Dutch Minister Dijsselbloem and Greece in Delft, 6 March

This video says about itself:

Austerity Suicides: Desperate Greeks ‘don’t want to die, they want to kill pain’

6 May 2014

Today, austerity and suicide go hand in hand in Greece. One study directly links most suicides in 2009 and 2010 to the budget cuts, saying over five hundred Greek men have taken their lives in this period. That’s an average of almost one person per day. The country used to have the lowest rate in Europe – but that number spiraled when the economy crashed. Marina Kosareva spoke to some of those who’ve been driven close to the edge.

From Facebook:

Solidarity meets Dijsselbloem at TU Delft | 6/3/2015

Mr. Jeroen René Victor Anton Dijsselbloem, Finance Minister of the Netherlands and Chairman of the Eurogroup is going to deliver a lecture at TU Delft on Friday the 6th of March at 16:00.

Having experienced the impacts of the crisis, both in Greece as well as in the Netherlands, we would like to present to Mr. Dijsselbloem as well as to the fellow students that will follow this lecture, some of the facts that do not reach mainstream media.

The crisis and its management by Greek and European governments, European and international institutions has, over the last 5 years, has led the largest part of the Greek population to face poverty conditions. intensified inequalities and the redistribution of wealth through the application of austerity policies. These policies have been proven unsuccessful even compared to their declared goals, such as: to make public debts viable, to increase the economy’s “competitiveness” and to save it from the exploitation by the established oligopolies and vested interests.

Mainstream media have presented – in the most insulting way – the population of a whole country as a being lazy, idle, corrupt and [ungrateful], forgetting to mention facts such as: the destination of the money of the European citizens, the extreme profits of the banks and states through the continuous lending, the violent neoliberal policies, the privatizations, the annihilation of labour rights, the reduction of pensions and salaries, the unreal horizontal taxation schemes, the slash in social funding (i.e. education, healthcare, social security), the firings in the public and private sector as well as many more.

It has been already proven that the dream of constant economic growth and consumerism drives to great economic inequality, social injustice, violation of fundamental rights, authoritarian governance and of course the brutal exploitation and depletion of natural resources. We believe that we have entered an era in which growth, either through austerity or growing demand will not be possible or sustainable.

Since behind any numbers, human stories hinder and

– Since we didn’t “eat” them all together (a famous phrase of a Greek politician in order to justify the level of corruption despite the fact he was into the government for many years)
– Since 1,25 million unemployed hinder friends, families and hundreds of thousands stories
– Since 4000 suicides during the austerity years hide 4000 tragedies
– Since hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Greece hinder all of us too
– and mainly since SOLIDARITY cannot be measured in economic terms

We are calling for a gathering full of humour and an attitude for pressure in order to show exactly what Jeroen represents: A Europe which sees only numbers, applies economic experiments in whichever state they target, neglecting with the most disgraceful way any consequences for all European societies and relations keeping as the only drive profit itself.

We want to show that not only we are not the ones exploiting whichever supposed European financial support, which doesn’t positively affect the majority of the Greek society but on the contrary, we are all citizens of a different Europe, based on values such as peace, freedom, respect and solidarity.

Against a system based on social division and individualism, productivity and money based economy, we counter propose cooperation, exchange and collective action. Towards a Europe which respects its societies and its the timeless values, human rights and the environment.

GREECE sent its eurozone partners an augmented list of proposed reforms today, but EU officials promptly knocked it back: here.

After the Syriza-led government’s decision to sign the February 20 Eurogroup statement and capitulate to European Union (EU) demands for more austerity in Greece, EU officials are stepping up their threats against the country: here.

Britain: SPEAKERS from across the left condemned austerity as a political project aiming at shoring up the profits of the super rich at the Morning Star spring conference yesterday: here.

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