# MeRA25

The European Realistic Disobedience Front (Greek: Μέτωπο Ευρωπαϊκής Ρεαλιστικής Ανυπακοής), or MeRA25 (Greek: ΜέΡΑ25), is a left-wing Greek political party founded in 2018. Its founder and General Secretary is former Syriza MP and Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. MeRa25 is part of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), the European Spring, and the Progressive International. The movement sets the horizon for the year 2025 to draft a democratic constitution that will replace all the European treaties that are in force today. Yet, it failed to elect representatives in the 2019 and 2024 European Parliament election. A party of the same name (MERA25), allied with the Greek party, was founded in Germany in 2021.

## History

MeRA25 was founded on 27 March 2018 by former Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis. The party's formation was announced during a special event in Athens. In December 2018, former Syriza member and MEP Sofia Sakorafa joined the party.
The party contested the 2019 European Parliament election as part of DiEM25. It narrowly failed to win a European Parliament seat. In the 2019 Greek parliamentary elections, MeRA25 gained nine seats and 3.44% of the vote.
MeRA25 stood in the May 2023 Greek parliamentary election as part of the "Alliance for Rupture", a coalition with fellow left-wing party Popular Unity, with "For the first time, rupture" as its primary slogan. The party received less than the 3% vote share required to obtain seats in the Hellenic Parliament, with party leader Yanis Varoufakis releasing a statement blaming Syriza's leadership for the conservative victory and stating that "Our own defeat tonight will be put under the microscope of our rigorous self-criticism". In the following June snap election, MeRA25's vote share declined further, ending with 2.5% of the vote, with Varoufakis releasing another statement blaming the result on the lack of a progressive front, claiming the result was "disproving the narrative that MeRA25 is falling apart" and stating that "Never have our people needed such a Left in Parliament more than they do now. And never will such a Left be missing more from Parliament".
MeRA25 stood in the 2024 European Parliament election, where it failed to elect an MEP or reach the 3% mark by an even larger margin than the 2019 election but with a slightly smaller margin than the June 2023 election.

## Name

Without capitalization, the letters of ΜέΡΑ25, μέρα (mera), spell the Greek word for "day", mirroring the Latin diem and thus showing the party's connection with DiEM25.

## Positions

The party presents itself as an alliance of "Left, Green, and Liberal Greeks", standing on the grounds of European internationalism, economic rationality, and social emancipation. It plans to introduce a "European Green New Deal" to solve the postmodern version of the Great Depression.
In Greece, its core seven legislative policy proposals are:
* Restructuring the national debt
* Reducing primary surpluses
* Creating a public debt restructuring company
* The general reduction of tax rates
* Creating a public digital payment platform
* Converting HRADF into a development bank
* Respecting paid work and creative entrepreneurship

## Election results
### Hellenic Parliament

| Election | Hellenic Parliament | Hellenic Parliament | Hellenic Parliament | Hellenic Parliament | Hellenic Parliament | Rank | Government | Leader |
| Election | Votes | % | ±pp | Seats won | +/− | Rank | Government | Leader |
| 2019 | 194,232 | 3.44% | New | 9 / 300 | New | 6th | Opposition | Yanis Varoufakis |
| May 2023 | 155,085 | 2.63% | −0.81 | 0 / 300 | 9 | 8th | Extra-parliamentary | Yanis Varoufakis |
| Jun 2023 | 130,276 | 2.50% | −0.13 | 0 / 300 | 0 | 9th | Extra-parliamentary | Yanis Varoufakis |

### European Parliament

European Parliament :
| Election | Votes | % | ±pp | Seats won | +/− | Rank | Leader | EP Group |
| 2019 | 162,328 | <3.00% | New | 0 / 21 | New | 7th | Yanis Varoufakis | − |
| 2024 | 101,127 | 2.54% | -0.45 | 0 / 21 | 0 | 9th | Yanis Varoufakis | − |
* ↑ 49 votes below 3%