This video says about itself:
(3 Nov 2016) Pensioners staged an anti-government rally in Greece on Thursday to protest against a new round of cuts introduced under the country’s international bailout programme.
The protesters marched through central Athens to the labour ministry in a peaceful rally, as the country’s largest labour union called a 24-hour strike for 8 December.
Under pressure to make deeper cuts, the left-wing government has imposed reductions on most supplementary pensions that are paid out by smaller state-backed funds.
Inspectors from the International Monetary Fund and European Union institutions are due to return to Athens this month to oversee major changes to labour laws and union regulations, as well as measures to ease pressure on domestic banks from high levels of non-performing loans.
From daily The Morning Star in Britain:
Greek workers shut down country in general strike
Friday 9th December 2016
GREEK workers held yet another general strike yesterday, protesting against the latest imposition of government cuts to satisfy international creditors linked to the bailout of foreign banks.
Transport, state schools, ferries and national rail services were largely disrupted, while public hospitals operated on emergency staffing.
Private-sector workers were also involved in well-supported strike action for the first time in months.
Tens of thousands of trade unionists marched in demonstrations organised separately by the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) and the Communist Party-linked All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) in Athens, while over 5,000 took to the streets of Thessaloniki and other cities held their own mobilisations.
Seafarers too are involved in rolling 48-hour stoppages that have developed into indefinite strike action, which has become a focus for wider solidarity and there will be a mobilisation in their support today.
Years of recession and austerity have left nearly a quarter of Greeks unemployed, with most no longer receiving any state benefits and a quarter of the economy wiped out.
European Union and International Monetary Fund creditors agreed earlier this week to grant Greece a series of short-term debt relief measures to ease its repayment schedule.
But the “left radical” Syriza government is still working on new measures expected to remove protection for private-sector jobs and distressed mortgage-holders.
Bailout negotiators are expected to return to Athens next week, with agreement possible by the end of the month on terms linked to the next emergency bailout.
“We’ve been at this stage before. Everyone has to stay calm,” said Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos.
European Union and IMF demand new austerity measures in Greece: here.
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Friday 16th December 2016
posted by Morning Star in World
FRENCH President Francois Hollande emerged yesterday as an unlikely defender of Greece against its EU creditors.
Before a summit of EU leaders, he said: “It is out of the question to ask for further additional efforts from Greece or prevent them from taking a number of sovereign measures that respect the commitments” that Athens had previously given.
Days after the December 5 eurozone agreement to approve some debt relief, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced a Christmas bonus for some 1.6 million low-income pensioners and pledged to restore a lower sales tax rate for Aegean Sea islanders.
The action surprised the eurozone creditors, who suspended the debt relief.
Mr Tsipras said at the summit that there was room for “a breakthrough, without blackmail.
“In the name of Europe, the Greek people are making sacrifices and everyone must show respect for this,” he urged.
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-6dec-Hollande-rushes-to-defence-of-Greece-against-EU-creditors#.WFPg_n2bIdU
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Thursday 22nd December 2016
posted by Morning Star in Features
A row has broken out between PM Alexis Tsipras and the IMF-led coalition of international lenders over a so-called bonus payment to pensioners. TOM GILL reports
IT’S Christmas time for Greek pensioners. But what amounts to a rather modest gift from their government seems to have led to a major international rift threatening calamitous consequences for the austerity capital of Europe.
In recent days a row has broken out between PM Alexis Tsipras and the IMF-led coalition of international lenders over a so-called bonus payment to pensioners. The row threatens the debt relief we are told the economy badly needs.
There’s growing speculation that this has been deliberately engineered by Tsipras, whose popularity has been sliding and who is planning a snap election, to face the Greek people for a third time in less than two years.
Tsipras, once the hope of people in Greece and across Europe, has been losing support ever since he blinked first in a stand-off with the troika last year over whether he’d implement draconian austerity policies in return for international help in servicing the country’s huge debts.
The latest opinion polls put his Syriza party some 15 per cent behind the conservative New Democracy Party, leading with about 35 per cent of the vote.
At the weekend, in a speech to European left parties that some interpreted as the start of an election campaign, he stated: “Our creditors need to keep in mind that the Greek people have made enough sacrifices and now it’s time for them to fulfil their obligations.
“We are decisive that we will never surrender our people to the ‘yes-men’ who want Greece in the straitjacket of austerity for many years ahead.
“We have delivered on our obligations and our creditors need to do their part. I’m optimistic that Greece will achieve its goals. But we will never accept the logic of ‘eternal austerity’ that destroys Greek society.”
The problem for 42-year-old Tsipras is that people in Greece have heard that speech before. And many just don’t trust him any more.
He got himself elected in January 2015 on the back of promises that he’d finally loosen the austerity grip that has been killing Greece.
But in the end he accepted even harsher cuts than he’d originally opposed, signing up to major pension counter-reforms, tax rises and a mass privatisation programme.
In the birthplace of Western democracy, many feel democracy has been in effect suspended. All key decisions in the country appear to be made in Berlin, Brussels and Washington.
Local elites, as Tsipras says, are simply yes-men. And ordinary citizens are paying the price.New figures released in recent days show an epic social catastrophe.
In a country where 350,000 families do not have a single earner, nine out of 10 jobless people do not receive unemployment benefits, according to Greece’s statistical authority ELSTAT and the General Confederation of Greek Workers.
