Greece’s former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis launched a pan-European movement “Democracy in Europe Movement 2025” (Diem25) in Berlin on Tuesday.

The even was held at the historic Volksbuehne theater, a venue which is well-known for its leftist political activism.

“We’ve chosen Berlin precisely because nothing can change in a progressive direction without the full participation of Germany in our European endeavors,” Varoufakis said stressing the need to democratize the continent.

As he pointed, the movement’s aim is to push for greater democracy and transparency in the European Union, which he described as a “completely democracy-free zone”.

Drawing parallels between the Europe of the 1930s and the present day, Varoufakis said Europe was stuck in a vicious circle of bad policy and ruled by “authoritarian technocrats”.

He called for more European integration and demanded sovereignty for each nation state.

However, Varoufakis declined to provide any policy proposals making clear that his new movement would mainly be a forum for sharing ideas.

Members of Spanish Podemos party and German Die Linke party were also present, while the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, also spoke at the event from the Embassy of Ecuador in London via videoconference.

Asked on the imposition of capital controls in Greece, Varoufakis said: “There is no doubt that I failed, I’m no longer finance minister. And our government surrendered in a program that was designed to fail and in which no one believed – nor Dr. Schäuble neither the IMF nor Mr. Draghi nor Mr. Tsipras, nobody.”