Greece

Greek anti-Memorandum alliance to contest election

On 20 August Alexis Tsipras announced the resignation of the Gree government, triggering fresh elections. Tsipras has ruled out having a Syriza party congress before the elections, and looks set to exclude the left from party lists. The Left Platform released a statement declaring it will stand in elections against Syriza as part of a “broad anti-memorandum alliance” under the name “Popular Unity”. Sotiris Martalis from DEA (Internationalist Workers Left) gave an interview to Socialist Worker (USA) about the project. We publish an extract here. The main forces [in Popular Unity] are from...

Privatising in Piraeus

One of the measures imposed by the capitalist Eurozone leaders on Greece, and shamefully accepted by the Syriza-led government, is privatisation of the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki. Likely bidders are Maersk, ICTSI, and the Chinese company Cosco, which already runs two of three container quays at Piraeus on a 35 year contract. Hutchison tried for Thessaloniki when there was previous talk of privatising it, in 2008. Cosco’s contract at Piraeus has been successful for Cosco. Traffic has grown to three million teu (twenty-foot-equivalent units); Piraeus is now Europe’s eighth busiest...

Syriza hard left prepares to fight cuts

On Friday 14 August, the Greek Parliament passed a new anti-working class memorandum. With 222 MPs in favour, but only 105 of the 149 Syriza MPs, Alexis Tsipras had to lean on support from the ruling class pro-memorandum parties of Pasok and Potami. Thus Syriza’s betrayal of their popular mandate was complete. Of the 44 Syriza MPs who did not vote for the new memorandum, 32 voted against (these, predominantly from the Left Platform), 11 declared themselves “present”, and one MP was absent. Three differentiated by voting “yes” in principle and “present” for individual articles. These losses...

From “oxi” to “nai”on a new Memorandum

The agreement of Tsipras to put austerity measures to the Greek parliament caused outrage and dismay on the streets of Athens. However speaking to people soon after the overwhelming “oxi” (no) to any acceptance of austerity measures, there was a general feeling approaching euphoria. I was in Crete the week before Tsipras’s turn where there had been a huge “oxi” vote of about 70%. The “oxi” vote there, as elsewhere, defied an immense press campaign predicting impending doom. A taxi driver told me that he had stopped watching the TV news — "all they do is try to scare you" he said. I talked to...

What's in the new Memorandum?

On 15 July Tsipras won a vote in the Greek parliament to approve his deal, a third Memorandum. Red Network, an alliance of socialist organisations that is a leading force in Syriza’s Left Platform, distributed this leaflet on the day of the parliamentary vote explaining what’s in the new Memorandum. The text was translated and published by the International Socialist Organisation . "A LIST of atrocities." That is how the German magazine Der Spiegel described the new agreement. "Tsipras submitted to 'mental waterboarding'" read the headline of the Guardian. Tsipras was like "a beaten dog" in...

Oxi still means oxi!

Around the vote on the Memorandum due in the Greek parliament on 15 July we will see great pressure on Syriza MPs and ministers to take a “responsible” stance and endorse the third memorandum. There is talk of a government reshuffle and of demands for the president of the parliament and the Left Platform ministers (who abstained on the 10 July to endorse the continuation of negotiations based on the government’s proposed deal) to resign, even of expulsions of MPs and the formation of a new special purpose coalition government. The working class will not stand by with folded arms. They will use...

Solidarity with Greece, and with the Greek workers and left!

After the huge vote in Greece against the bailout conditions the European Union leaders are seeking to impose, the left and labour movement internationally, and particularly in the EU, face two tasks. The first is the strongest possible solidarity with Greece against the banks and against the EU hierarchy. What is happening to Greece is primarily a class, not a national struggle, and we reject the idea that Greek “national independence” from the EU is a desirable or credible solution to the crisis the country faces. Nonetheless, there is a large element of big power, imperialist bullying going...

Greek left mobilises for “no” on 5 July

Up to Friday 26 June the Greek government of Syriza-ANEL was very close to reaching an agreement with the eurozone leaders. It looked set to abandon its last “red lines” and accept 90-95% of the conditions for a new bailout, including direct wage and pension reductions and explicitly maintaining the framework of the last five years of Memorandum. The Greek government had accepted the logic that increased tax revenues would be based on VAT increases and the preservation of the regressive property tax; the principle of zero deficit for the financing of the pension system; the gradual withdrawal...

Greece: rescue? At what price?

At the meetings of EU prime ministers and finance ministers on 22 June, it looked like grey smoke was coming out at the end of the negotiations. For the first time, our “partners” (except German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble) spoke as if the Greek government were nearing a deal. Whether a new deal, or another short-term extension of the existing deal, was not clear. The latest proposal, submitted by the Greek government in the early hours of Monday morning 22 June, has superseded the previous 47-page “memorandum-lite” document. Although it looks as if Greece’s position within the eurozone...

Greece: any deal must be opposed

As we go to press, the Greek government and its EU lenders are still crossing swords over the terms on which Greece will get further bailout funds from its IMF-EU lenders. The details of the reform wanted by the lenders and what the Greek government is saying it will concede are more-or-less clear. Whatever version of reform is agreed, the character of previous memorandums between Greece and its lenders, with strict commitments to deficit reduction etc., will remain intact. The EU lenders want the following: higher government budget surpluses; cuts in public spending; watering-down or...

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