend and, obviously, see other people on the side.
Really, that’s their best offer? That’s the plan? To swagger into Brussels with Union Jack pants on and say: “ ’Ello luv, you’re looking nice today. Would you like some?”

When the rest of us ask how that’s really going to work, leavers reply, with Terry-Thomas smirks, that “they’re going to still really fancy us, honest, they’re gagging for us. Possibly not Merkel, but the bosses of Mercedes and those French vintners and cheesemakers, they can’t get enough of old John Bull. Of course they’re going to want to go on making the free market with two backs after we’ve got the decree nisi. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Have no doubt, this is a divorce. It’s not just business, it’s not going to be all reason and goodwill. Like all divorces, leaving Europe would be ugly and mean and hurtful, and it would lead to a great deal of poisonous xenophobia and racism, all the niggling personal prejudice that dumped, betrayed and thwarted people are prey to. And the racism and prejudice are, of course, weak points for us.

The tortuous renegotiation with lawyers and courts will be bitter and vengeful, because divorces always are and, just in passing, this sovereignty thing we’re supposed to want back so badly, like Frodo’s ring, has nothing to do with you or me. We won’t notice it coming back, because we didn’t notice not having it in the first place.

Nine out of 10 economists say ‘remain in the EU’

You won’t wake up on June 24 and think: “Oh my word, my arthritis has gone! My teeth are suddenly whiter! Magically, I seem to know how to make a soufflé and I’m buff with the power of sovereignty.” This is something only politicians care about; it makes not a jot of difference to you or me if the Supreme Court is a bunch of strangely out-of-touch old gits in wigs in Westminster or a load of strangely out-of-touch old gits without wigs in Luxembourg. What matters is that we have as many judges as possible on the side of personal freedom.

Personally, I see nothing about our legislators in the UK that makes me feel I can confidently give them more power. The more checks and balances politicians have, the better for the rest of us. You can’t have too many wise heads and different opinions. If you’re really worried about red tape, by the way, it’s not just a European problem. We’re perfectly capable of coming up with our own rules and regulations and we have no shortage of jobsworths. Red tape may be annoying, but it is also there to protect your and my family from being lied to, poisoned and cheated.

The first “X” I ever put on a voting slip was to say yes to the EU. The first referendum was when I was 20 years old. This one will be in the week of my 62nd birthday. For nearly all my adult life, there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t been pleased and proud to be part of this great collective. If you ask me for my nationality, the truth is I feel more European than anything else. I am part of this culture, this European civilisation. I can walk into any gallery on our continent and completely understand the images and the stories on the walls. These people are my people and they have been for thousands of years. I can read books on subjects from Ancient Greece to Dark Ages Scandinavia, from Renaissance Italy to 19th-century France, and I don’t need the context or the landscape explained to me. The music of Europe, from its scales and its instruments to its rhythms and religion, is my music. The Renaissance, the rococo, the Romantics, the impressionists, gothic, baroque, neoclassicism, realism, expressionism, futurism, fauvism, cubism, dada, surrealism, postmodernism and kitsch were all European movements and none of them belongs to a single nation.

No time for walls: the best of Europe, from its music and food to IM Pei’s pyramid at the Louvre, depends on an easy collision of cultures

There is a reason why the Chinese are making fake Italian handbags and the Italians aren’t making fake Chinese ones. This European culture, without question or argument, is the greatest, most inventive, subtle, profound, beautiful and powerful genius that was ever contrived anywhere by anyone and it belongs to us. Just look at my day job — food. The change in food culture and pleasure has been enormous since we joined the EU, and that’s no coincidence. What we eat, the ingredients, the recipes, may come from around the world, but it is the collective to and fro of European interests, expertise and imagination that has made it all so very appetising and exciting.

The restaurant was a European invention, naturally. The first one in Paris was called The London Bridge.

Culture works and grows through the constant warp and weft of creators, producers, consumers, intellectuals and instinctive lovers. You can’t dictate or legislate for it, you can just make a place that encourages it and you can truncate it. You can make it harder and more grudging, you can put up barriers and you can build walls, but why on earth would you? This collective culture, this golden civilisation grown on this continent over thousands of years, has made everything we have and everything we are, why would you not want to be part of it?

I understand that if we leave we don’t have to hand back our library ticket for European civilisation, but why would we even think about it? In fact, the only ones who would are those old, philistine scared gits. Look at them, too frightened to join in.”

"Legal certainty for all UK nationals in Germany"

[© Monika Skolimowska/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa]

"All British citizens and their family members who have been entitled to free movement in Germany will be eligible to a residence permit in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Today, the German Government has adopted a draft law to be submitted to the Bundestag."