The study also found that women suffered a higher rate of joblessness than men (27.2 per cent) and among younger people (age 15-24) the figure was a shocking 47 per cent.
Unsurprisingly this has led to a massive exodus: in the past six years, since the first international “bailout,” some 300,000 highly skilled professionals and workers have gone abroad to look for work.A separate report, also from ELSTAT, found a significant increase in deaths from respiratory diseases, with 12,231 in 2014 compared to 7,994 in 2000, a growing number of deaths due to psychological illnesses — from 84 in 2000 to 669 in 2014 and a rise in suicides to 565 in 2014, compared to 382 in 2000.
And for those seeking medical help, things look grim. A study published this summer by the Panhellenic Federation of Employees at Public Hospitals found that cuts — including 4,000 fewer staff, 35,000 job vacancies and 200 mothballed intensive care units — had left hospitals, medical centres and ambulance services “in a state of dissolution.” The picture of collapse can be seen across the public sector.
Not for the first time, international lenders are in public disagreement on elements of the austerity package, but not the essence that it should continue. The IMF says Greece needs a “radical restructuring” of its public sector, although far from being “bloated”, as the cliche rolled out in the international media goes, it’s actually substantially underweight compared to more advanced economies.
What the Greek people think is really the last thing on the minds of foreign politicians lording it over the Greeks — and the unelected, hyper-powerful officials at their service.
For example, an opinion poll conducted by Pro Rata for Efimerida ton Syntakton daily indicated that 50 per cent of Greeks had a positive view of the pension payment, while 19 per cent were neutral on the matter.
The ill-named bonus (can you imagine a banker getting excited about €300) was also backed by a strong majority of 196 MPs in parliament.
It’s understandable then that Greeks remain deeply hostile to the Washington-based financial policeman with a poll earlier this year showing the majority want the IMF out of Greece, believing it is “blackmailing” the country.
What may make people especially suspicious of the motives behind the renewed tension between Tspiras and creditors is that it comes less than a month after he cleared out his cabinet of the remaining resistance to his pro-austerity policies.
These included shipping minister Theodoros Dritsas, who was against further investment in Piraeus port by the Chinese conglomerate Cosco; energy and environment minister Panos Skourletis, who had vehemently opposed the partial privatisation of the Public Power Corporation and has been moved to the interior ministry; and Aristides Baltas, removed as culture minister.
Reliably pro-privatisation, pro-market types like US-based economics professor Dimitri Papadimitriou were promoted, or as in the case of Euclid Tsakalotos, the Oxford-educated finance minister, retained.
Tsakalotos had replaced in mid-2015 the outspoken anti-austerity rebel Yanis Varoufakis.Whether Tsipras can clinch a win for the third time in a row remains to be seen.
To date Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his ND party — while offering no alternative that would favour ordinary working people — seems the only other game in town.
Some had invested hope in a left split from Syriza, calling itself Popular Unity, that was created after Tsipras accepted a third “rescue” package in July 2015 and ahead of the September 2015 elections.
But while Syriza returned a majority once again, in part due to a big fall in turnout as disillusioned voters stayed at home, Popular Unity failed to reach the 3 per cent bar to get a single seat in parliament.
Far right Golden Dawn is polling as much as 10 per cent, which, given developments elsewhere in Europe and the globe, is deeply worrying.
The communist KKE, whose linked trade unions are fighting a valiant battle of resistance in the streets, and Pasok-Dimar, the rump of the former social democratic behemoth, are meanwhile vying for fourth place, each with around 8 per cent.
So what of the pensioners and the chances of a little seasonal cheer?
International lenders, including other European governments, responded to the announcement that they would get their Christmas present by suspending debt relief for Greece, and with elections due next year in arch-austerity champion Germany, it seems they are very unlikely to budge.
Pundits speculate this is in any case all about Tspiras trying to shore up short-term support among an electorally important group. But Greece’s senior citizens don’t feel too grateful. In protests in recent days, some dismissed the bonus as “crumbs.”
After a dozen or so pension cuts nearly half of Greece’s elderly have fallen below the poverty line, having to get by on an income of less than €665 a month.
After rent, utility bills and healthcare, they barely make ends meet. Moreover, the debt relief at stake would reduce Greece’s public debt by 20 percentage points of GDP by 2060.
As always seems to be the case, the sacrifices of the many take a while to feed through to rewards. Some of Greece’s senior citizens may be thinking that they haven’t got that long.
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-d6e7-Will-Greek-pensioners-get-some-Christmas-cheer#.WFu-Tn2bIdU
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Wednesday 18th January 2016
posted by Morning Star in World
GREECE said yesterday that it would welcome the withdrawal of the International Monetary Fund from its “bailout” programme after the agency expressed reservations about a planned 3.5 per cent budget surplus and the sustainability of Greek debt.
Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, speaking for the Syriza-led government, said the IMF had made “irrational demands” of Greece.
“What the IMF decides is its own concern,” he said. “It should take the decision as soon as possible and not create pointless delays.”
Negotiations for a third bailout continue following two previous agreements imposed on the country by the IMF, EU and European Central Bank that ordered a fire sale of public assets such as ports and transport infrastructure, cuts to wages and pensions and the deregulation of many industries and professions in return for cash to repay bad loans.
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-b5e8-Greece-Happy-to-see-the-back-of-the-IMF#.WH-r2H2bIdU
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