Morning Star.png Greeks Hung Out To Dry Editorial, Morning Star, London, 14 July 2015 “Crucified” was the term an unnamed EU official used to describe Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras after his marathon weekend of talks with eurozone leaders. The term might aptly be used to describe his country’s predicament — subjected to deliberately painful and humiliating punishment at the hands of the European Union. This is not a case of unpleasant medicine, something Greece will have to swallow in order to secure future prosperity. The “bailout” “agreement” does not offer light at the end of the tunnel. Subjected to the austerity demands of the IMF, European Union and European Central Bank since the financial crash, the Greek economy has nosedived — just like every economy that cuts wages and public spending, leaving everybody poorer. Greece’s economy is a full 25 per cent smaller than it was before the EU administered its leeches. Further bleeding will further immiserate the country and its people. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, the principal cheerleader for austerity on the continent, held firm against Mr Tsipras’s pleas for some of the debt to be written off. But the reality is the debt will never be repaid — an economy condemned to permanent recession will never be in a position to do so. The reason is that — just like the blizzard of cuts unleashed on this side of the channel by Messrs Cameron and Osborne, all while Britain’s debts continued to rise — cutting the debt was never the aim. Austerity is not an economic strategy. It is a political one. Across the European Union, attacks on wages, on pensions and the retirement age, on public services and on employment rights are all geared to strengthen bosses and weaken working people. In Britain, a willing government has enthusiastically carried out the programme, but the EU is ready to step in and override democracy when it faces popular resistance. Athens has now agreed that the retirement age, already raised from 60 to 65 for men in line with EU instructions over the past few years, will rise further. Earlier retirement exceptions for “arduous” and “dangerous” professions will be purged, in a sinister move reminiscent of the British government’s bid to force firefighters to continue their physically taxing and exceptionally risky work well into old age. The sweeping privatisations Syriza was elected to prevent are going ahead. The electricity grid, the ferries, the ports. A new fund will be established, handed €50 billion (£35.5bn) in public assets and given free rein to flog them to repay creditors or otherwise turn a profit from them. Tsipras views it as an achievement that this fund will now be based in Athens, rather than Luxembourg. But this is small comfort since the EU has also won concessions that the body in charge of privatising state assets, Taiped, will be “independent” of political control — that is, beyond democratic accountability. Greece must also “depoliticise” the administration of major services, all steps towards the nightmare vision at the heart of the euro — the removal of political control of economic policy. In other words, the end of our right to a democratic say over the issues of most importance to how we live — from our pay, our rights at work and our pensions to our ability as a society to ensure everyone gets access to healthcare, education, housing and much more. Everyone who believes in democracy must stand in solidarity with Greece and raise our voices in rage at the crucifixion of a people for their temerity in opposing the neoliberal EU. From: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-42f4-Greeks-hung-out-to-dry#.VaTMMfmqqko -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
