Resist Greek ‘austerity’

European leaders and the IMF demanded from the unelected and illegitimate Greek government a new austerity plan for the release of the EU “assistance”, not for social development, which is a vital need for Greece, but to guarantee the reimbursement of sovereign debts to banks.

After three years of austerity, during which economic recession has prevailed, the Troika is back and the country is put under supervision, for new attacks on pensions, the abolition of the minimum wage in the private sector, further cuts in the public sector. In other words, the same method, with always the same consequences.

This is the eighth austerity plan, which, as the previous seven, would solve the problem of the Greek debt crisis once and for all. All those plans have been aiming at the reduction of salaries by 50%, the privatization of public services, the closing of schools and hospitals and to the explosion of unemployment, job insecurity and poverty.

How could we not understand popular anger that is expressed right now in Athens and in many Greek cities? As the saying goes, “he who sows misery, harvests anger”.

The European Left Party supports Greek citizens who fight against these measures and the parliamentarians that expressed the voice of the people in the Greek Parliament yesterday, by voting against this text, which is dangerous for Greece and for Europe as a whole.

We call upon European citizens to organise gatherings outside the Greek embassies in the different EU countries and demonstrate their solidarity with the Greek people. We also call everybody who resists these catastrophic austerity plans all over Europe, to work together for the formation of a counter-offensive of the European peoples.

Pierre Laurent
President of the Party of the European Left