Greece

The prospects for Greece

If a left, or left-led, government takes office in Greece after 25 January, then what are the prospects for it winning concessions on debt from the EU leaders? French finance minister Michel Sapin says “it is absolutely fair and legitimate that discussions should take place between the EU and the new Greek government”, trying to secure “the stability of the eurozone”. Yet Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, says “there is no alternative” to the current programme. Finland's prime minister, Alexander Stubb, promises “a resounding no” to concessions. Franceso Saraceno, an economist who...

Discussing the issues behind the rise of the left in Greece

A group of young socialist activists from Britain are going on a delegation to Greece between 23 and 26 January, to be there during the election. Six of the delegation members took part in the dayschool which London Workers' Liberty held on 18 January, alongside a good size group of other young people, to discuss the political issues behind Greece's dramatic political situation. Such discussions are all the more important in the context of Greece's contradictory political development over the last two years: a falling back of struggles and continued drift to the right by Syriza but also a...

Resolution on Greece (January 2015)

We want the left-wing party Syriza to win the Greek elections on 25 January. What else should socialists say? The following resolution on Greece was written and passed at the Workers' Liberty national committee on 17 January. (See the resolution we published in January 2013, when the period of intense, even pre-revolutionary, struggles in Greece had not yet clearly come to an end.) 1. A Syriza victory on 25 January is most likely to be followed by a "honeymoon period" (how long, we can't say) in which all sections of Greek society wait to see what it does. 2. Greece's state machine is riddled...

The Greek left outside Syriza

On 25 January Greece elects a new parliament, and the left-wing party Syriza leads in the polls. Theodora Polenta discusses the attitudes of Antarsya, a major left grouping outside Syriza. Antarsya — the Anti-capitalist Left Cooperation for the Overthrow — is a coalition of left organisations founded on 22 March 2009. The Greek word Antarsia (pronounced the same as the acronym Antarsya) means "mutiny". The currents inside Antarsya range from ex-Communist Party (KKE) and KKE-Interior splinters to Maoists and Trotskyists. Antarsya got 0.36% of the vote in Greece's 2009 election, and 0.33% in...

Help the Greek left defy the banks!

Greece will have new parliamentary elections early, on 25 January. According to all recent opinion polls, the left party Syriza, which lost the June 2012 election narrowly to the conservative New Democracy (ND) party, is now well ahead of ND. On all the poll figures, Syriza and the Greek Communist Party (KKE) between them will win a parliamentary majority on 25 January. The early elections followed the failure on 29 December of the ND-led government's third attempt to get Parliament to elect a new President. A wave of celebration followed outside the parliament. The movements that have been in...

Where is Greece going?

On Monday 29 December, the Greek parliament failed to elect a new President for the third time. The result is parliamentary elections at the end of January, elections which it looks like the left party Syriza will win. Shortly before the vote, Workers' Liberty member Theodora Polenta - who is now in Greece - wrote this. *** This Christmas story does not have a beginning and we do not know the end yet. Will we get the present the majority of the combat working class movement and all progressive/libertarian forces are long awaiting for: a government of the Left, not as the final aim and not as...

Syriza shifts to the right

SYRIZA’s Central Committee meeting on 21-22 June was a turning point for the organisation. Although the meeting was to evaluate recent electoral results (local and European elections), the debate was primarily concerned about a new wave of radicalisation and the tactical and strategic steps that a government of the left would need. Especially one dialectically connected with a combatative working-class movement, with a “transitional” perspective on how to achieve general social liberation and socialism. SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras and other high profile members of the leadership team...

Greek cleaners' strike: “We are no longer scared!”

On 30 June the Greek civil service union ADEDY began a series of protests which will culminate in a strike on 9 July. The protests are against the public sector mobility scheme which has been in operation since September 2013. Under the scheme selected workers, predominantly the lowest paid, have their wages cuts by 25%, are put into a redeployment pool and are sacked if no alternative job is found. The scheme was a way for the tripartite government of PASOK-ND-DHMAR to immediately sack 4,000 civil servants, and a further 11,000 by the end of 2014. 595 cleaners at the Ministers of Finance and...

Greece: after Syriza's poll victory

The slogan “First-time victory for the Left!”, chanted on the evening of 25 May, denoted a genuinely unprecedented event: for the first time in 180 years of the existence of the Greek state, a leftist party had come out first in nation-wide elections. In the Euro-election, Syriza got 26.6%, and the ruling conservative New Democracy party 22.8%. The results create a new post-election political landscape. In fact the election results represents a major policy reversal of quality, substance and political orientation, which overcomes the numerical rates. Now the call for a united front of the...

Syriza ranks resist drift to centre

In the recent interventions of three of the most central and media-exposed Syriza members, Giannis Dragasakis (responsible for the Syriza programme), Giorgos Stathakis (Head of Sector for Development) and Giannis Milios (Head of the Department of Economic Affairs), we can see a new “narrative” on key issues: debt, “Marshall Plan”, “primary surplus” and “balanced budget”, banks. It is an attempt to form a “centre-left” (with the emphasis on the centre) quasi-social-democratic narrative, rather than a working-class-biased left narrative. Giannis Milios has said: “We will attempt (if we become...

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