http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2015/ovenden130715.html
General Strike Called in Greece Against the Third Memorandum
by Kevin Ovenden
July 13, 2015
- There are more powerful things than the Troika
- Solidarity needed more than before
The public sector trade union federation in Greece, ADEDY, has called a general strike for Wednesday [it should be noted that the ADEDY press release says “a 24-hour strike,” to keep things in perspective. — ed.].
The strike against the Third Memorandum will be officially announced tomorrow. But activists throughout the public sector unions have begun organizing for the stoppage this afternoon.
Activists in other sectors — the private sector, the universities, the school students, etc — are also agitating for whatever action they believe they can get.
The parliament has to agree the new memorandum by midnight on Wednesday.
If MPs are to vote tomorrow, then the strike will be brought forward to tomorrow. Militants of the fighting left are pushing for an “active strike” — in the streets with mass demonstrations, not staying at home.
Angela Merkel increased the pressure on the Greek government even after it capitulated. She said that monitoring of moves to implement the memorandum would be strict and begin immediately.
German media sources report that she is not certain that this government can pass the memorandum — still less implement it.
The fight is now on. It is not off: it’s the period of shadow boxing that is over.
The Greek government may have capitulated rather than rupture with the mafia eurozone.
Now an attempt to impose an austerity “July coup”* against the Greek popular masses risks a different rupture. Between working-class Greece and the powers that should not be.
The Brussels talks settled nothing. They did crack apart and severely weaken the capitalist institutions of Europe.
The power that delivered the Oxi revolt was not in Brussels, but its spectre was felt there.
That power is the Greek working class with the political independent fighting forces of the radical left at its heart.
Solidarity with resisting Greece. Not one step back!
* The last such attempted parliamentary coup against the popular will (as opposed to coup d’état) of this magnitude was 50 years ago this week — July 1965. It marked the beginning of the end of the post-civil war order in Greece. It finally ended with the overthrow of dictatorship in 1974. It is from that date that the rise of the modern radical left in Greece, as an open force, begins.
Kevin Ovenden is author of Syriza: Escaping the Labyrinth (forthcoming from Pluto Press). Follow him at <www.facebook.com/kevin.ovenden/>.
?============
2)
?
?
?http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2015/amin080715.html?
?Glory to the Lucid Courage of the Greek People, Facing the European Crisis
by Samir Amin
The Greek People are an example to Europe and the world.
With courage and lucidity the Greek people have rejected the ignoble diktat of European and international finance. They have won a first victory by affirming that democracy cannot exist unless it knows how to put itself at the service of social progress. They have unmasked the farce of democracy that accepts submission to the degradation of social conditions demanded by the dictatorship of finance.
Social progress is illegal in Europe.
Europe has been constructed systematically to reduce “the danger of democracy” to zero. Since the end of the Second World War, the United States, Jean Monet, and Robert Schuman (two Vichyites) have initiated the preparation to restore the legitimacy of the political forces that were compromised through Europe’s collaboration with the Nazis. The construction of the European Communities, and later the forced adoption of a constitution, despite being rejected among others by the French referendum (an unparalleled denial of democracy), has enabled the rise of a dictatorship of finance capital. Deceived by the systematic brainwashing by media pundits in the service of the financial oligarchy, the European peoples fed on the illusions that still remain powerful enough to destroy their capacity to respond to the challenge. They must “save Europe and the euro from the debacle,” they still largely believe (now a little less so in Greece and Spain). Europe as it is — and it cannot be other than what it is so long as it is imprisoned within the fetters of its institutions — has declared illegal any attempt to question the odious established order. The Greek people, by their choice, became outlaws.
The euro is not viable.
The subsystem of the euro violates the elementary rules of a sane and feasible management of the currency. It imposes common rules of so-called “competitiveness” on economies too unequal to bear the consequences of them. The euro has made it possible to wipe out the progress made earlier within the context of the emergence of productive systems composed largely of small and medium enterprises in order to open up a restricted market to raids by financial monopolies. Spain is a tragic example. Others — Finland and even France — in turn are victims of it. The euro is now only the tool for a rerun of the German Europe.
The crisis is not that of the Greek debt, but actually that of Europe and the euro.
Shame on the European governments.
