On June 4, Clemens Holtmann and Johannes Fehr (Board Member of Demokratie in Europa) — DiEM25’s German Electoral Wing — travelled to Greece to attend MeRA25’s first party Congress. Read more about their experience below:

With the pandemic still ongoing in many parts of Europe, we made the decision to travel to Greece at the last minute. We travelled from Berlin to Athens in order to witness the first MeRA25 party congress which took place place from June 4 – 6. And we did not regret our decision.

MeRA25 is DiEM25’s Greek Electoral Wing, which entered parliament in the summer of 2019. The party, which was launched in May 2018, has since taken major steps to be represented in every corner of Greece, as we were about to find out.

The party congress was held close to the port of Piraeus in the Drapetsona area. Friday evening started with a number of speakers. By tradition, other parties were present and invited to give a short speech. International messages of support by Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Jeremy Corbyn and many others followed. Party leader Yanis Varoufakis later concluded the evening with a highly anticipated and well-received speech.

Jeremy Corbyn’s message of support for MeRA25

Jeremy Corbyn's message of support for MeRA25 and Yanis Varoufakis | DiEM25

On Saturday, the floor passed to the party members who presented the program and plenty of amendments. Online voting followed on Sunday, so everyone had enough time to reflect on the proposals and participate.

Over the whole three days, we had the chance to speak with many party members. Our impression is that MeRA25 has a diverse membership, uniting a variety of political opinions from the Left. The discussion culture is extremely lively, and different parts of Greek society are represented.

On the final day, different unions, as well as environmental and social movements, were given the opportunity to speak. And so we too had the chance to deliver a message of support, which was: Sen íssaste móni sas. Masí ímmaste se aftón ton agóna! (You are not alone. We are in this together!). You can watch it below:

Johannes Fehr: „MeRA25 friends in Greece: you are not alone. We are building resistance everywhere!“

The congress ended with two concerts from Kostas Zervoudakis and Spyros Grammenos, both well known Greek artists. The atmosphere during the weekend left us inspired and full of hope for our political project at DiEM25. We aim to build a political force that is strong enough so that the next OXI will be shouted in Greece, in Germany and all over Europe, so loud that it cannot be overheard!

Below are the links where you can click to watch the video of the public events, which took place on Friday and Sunday (most of the content is in Greek):

Watch the Friday livestream
Watch the Sunday livestream

Clemens Holtmann is a member of Demokratie in Europa. Johannes Fehr is a member of DiEM25’s Coordinating Collective and also a Board Member of Demokratie in Europa.

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