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| "Butchers" of pensions, salaries, workers rights. PM Alexis Tsipras (right) with Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos. |
With the 153 votes of the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government's MPs, Greece’s parliament approved on Friday a handful of additional antipeople austerity measures demanded by creditors in order to unlock more than €7bn of aid and complete a much delayed second review of the so-called bailout progam.
Once again, the government of Tsipras proves its role in doing the "dirty job" on behalf of the creditors and the big Capital.
The extra austerity measures, which were added to draft legislation on fishing regulations in an attempt to speed up their passage through parliament, are related to further cuts in pensions and "freezing" of the collective contracts until 2022, taxation issues and electronic auction of properties.
The extra austerity measures, which were added to draft legislation on fishing regulations in an attempt to speed up their passage through parliament, are related to further cuts in pensions and "freezing" of the collective contracts until 2022, taxation issues and electronic auction of properties.
"The (political) degradation of the government has surpassed any limits" commented the Press Office of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) the MPs of which- in a symbolic gesture - left the Parliament Hall after voting down the measures. During his intervention, the KKE MP Nikos Karathanasopoulos denouned the governmental measures and called the "workers to uprise, to counterattack, to condemn the policy of the government which consists a continuation of the previous governments' policy, not only in its content but also in the way of its legislation".
The SYRIZA-ANEL government, through its Finance and Labour Ministers Euclid Tsakalotos and Efi Achtsioglou, invoked the debt issue (and the supposed facilitation of the Greek public debt) in order to justify the new harsh antipeople legislation. However, as KKE's Karathanasopoulos mentioned, its the popular family that pays for the debt facilitation, adding that "the people are bleeding for a debt that they didn't create and for which they are not responsible".
MP Karathanasopoulos also warned that the upcoming agreement between the SYRIZA-ANEL government and the creditors in the Eurogroup meeting of June 15th will be towards an antipeople-antiworkers direction.
In the meantime, hundreds of protesters responded to the call by PAME (All-Workers Militant Front) and gathered outside the Parliament's entrance on Friday evening, demonstrating against the new slaughter of their rights.