Shame on all those who have accepted the idea that the “troika” represents the European peoples. Shame on the governments that have installed in the presidency of “their Europe” a Luxembourgian functionary in the service of a tax haven; installed in the management of “their central bank” a character who made a career at Goldman Sachs, the bank associated with all the financial villainies of the century; installed at the head of the IMF a good pupil incapable of understanding anything other than what she was taught. It’s not a case of men and women of politics, of whatever side they may be, but just a case of contemptible characters.
Europe presents itself to Greece in the figure of those nostalgic of fascism.
The heroic Greece liberated itself from Italian fascists and German Nazis. “Europe” then intervened in Greece, in the uniforms of British (and then US) officers to massacre the children of the Resistance and restore the power of fascist collaborators. The reconquest of democracy by PASOK’s electoral victory in 1981 permitted some incontestable social achievements; but it also opened the path to “Europeanist” illusions; the Greek people now find themselves once again vis-à-vis the real Europe dominated by the financial oligarchies. So they are rediscovering the memory of their past and the debt that Germany, the inheritor of the Nazi debt, still owes them. Shame on Mrs. Merkel, whose government refuses to recognize that the Greek people have a right to reparations.
The Greek state must be reformed in a democratic spirit.
Yes, the Greek state suffers from serious defects, which result, among other things, in tax evasion. But who can undertake the necessary reforms? Certainly not “the friends of Europe.” Those are the very same who lied about the Greek debt upon Greece’s accession to the euro, with the active complicity of Goldman Sachs, whose servant is none other than the president of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. The Greek ship owners? The cheats who have always benefited from attentive care of international banks and the IMF. SYRIZA is the only Greek government capable of reforming the Greek state in a democratic spirit and making the rich pay. A nightmare for the Europe that cannot tolerate this choice — only the poor must pay!
The struggle continues.
The Europe of billionaires of finance does not intend to renounce its objective: slaughter the Greek people to teach a lesion and prevent a contagion of democracy. Let us not forget that if the ruling classes of western and central Europe (still) do not need fascism at home, they do not hesitate to solicit the help of fascists elsewhere, as we can see in Ukraine.
The European peoples must take the measure of their responsibilities. With PODEMOS, the Spanish people have issued another wake-up call. It now falls to the French, the Germans, the British, and other peoples of the European continent to understand that the Greek people’s struggle is theirs as well.
The alternative is now clear and visible, for Greece and for all those, in Europe and the rest of the world, who are inspired by the same social and democratic aspirations. Defy the so-called European “constitution”; dismantle the euro and replace it by negotiated management of a snake of national currencies; send Draghi back to his masters in New York pending the closure of the fake central bank in Frankfurt; derail the IMF by firming up financial arrangements beyond its reach, as the Shanghai Group and the ALBA have taken the initiative in doing so.
With whom to wage these battles? The range of political forces who are beginning to understand that austerity (for workers, not for oligarchs) and regressive stagnation that inevitably accompanies it no longer have a future is widening day by day, to the point of now including politicians of all stripes, like François Fillon in France. Great Britain has lost confidence in this Europe mired in mediocrity, even though England remains neoliberal, more Atlanticist and less European than ever. Of course, the apparent rallying of certain far-right formations remains, for me, suspect. Fascists are lying demagogues par excellence.
In this situation it is incumbent upon the forces of the potentially radical left to take back the initiative, with SYRIZA and PODEMOS who have primed the movement for it. Failing that, Europe will not be able to avoid implosion and will be engulfed in chaos.
6 July 2015
Samir Amin is director of the Third World Forum in Dakar, Senegal. His books published by Monthly Review Press include The Liberal Virus, The World We Wish to See, The Law of Worldwide Value, The Implosion of Contemporary Capitalism, and Three Essays on Marx’s Value Theory. En français; em português. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi.?
?==============
3)?
?
Full report:
http://www.hellenicparliament.gr/UserFiles/8158407a-fc31-4ff2-a8d3-433701dbe6d4/Report_web.pdf
???
Truth Committee on Public Debt
Preliminary report
The Truth Committee on Public Debt (Debt Truth Committee) was established on April 4, 2015, by a decision of the President of the Hellenic Parliament, Ms Zoe Konstantopoulou, who confided the Scientific Coordination of its work to Dr. Eric Toussaint and the cooperation of the Committee with the European Parliament and
other Parliaments and international organizations to MEP Ms Sofia Sakorafa.