(Axel Dittmann, Director for EU Institutional Affairs, Brexit and EU Coordination at Federal Foreign Office.)

Read from original source here.

“The EU declared war and Theresa May played along” -- Yanis Varoufakis

[Photo: Barcelona, 9 Nov. 2017, ALBERT GARCIA]

 "In 2016, shortly before the EU referendum, Yanis Varoufakis warned that the UK was destined for a “Hotel California Brexit”: it could check out but it could never leave. 

The former Greek finance minister spoke from experience. In 2015, his efforts to end austerity – “fiscal waterboarding” – were thwarted by the EU (a struggle recorded in his memoir Adults in the Room: My Battle With Europe’s Deep Establishment).

Theresa May’s draft Brexit deal confirmed Varoufakis’s prophecy: the UK would be condemned to purgatory. 

With fortuitous timing, on the evening that May’s agreement was published, Varoufakis delivered an Oxford Union lecture on Europe’s future. [He] wryly remarked that Conservative cabinet ministers praised his analysis in private.

“The UK should never have entered the negotiations,” he told me when we met afterwards. “You do not negotiate with the EU because the EU does not negotiate with you. It sends a bureaucrat, in this case it was Mr Barnier…they could have sent an android, or an algorithm.”

May’s fatal error, Varoufakis said, was to accept a two-phase negotiation: a divorce agreement followed by a new trade deal. “This was a declaration of war because Barnier said: ‘You will give us everything we want: money, people, Ireland. And only then will we discuss what you want.’ Well, that isn’t a negotiation, that’s a travesty. And Theresa May agreed to play along.”

Read more from article in The New Statesman here.

"By land and by sea: Salvini’s war on immigration in Italy"

[Piazza duca d’Aosta, Milan, Italy (2016). Photo source: Wiki Commons]

"Salvini’s war against immigration is being waged by land and by sea. 


It is a war against a section of society that makes up over eight per cent of the country’s population. 

By sea, the war is being waged through a criminalization of humanitarian rescue operations. 

The decree recently approved by [his] Italian government restricting the right to asylum is the terrestrial counterpart to the criminalization of NGOs operating in the Mediterranean. 

This not only pertains to operations carried out by foreign NGOs, which are accused of failing to observe the sovereignty of national borders, but also to operations carried out by the Italian Coast Guard itself. 

This is a schizophrenia typical of authoritarianism and amounts to a call on the state authorities to close ranks.
The climax to Matteo Salvini’s ongoing campaign against humanitarianism, it will have a fundamental impact on the management of migration within the country..."

Read more from source at EuroZine here.

"Why the left is failing in Europe (but not in the UK) and the need for a New Deal through DiEM2"

"On BBC HARDtalk Stephen Sackur speaks to Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's radical leftist finance minister at the height of the economic crisis, and an advocate of a new global progressive politics. The old certainties in European politics are crumbling. Voters seem fed up with the long established supremacy of the parties of centre right and centre left. The politics of identity and raw emotion have fuelled populist insurgencies from Italy to Sweden to eastern Europe. Mostly it's the right, not the left in the ascendant..."

"Expats urged to 'Brexit proof' their finances in case of no deal"

On top of the reality of the UK having 9 out of the 10 poorest regions in northern Europe, "British expats are being urged to “Brexit proof” their finances in the case of a no deal, with possible disruption to pensions and insurance.

According to warnings from the world’s largest independent financial advisory organisation the estimated 1.8 million British expats living in the EU should consider reviewing their personal financial strategies as ‘no-deal’ Brexit looks increasingly likely.

The warning comes after British Prime Minister Theresa May claimed that a no-deal Brexit “wouldn’t be the end of the world,” as she sought to downplay statements made by Chancellor Philip Hammond.

It also follows the UK government publishing last week its first technical notices advising businesses and consumers on the preparations being done for the prospect of there being no Brexit deal.

James Green, deVere Group’s divisional manager of Western Europe, said:  “A no-deal Brexit is now expected by a growing number of experts and the wider population to be the most likely outcome.

“If the UK crashes out of Europe with no deal in place, the estimated 1.8 million expats living in the EU could be financially impacted in two key ways.

“First, the pound would inevitably suffer and it could fall hard. This would deliver another heavy and serious blow for those who receive UK pensions or income in pounds as the cost of living, in effect, would be significantly more expensive.

“Second, unless there is considerable post-Brexit collaboration between the UK and EU there is a risk that existing payments from British companies, including pension and insurance companies, to those living within the European Economic Area (EEA) could be disrupted or even made impossible. Of course, this would be a major inconvenience to many UK expats."

