European Realistic Disobedience Front Μέτωπο Ευρωπαϊκής Ρεαλιστικής Ανυπακοής Μétopo Evropaikís Realistikís Anypakoís | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abbreviation | MeRA25 |
| General Secretary | Yanis Varoufakis |
| Spokesperson | Kleon Grigoriadis |
| Founded | 27 March 2018 |
| Headquarters | Patision 122,Athens, Greece |
| Youth wing | Youth MeRA25 |
| Ideology | Anti-austerity[1] Syndicalism[2] Market socialism[3] Democratic socialism[4] Pro-Europeanism[5] |
| Political position | Left-wing[6] |
| European affiliation | DiEM25 |
| International affiliation | Progressive International |
| Colours | Orange-red |
| Hellenic Parliament | 0 / 300 |
| European Parliament (Greece) | 0 / 21 |
| Website | |
| mera25.gr | |
TheEuropean Realistic Disobedience Front (Greek:Μέτωπο Ευρωπαϊκής Ρεαλιστικής Ανυπακοής), orMeRA25 (Greek:ΜέΡΑ25), is a left-wingGreek political party founded in 2018. Its founder and General Secretary is formerSyriza MP and Finance MinisterYanis Varoufakis. MeRa25 is part of theDemocracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25),[7] theEuropean Spring, and theProgressive International.[8] 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 the2019 and2024 European Parliament election.[9][10] A party of the same name (MERA25), allied with the Greek party, was founded in Germany in 2021.[11]
MeRA25 was founded on 27 March 2018 by formerGreek Minister of FinanceYanis Varoufakis. The party's formation was announced during a special event inAthens.[12] In December 2018, formerSyriza member and MEPSofia Sakorafa joined the party.[13]
The party contested the2019 European Parliament election as part ofDiEM25.[14] It narrowly failed to win a European Parliament seat.[15] In the2019 Greek parliamentary elections, MeRA25 gained nine seats and 3.44% of the vote.[16]
MeRA25 stood in theMay 2023 Greek parliamentary election as part of the "Alliance for Rupture", a coalition with fellow left-wing partyPopular Unity, with "For the first time, rupture" as its primary slogan.[17] 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".[18] In the followingJune 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".[19]
MeRA25 stood in the2024 European Parliament election, where it failed to elect an MEP or reach the 3% mark by an even larger margin than the2019 election but with a slightly smaller margin than theJune 2023 election.[20]
Without capitalization, the letters of ΜέΡΑ25,μέρα (mera), spell the Greek word for "day", mirroring the Latindiem and thus showing the party's connection with DiEM25.
The party presents itself as an alliance of "Left,Green, andLiberal Greeks", standing on the grounds ofEuropean internationalism,economic rationality, andsocial emancipation. It plans to introduce a "EuropeanGreen New Deal" to solve thepostmodern version of theGreat Depression.[21]
In Greece, its core seven legislative policy proposals are:
| Election | Hellenic Parliament | Rank | Government | Leader | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | ±pp | Seats won | +/− | ||||
| 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 | |
| Jun 2023 | 130,276 | 2.50% | −0.13 | 0 / 300 |  0 | 9th | Extra-parliamentary | |
| European Parliament | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Election | Votes | % | ±pp | Seats won | +/− | Rank | Leader | EP Group |
| 2019 | 162,328 | <3.00%[a] | New | 0 / 21 | New | 7th | Yanis Varoufakis | − |
| 2024 | 101,127 | 2.54% | -0.45 | 0 / 21 | 0 | 9th | ||
MeRA 25 (Day 25), an anti-austerity party founded by former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is estimated to receive 3.4 percent of votes and the newly founded Right-wing nationalistic Greek Solution (Elliniki Lysi) 3.7 percent of votes.
MeRA25 is, as of this Monday, the only pro-European party in Greece that is proposing the end of austerity.
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