Members of the Committee have convened in public and closed sessions, to produce this preliminary report, under the supervision of the scientific coordinator and with the cooperation and input of other members of the Committee, as well as experts and contributors.
The preliminary report chapters were coordinated by:
Bantekas Ilias
Contargyris Thanos
Fattorelli Maria Lucia
Husson Michel
Laskaridis Christina
Marchetos Spyros
Onaran Ozlem
Tombazos Stavros
Vatikiotis Leonidas
Vivien Renaud
With contributions from:
Aktypis Héraclès
Albarracin Daniel
Bonfond Olivier
Borja Diego
Cutillas Sergi
Gonçalves Alves Raphaël
Goutziomitros Fotis
Kasimatis Giorgos
Kazakos Aris
Lumina Cephas
Mitralias Sonia
Saurin Patrick
Sklias Pantelis
Spanou Despoina
Stromblos Nikos
Tzitzikou Sofia
The authors are grateful for the advice and input received from other members of the Truth Committee on Public Debt as well as other experts, who contributed to the Committee’s work during the public sessions and hearings and the closed or informal consultations.
The authors are grateful for the valuable assistance of Arnaoutis Petros Konstantinos, Aronis Charalambos, Bama Claudia, Karageorgiou Louiza, Makrygianni Antigoni and Papaioannou Stavros.
Executive Summary
In June 2015 Greece stands at a crossroads of choosing between furthering the failed macroeconomic adjustment programmes imposed by the creditors or making a real change to break the chains of debt. Five years since the economic adjustment programme began, the country remains deeply cemented in an economic, social, democratic and ecological crisis. The black box of debt has remained closed, and until a few months ago no authority, Greek or international, had sought to bring to light the truth about how and why Greece was subjected to the Troika regime. The debt, in the name of which nothing has been spared, remains the rule through which neoliberal adjustment is imposed, and the deepest and longest recession experienced in Europe during peacetime.
There is an immediate democratic need and social responsibility to address a range of legal, social and economic issues that demand proper consideration. In response, the President of the Hellenic Parliament established the Truth Committee on Public Debt (Debt Truth Committee) in April 2015, mandating the investigation into the creation and the increase of public debt, the way and reasons for which debt was contracted, and the impact that the conditionalities attached to the loans have had on the economy and the population. The Truth Committee has a mandate to raise awareness of issues pertaining to the Greek debt, both domestically and internationally, and to formulate arguments and options concerning the cancellation of the debt.
The research of the Committee presented in this preliminary report sheds light on the fact that the entire adjustment programme, to which Greece has been subjugated, was and remains a politically orientated programme. The technical exercise surrounding macroeconomic variables and debt projections, figures directly relating to people’s lives and livelihoods, has enabled discussions around the debt to remain at a technical level mainly revolving around the argument that the policies imposed on Greece will improve its capacity to pay the debt back. The facts presented in
this report challenge this argument.
All the evidence we present in this report shows that Greece not only does not have the ability to pay this debt, but also should not pay this debt first and foremost because the debt emerging from the Troika’s arrangements is a direct infringement on the fundamental human rights of the residents of Greece. Hence, we came to the conclusion that Greece should not pay this debt because it is illegal, illegitimate, and
odious.
It has also come to the understanding of the Committee that the unsustainability of the Greek public debt was evident from the outset to the international creditors, the Greek authorities, and the corporate media. Yet, the Greek authorities, together with some other governments in the EU, conspired against the restructuring of public debt in 2010 in order to protect financial institutions. The corporate media hid the truth from the public by depicting a situation in which the bailout was argued to benefit Greece, whilst spinning a narrative intended to portray the population as deservers of their own wrongdoings.
Bailout funds provided in both programmes of 2010 and 2012 have been externally managed through complicated schemes, preventing any fiscal autonomy. The use of the bailout money is strictly dictated by the creditors, and so, it is revealing that less than 10% of these funds have been destined to the government’s current expenditure.