He continues: “Against this chaotic backdrop it is prudent that British expats in the EU consider reviewing their personal financial strategies sooner rather than later with a cross-border financial expert.  This will help best position them not only to mitigate the risks of a no-deal Brexit, but also to enable them to take advantage of potential opportunities that may arise.”

Mr Green concludes: “Unfortunately, a smooth and orderly exit of the EU is looking increasingly unlikely and this can be expected to hit the finances of many expats.

“They should seek to make their financial strategies ‘no deal Brexit’ proof.”

Read from source at The London Economic here.

"The Greece Bailout’s Legacy of Immiseration"

                     [Suspended Finance Ministry janitors protest outside the Greek Parliament in 2013.LOUISA GOULIAMAKI / AFP / GETTY IMAGES[

The cynicism and brutality of what happened there is for the whole world to see...

2010 to 2018 will go down in Greek history as an epic period of colonization; of asset stripping and privatization; of unfunded health and education; of bankruptcies, foreclosures, homelessness, and impoverishment; of unemployment, emigration, and suicide. 

These were the years of the three memoranda, or “financial-assistance programs” accompanied by “structural reforms,” enacted supposedly to promote Greek “recovery” from the slump and credit crunch of 2010. 

They were, in fact, a fraud perpetrated on Greece and Europe, a jumble of bad policies based on crude morality tales that catered to right-wing politics to cover up unpayable debts.

This was a bailout? The word reeks of indulgence and implied disapproval. As it was often said, “The Greeks had their party and now they must pay.” Yes, there was a party—for oligarchs with ships and London homes and Swiss bank accounts, for the military, for engineering and construction and armaments companies from Germany and France and the United States. 

And yes, there was a bailout. It came from Europe’s taxpayers, and went to the troubled banks of France and Germany. Greece was merely the pass-through, and the Greeks who paid dearly with their livelihoods were just the patsies in the deal.

The third “memorandum of understanding” expires today. With Greece’s completion of a three-year, 61.9-billion-euro eurozone emergency-loan package, it can once again borrow at market rates. 

The expiration of the memorandum also ends, for now, the direct control by Europe’s “troika”—the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, and the European Central Bank—over the Greek government. But its conditions, constraints, and consequences will endure.

How Germany gamed the euro and worsened the crisis

Back in 2010, Greece, along with Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and Italy, was definitely in trouble. The Great Financial Crisis crashed into all of Europe, but it hit the weaker countries hardest—and Greece was the weakest of them all. 

Its economy shrunk by a quarter, and youth unemployment rose to roughly 50 percent. The memorandum was, for all concerned, the easy way out. It started a game of “extend and pretend” on the Greek debt, based on optimistic forecasts and on policies of reform that had no basis in the reality of Greek economic conditions.

The policies came from the IMF—its standard repertory of austerity and “reform.” But its staff and directors knew from the beginning that these measures would not suffice. 

IMF executive directors from Australia, Switzerland, Brazil, and China voiced objections. Channels were therefore bypassed, objections ignored. The Fund was nearly out of work and money because of the failures of its programs—and the relative success of countries that ignored them—all over the world. 

And its managing director at the time wished to be the next president of France. 

So Greece, which is to say its creditors—especially French and German banks—received the largest loan in IMF history (relative to its ownership share). And that 289-billion-euro loan came largely from U.S. taxpayers."

Read more from James K Galbraith's article in The Atlantic Monthly here.

Civil war in Poland?

[Protesters demonstrate in support of the sacked Supreme Court judges.Photo: Getty] Photo: Getty

 "On Monday, the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, referred the case to Europe’s highest court, but Poland has a month to respond, and any ruling might come too late to stop the overhaul.

When [the] Law and Justice [party] came to power, it campaigned against what it saw as a corrupt bureaucracy, calling for Poland to “get up from its knees”. But for Mr Kaczynski, transforming the courts was always a central goal.

When his party was in power from 2005 to 2007, many of its legislative efforts were blocked by judges. He came to believe that the transition to democracy that started in 1989 was flawed because many former communists were allowed to hold on to their positions. Although the number of people from the communist era still in judicial positions has dwindled, the party says that communist thinking still infects the system.

So when the party returned to power in 2015, it moved swiftly to rebuild the judicial system. It stacked the Constitutional Court, which decides if legislation violates the constitution. Once that court was under the party’s control, its lawmakers passed a series of measures aimed at other parts of the court system.

But their first effort to reshape the Supreme Court, a year ago, was met with widespread protests. The government backed down.

