MeRA25

MeRA25
The European Realistic Disobedience Front, or MeRA25, 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. Τhe 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. A party of the same name, 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 legislative elections, MeRA25 gained 9 seats and 3.44% of the vote.
MeRA25 stood in the May 2023 Greek legislative 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 receive 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 voteshare 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".
Name
Without capitalisation, 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 European internationalism, economic rationality and social emancipation. It plans to introduce a "European Green New Deal", as a solution to the postmodern version of the Great Depression.
In Greece, its core 7 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
European Parliament
See also
Anti-austerity movement in Greece
Civil disobedience
Civil resistance
Democracy in Europe Movement 2025
European United Left–Nordic Green Left
Syriza
References
External links
Official website
Official DiEM25 website
2018 establishments in Greece
Democratic socialist parties in Europe
Multicultural parties in Greece
Organizations based in Athens
Political parties established in 2018
Political parties in Greece
Pro-European political parties in Greece
Progressive International
Progressive parties
Socialist parties in Greece
Syndicalist political parties