This preliminary report presents a primary mapping out of the key problems and issues associated with the public debt, and notes key legal violations associated with the contracting of the debt; it also traces out the legal foundations, on which unilateral suspension of the debt payments can be based. The findings are presented in nine chapters structured as follows:
Chapter 1, Debt before the Troika, analyses the growth of the Greek public debt since the 1980s. It concludes that the increase in debt was not due to ex4 cessive public spending, which in fact remained lower than the public spending of other Eurozone countries, but rather due to the payment of extremely high rates of interest to creditors, excessive and unjustified military spending, loss of tax revenues due to illicit capital outflows, state recapitalization of private banks, and the international imbalances created via the flaws in the design of the Monetary Union itself. Adopting
the euro led to a drastic increase of private debt in Greece to which major European private banks as well as the Greek banks were exposed. A growing banking crisis contributed to the Greek sovereign debt crisis. George Papandreou’s government helped to present the elements of a banking crisis as a sovereign debt crisis in 2009 by emphasizing and boosting the public deficit and debt.
Chapter 2, Evolution of Greek public debt during 2010-2015, concludes that the first loan agreement of 2010, aimed primarily to rescue the Greek and other European private banks, and to allow the banks to reduce their exposure to Greek government bonds.
Chapter 3, Greek public debt by creditor in 2015, presents the contentious nature of Greece’s current debt, delineating the loans’ key characteristics, which are further analysed in Chapter 8.
Chapter 4, Debt System Mechanism in Greece reveals the mechanisms devised by the agreements that were implemented since May 2010. They created a substantial amount of new debt to bilateral creditors and the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF), whilst generating abusive costs thus deepening the crisis further. The mechanisms disclose how the majority of borrowed funds were transferred directly to financial institutions. Rather than benefitting Greece, they have accelerated the privatization process, through the use of financial instruments.
Chapter 5, Conditionalities against sustainability, presents how the creditors imposed intrusive conditionalities attached to the loan agreements, which led directly to the economic unviability and unsustainability of debt. These conditionalities, on which the creditors still insist, have not only contributed to lower GDP as well as higher public borrowing, hence a higher public debt/GDP making Greece’s debt more
unsustainable, but also engineered dramatic changes in the society, and caused a humanitarian crisis. The Greek public debt can be considered as totally unsustainable at present.
Chapter 6, Impact of the “bailout programmes” on human rights, concludes that the measures implemented under the “bailout programmes” have directly affected living conditions of the people and violated human rights, which Greece and its partners are obliged to respect, protect and promote under domestic, regional and international law. The drastic adjustments, imposed on the Greek economy and society as a whole, have brought about a rapid deterioration of living standards, and remain incompatible with social justice, social cohesion, democracy and human rights.
Chapter 7, Legal issues surrounding the MoU and Loan Agreements, argues there has been a breach of human rights obligations on the part of Greece itself and the lenders, that is the Euro Area (Lender) Member States, the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, who imposed these measures on Greece. All these actors failed to assess the human rights violations as an outcome of the policies they obliged Greece to pursue, and also directly violated the Greek constitution by effectively stripping Greece of most of its sovereign rights. The agreements contain abusive clauses, effectively coercing Greece to surrender significant aspects of its sovereignty. This is imprinted in the choice of the English law as governing law for those agreements, which facilitated
the circumvention of the Greek Constitution and international human rights obligations. Conflicts with human rights and customary obligations, several indications of contracting parties acting in bad faith, which together with the unconscionable character of the agreements, render these agreements invalid.
Chapter 8, Assessment of the Debts as regards illegitimacy, odiousness, illegality, and unsustainability, provides an assessment of the Greek public debt according to the definitions regarding illegitimate, odious, illegal, and unsustainable debt adopted by the Committee.
Chapter 8 concludes that the Greek public debt as of June 2015 is unsustainable, since Greece is currently unable to service its debt without seriously impairing its capacity to fulfill its basic human rights obligations. Furthermore, for each creditor, the report provides evidence of indicative cases of illegal, illegitimate and odious debts.
Debt to the IMF should be considered illegal since its concession breached the IMF’s own statutes, and its conditions breached the Greek Constitution, international customary law, and treaties to which Greece is a party. It is also illegitimate, since conditions included policy prescriptions that infringed human rights obligations. Finally, it is odious since the IMF knew that the imposed measures were undemocratic, ineffective, and would lead to serious violations of socio-economic rights.
Debts to the ECB should be considered illegal since the ECB over-stepped its mandate by imposing the application of macroeconomic adjustment programmes (e.g. labour market deregulation) via its participation in the Troika. Debts to the ECB are also illegitimate and odious, since the principal raison d’etre of the Securities Market Programme (SMP) was to serve the interests of the financial institutions, allowing the major European and Greek private banks to dispose of their Greek bonds.