Last winter, it proposed new measures, slightly watered down, that critics said would have the same effect — turning the Supreme Court into an instrument of the party.

In December, after a devastating report by the Venice Commission, which monitors rule-of-law issues for the European Union, the bloc of nations invoked Article 7 of its founding treaty to take action against Poland. It became the first country in the history of the union to be threatened with losing its voting rights.

This time, however, the government would not be deterred.

Under the legislation, Mr Duda can grant exemptions to the mandatory retirement age, but judges must ask him to do so. The president did so for Mr Iwulski on Tuesday.

Ms Gersdorf and many colleagues refused, setting the stage for the standoff on Wednesday morning.

The country’s deputy minister of justice, Michal Wojcik, told the Polish Press Agency that Ms Gersdorf had been allowed into the court because no citizen is barred entry, but he said she would not be allowed to rule on cases."

– New York Times  [sourced from The New Daily here.]

"Can Yanis Varoufakis Save Europe?"

[Illustration by Joe Ciardiello.]

'...he was one of those left-wing politicians critical of Europe’s economic institutions, though not necessarily of the idea of Europe itself. 

Even as a young man, Yanis Varoufakis had always been struck by the idea of a united Europe as a way to “forge bonds relying not on kin, language, ethnicity, [or] a common enemy, but on common values and humanist principles.” ' 

A well-written article on the leader of Europe's most exciting new political movement, DiEM25 here.

[3.55 min. video:] "EU citizens in the UK -- The impact of Brexit"

"NC4EU in cooperation with TrettFilms spoke to EU professionals about the impact the uncertainty of living #inlimbo will continue to have on the British public."

"A ray of hope for Europeans" -- My latest article for Catalonia Today magazine

Ultra-conservatives will always do what their natures demand.

Given any opportunity, they strangle democracy while at the same time claiming that it is democracy that they want to breathe life into.

The horrifying repression in Catalonia is an extreme illustration of this and makes a perfect example of right wing crimes against humanity but it is certainly not the only current case of the most privileged in society making sure they stay in complete control.

Over the border in France, President Emmanuel Macron (the man whose election held off a far-right National Front victory) brought down his first budget.

He handed a huge €7 billion tax cut to the wealthy and slashed social spending which included robbing €1.7 billion from housing aid and the elimination of 120,000 state-funded short-term job contracts.

In Italy, three time Prime Minister and convicted tax fraud billionaire Silvio Berlusconi is gone but the forces he represented are still alive and kicking hard. In Sicily -- as with much of the country -- a rightist alliance has had considerable electoral success blaming their economic problems and high unemployment on immigrants.

Of course it is actually the policy of continuing austerity which allows precious investment to go into speculation rather than job creation that is truly at fault for low living standards there and right across the continent.

But people can see immigrants and refugees every day in the streets where they live and the market economy is harder to point at and blame. All this at a time where public health services are being sold off to private business interests and hospitals are “‘close to collapse’ in Rome, Turin and Naples.”

In the upcoming 2019 European elections there is a new and exciting alternative for voters who have seen the EU parliament as irrelevant to our lives. Understandably, most voters find it difficult to even name a single one of their representatives in Brussels but until now there has been little reason to care.

The arrival of academic and author Yanis Varoufakis’ Diem25 (Democracy in Europe Movement) has given those with a progressive outlook something credible to believe in. Varoufakis has a very personal reason to want to democratise Europe.

The International Monetary Fund and German-backed troika refused to negotiate with him in 2015 when he was the new Greek Finance Minister. Keeping his integrity intact, he resigned from the government and went on to be a cofounder of DiEM25 only one year ago.

In a remarkably short time, under the main slogan of “Transparency for Europe” this ‘pan-European’ activist movement has come up with a persuasive and comprehensive manifesto.

Their basic argument is that unless Europe and its institutions become genuinely democratic then it is doomed to disintegrate.

Partly inspired by the clear historical success of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in breaking the Great Depression of the 1930s in the USA, DiEM25 has developed its own highly detailed European New Deal to end the mainstream EU dogma that there is no alternative to more years of severe austerity and secret backroom deals.

Varoufakis and his organisation are also offering concrete proposals that include a Basic Universal Income, refugee justice and crucially, a plan to tame capital and finance. Amongst other major changes, they are in favour of “regulating banking and establishing a new public digital payments platform that ends the monopoly of banks over Europe’s payments.”

At the moment, DiEM25 is in the process of getting votes from its members to decide whether to become a political party that will stand candidates in the 2019 European election.

If the response is a ‘Yes’ then ordinary men and women across Europe will finally have something worthwhile to get behind and support.

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, December 2017.]