“The government's
celebrations can not hide that yesterday's
Eurogroup agreement is essentially a post-memorandum
Memorandum [of austerity]. The so-called
"post-memorandum" period, not only
will not be accompanied by substantial relief for the working-class
strata but will involve new burdens. The huge budget surpluses, the
rigid surveillance and approval of the process of "reforms"
by the "institutions", the privatizations,
the preservation of all antipeople measures
in the Memorandums, and the completion of
all those “remaining issues” reveal the
true outcome of the agreement" points out the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) in a statement on the Eurogroup decision on
Greek debt.
"The annex of
the agreement describes in detail all the measures for which the
Greek government is committed, completely crushing the legend
about the "end of austerity" and a post-memorandum
improvement in the lives of the workers", writes
the Party statement, adding that "the agreement, which
includes crush of pensions, reduction of
tax-free allowances, reduction of health costs and
social benefits, speeding up of auctions, minimum wage
guaranteeing the competitiveness of monopolies, investments
according to the needs of the capital, new liberalization of
energy, acceleration of privatizations,
demonstrates that capitalist development requires new sacrifices from
the workers, cheap labor power and absolute freedom for
the big capital to promote its investments."
The KKE notes that "these
are measures that, over time, are required
by the country's ruling class, as
they expressed in the positions of SEV
(Hellenic Federation of Enterprises), of
SETE (Greek Tourism Confederation),
the Union of Greek Shipowners, measures that the SYRIZA-ANEL
government promotes with greater efficiency thus
receiving multiple congratulations
for its performance”,
adding that “the outcome of the agreement shows that the Greek
government's negotiation of the EFSF bond lengthening time and, more
generally, of securing the sustainability of the sovereign debt,
leads to a new deterioration".
"The
sustainability of debt is based on the monstrous primary
surpluses of 3.5% of GDP by 2022 and the 2.2% average
surplus of the GDP by 2060, which the workers will be forced
to pay" the KKE notes in its statement.
With regard to the
government's negotiation of debt management, the KKE points
out that “it referred to the "sharing of prey"
between the domestic and the monopoly
groups of the other European states and at the same time reflects the
intra-EU contradictions which are
constantly sharpening”
"The fiscal
situation of the EU Member States, even those of the
so-called powerful core, diverges,
reflecting the exacerbation of asymmetries
within the EU. Germany has surpluses,
while Italy is plunged into a
sovereign debt, the management of which becomes
more difficult. In this context, the negotiation of the Greek
debt is part of the overall negotiation for
the management of the problem of capital's
overaccumulation, the distribution of the
losses of the crisis, and the profits of development between the EU
Member States and, more generally, between Germany
and the USA. Germany's tough line, the IMF's abstention from further
lending and support towards France, portray
these contradictions, contradictions that have not only been solved,
but they are expanding" the KKE statement
said.
"The KKE calls all
workers, every man and woman from the popular
strata who sees his life to crumble for the profits of
monopolies, to stand up. To organize his counter-attack on the new
agreement of the attack's escalation, to
fight to recover the losses of the crisis, to demand the
cover of his needs. To move decisively against
the real opponent, the ruling class, the
bourgeois governments, the bourgeois state, the EU and NATO. To align
himself with the KKE and its forces for a radically different
path of development that can meet its needs" the Communist
Party of Greece's statement concludes.