The EFSF engages in cash-less loans which should be considered illegal because Article 122(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) was violated, and further they breach several socio-economic rights and civil liberties. Moreover, the EFSF Framework Agreement 2010 and the Master Financial Assistance Agreement of 2012 contain several abusive clauses revealing clear misconduct on the part of the lender. The EFSF also acts against democratic principles, rendering these particular debts illegitimate and odious.
The bilateral loans should be considered illegal since they violate the procedure provided by the Greek constitution. The loans involved clear misconduct by the lenders, and had conditions that contravened law or public policy. Both EU law and international law were breached in order to sideline human rights in the design of the macroeconomic programmes. The bilateral loans are furthermore illegitimate, since they were not used for the benefit of the population, but merely enabled the private creditors of Greece to be bailed out. Finally, the bilateral loans are odious since the lender states and the European Commission knew of potential violations, but in 2010 and 2012 avoided to assess the human rights impacts of the macroeconomic adjustment and fiscal consolidation that were the conditions for the loans.
The debt to private creditors should be considered illegal because private banks conducted themselves irresponsibly before the Troika came into being, failing to observe due diligence, while some private creditors such as hedge funds also acted in bad faith. Parts of the debts to private banks and hedge funds are illegitimate for the same reasons that they are illegal; furthermore, Greek banks were illegitimately recapitalized by tax-payers. Debts to private banks and hedge funds are odious, since major private creditors were aware that these debts were not incurred in the best interests of the population but rather for their own benefit. The report comes to a close with some practical considerations.
Chapter 9, Legal foundations for repudiation and suspension of the Greek sovereign debt, presents the options concerning the cancellation of debt, and especially the conditions under which a sovereign state can exercise the right to unilateral act of repudiation or suspension of the payment of debt under international law. Several legal arguments permit a State to unilaterally repudiate its illegal, odious, and illegitimate debt. In the Greek case, such a unilateral act may be based on the following arguments: the bad faith of the creditors that pushed Greece to violate national law and international obligations related to human rights; preeminence of human rights over agreements such as those signed by previous governments with creditors or the Troika; coercion; unfair terms flagrantly violating Greek sovereignty and violating the Constitution; and finally, the right recognized in international law for a State to take countermeasures against illegal acts by its creditors, which purposefully damage its fiscal sovereignty, oblige it to assume odious, illegal and illegitimate debt, violate economic self-determination and fundamental human rights. As far as unsustainable debt is concerned, every state is legally entitled to invoke necessity in exceptional situations in order to safeguard those essential interests threatened by a grave and imminent peril. In such a situation, the State may be dispensed from the fulfilment of those international obligations that augment the peril, as is the case with outstanding loan contracts. Finally, states have the right to declare themselves unilaterally insolvent where the servicing of their debt is unsustainable, in which case they commit no wrongful act and hence bear no liability.
People’s dignity is worth more than illegal, illegitimate, odious and unsustainable debt.
Having concluded its preliminary investigation, the Committee considers that Greece has been and still is the victim of an attack premeditated and organized by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. This violent, illegal, and immoral mission aimed exclusively at shifting private debt onto the public sector.
Making this preliminary report available to the Greek authorities and the Greek people, the Committee considers to have fulfilled the first part of its mission as defined in the decision of the President of the Hellenic Parliament of 4 April 2015. The Committee hopes that the report will be a useful tool for those who want to exit the destructive logic of austerity and stand up for what is endangered today: human rights, democracy, peoples’ dignity, and the future of generations to come.
In response to those who impose unjust measures, the Greek people might invoke what Thucydides mentioned about the constitution of the Athenian people: “As for the name, it is called a democracy, for the administration is run with a view to the interests of the many, not of the few” (Pericles’ Funeral Oration, in the speech from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War).
?
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-euro-debt-default-grexit/
The Alternative to Austerity
There is an alternative to capitulation in Greece. Here is the Left Platform of Syriza’s plan.
by The Left Platform of Syriza
An anti-austerity protester sports the word “no” in Greek on his forehead at a July 3 demonstration in Athens. Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
The following is an abridged version of the statement submitted by the Left Platform at today’s plenary meeting of Syriza’s parliamentary group.
In this critical moment, the Syriza government has no other choice than to reject the blackmail of the “institutions” who seek to impose an austerity program, deregulation, and privatization.
The government must declare to the “institutions” and to proclaim to the Greek people that, even at the last moment, without a positive compromise reflected in a program that will end austerity, provide sufficient liquidity to economy, lead to economic recovery, and include major writing-off of the debt, it is ready to follow an alternative progressive path which puts into question the presence of our country in the eurozone, while interrupting debt repayment.
In order to confront the pressures and unacceptable demands of the creditors, the process that could lead Greece out of the eurozone is a serious and complex enterprise, which should have been systematically prepared by the government and by Syriza. However, due to the tragic blockages that prevailed both in government and in the party, this has not been achieved.
Nevertheless, even now the government can and must respond to the blackmail of the “institutions” by posing the following alternative: either a program without any further austerity, providing liquidity, and leading to debt cancellation, or exit from the euro and default on the repayment of an unjust and unsustainable debt.
If required by the circumstances, the government has, even now, the possibility and the minimum of liquidity that is required to implement a transitional program to the national currency, which will allow it to implement its commitments towards the Greek people, and in particular to adopt the following measures:
- The radical reorganization of the banking system, its nationalization under social control, and its reorientation towards growth.
- The complete rejection of fiscal austerity (primary surpluses and balanced budgets) in order to effectively address the humanitarian crisis, cover social needs, reconstruct the social state, and take the economy out of the vicious circle of recession.
- The implementation of the beginning procedures leading to exit from the euro and to the cancellation of the major part of the debt. There are absolutely manageable choices that can lead to a new economic model oriented towards production, growth, and the change in the social balance of forces to the benefit of the working class and the people.
The exit from the eurozone under present conditions is a difficult but feasible process that will allow the country to follow a different path, far away from the unacceptable programs included in the Juncker package.
We should emphasize that exiting the euro is not an end in itself, but the first step in a process of social change, of recovery of national sovereignty and of economic progress combining growth and social justice. It is part of an overall strategy based on productive reconstruction, the stimulation of investment, and the reconstitution of the welfare state and the rule of law.
In the face of the intransigent behavior of lenders, whose aim is to force the government of Syriza to full surrender, exiting the euro is a politically and ethically fair choice.
Exiting the euro is, finally, a path that includes confrontation with powerful domestic and foreign interests. That’s why the most important factor in addressing the difficulties that arise is the determination of Syriza to implement its program, drawing strength from popular support.
More specifically, some of the positive aspects of the exit include:
- Recovery of monetary sovereignty, which automatically means regaining the capacity to provide liquidity to the economy. There is no other way to cut the European Central Bank’s noose on Greece.
- The elaboration of a development plan based on public investment, which will however also allow in parallel private investment. Greece needs a new and productive relationship between the public and private sectors to enter a path to sustainable development. The realization of this project will become possible once liquidity is reestablished, combined with national saving.
- Regaining control of the domestic market from imported products will revitalize and enhance the role of small and medium-sized enterprises, which remain the backbone of the Greek economy. At the same time exports will be stimulated by the introduction of a national currency.
- The state will be liberated from the stranglehold of the European Monetary Union at the level of fiscal and monetary policy. It will be able to achieve substantial lifting of austerity, without unreasonable restrictions on the provision of liquidity. This will also enable the state to adopt measures which will bring fiscal justice and redistribution of wealth and income.
- The possibility of accelerated growth after the initial difficult months. The resources that became inactive during the seven-year-long period of crisis can be quickly mobilized to reverse the disastrous policy of the memoranda, if there is sufficient liquidity and a stimulation of demand. This will open up the possibility of a systematic decline in unemployment and a rise in income.
Finally, by leaving the EMU, Greece will not become less European, it will follow a path that differs from the one followed by the countries of the European Union core, an option which is already well advanced in countries such as Sweden and Denmark. The exit from the EMU not only will not isolate our country, but, on the contrary, will allow it to acquire a new role on the international scene. A role based on independence and dignity, very different from the position of an insignificant pariah as dictated by the neoliberal policies of the memoranda.
The process of an exit from the EMU requires of course political legitimacy and active popular support. The referendum demonstrated the will of the people to reject once and for all austerity regardless of the challenges raised by the foreign and the domestic establishment.
It is now clear that our government has been essentially forced to exit the euro because of the EU’s final refusal to accept reasonable proposals on debt relief, the lifting of austerity, and the rescue the Greek economy and society, as demonstrated by the new ultimatum sent after the referendum.
Translated by Stathis Kouvelakis