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NY Times, Mar. 19 2015
Germans Protest European Austerity Measures
By RHEA WESSEL and JACK EWING
FRANKFURT — Protesters set cars on fire and clashed with police officers
on Wednesday as they marched toward the European Central Bank’s new
headquarters in a demonstration against austerity and capitalism that
took on a markedly more heated tone than past protests.
The rally, organized by a group called Blockupy and German workers’
unions, drew thousands of people as the central bank inaugurated its new
tower. In the morning, as a group of roughly 400 demonstrators tried to
cross a bridge over the Main River and head toward the tower, they were
blocked by the police. Smaller groups burned police cars, furniture,
trash and bikes nearby. Hundreds of police officers in riot gear guarded
an area around the bank, and officers sprayed tear gas at protesters who
had been throwing rocks.
More than 200 demonstrators were injured by police bats and tear gas,
Blockupy said, and the police said 94 officers were injured. “The
violent acts of some activists were neither planned nor wanted,” said
Frauke Loew, a Blockupy spokeswoman.
The size and intensity of the protests sent a strong signal that the
German Blockupy movement was back after an earlier wave of activism
petered out in 2012. But in contrast to the earlier, mostly mellow
protests, there was a distinctly violent element on Wednesday,
reflecting the political polarization that has built in the eurozone
after four years of harsh cuts in government spending and astronomical
unemployment in Greece and other troubled countries.
Blockupy is a left-wing alliance of dozens of activist groups from
across Europe. Its members include one of the largest German labor
unions, the United Service Union, known as Ver.di, and Syriza, the
left-wing, anti-austerity Greek political party that is now leading the
government in Athens.
The European Central Bank is one of Greece’s main creditors, and it is
part of the so-called troika of international organizations that are
supervising the Greek bailout program that the government of Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras is trying to renegotiate. The central bank,
along with the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund,
is widely blamed for imposing austerity measures on countries that have
needed bailouts.
Rosina Sfyridou, a German of Greek descent who lives in Frankfurt and
was among a small group carrying a Syriza flag near the Main River at
midday, said she wanted to fight for democracy and social justice, and
not only in Greece.
“The troika is making life difficult,” she said. “Schools are closing.
Greeks can’t get proper health care. I have family there; we’re closer
to the problem.”
Panagiotis Tsianakas, another German of Greek descent, headed to a
central square to hear a speech by a Syriza representative, Giorgos
Chondros. “The European finance ministers are brushing democracy to the
side,” Mr. Tsianakas said.
Antagonism has been growing between Greece and Germany, Athens’s biggest
European lender. “Our battle in Greece is a battle for all Europeans,”
Mr. Chondros told a cheering crowd of about 8,000. “We need a European
organization against austerity, and that organization has started here
today.”
Employees of the central bank began moving into the new headquarters,
which cost about $1.27 billion, near the end of last year. Away from
downtown Frankfurt on a park-like site overlooking the Main River, the
600-foot-high tinted-glass tower is a more potent symbol of the central
bank’s power than the generic gray high-rise in central Frankfurt that
it previously occupied.
The inauguration ceremony was scaled back in response to the protests.
In addition, some European Central Bank employees were encouraged to
work from home on Wednesday, though a central bank spokesman said the
institution was “fully operational.”
Mario Draghi, president of the bank, acknowledged in a speech
inaugurating the headquarters that European unity was being strained and
that “people are going through very difficult times.”
As a European Union institution “that has played a central role
throughout the crisis, the E.C.B. has become a focal point for those
frustrated with this situation,” Mr. Draghi said in prepared remarks.
“This may not be a fair charge — our action has been aimed precisely at
cushioning the shocks suffered by the economy. But as the central bank
of the whole euro area, we must listen very carefully to what all our
citizens are saying.”
Since 2012, activists have occasionally handed out leaflets in front of
the central bank’s headquarters, but there had been little organized
protest in Frankfurt until Wednesday.
The previous headquarters was the focal point of protests beginning in
October 2011 as part of the global Occupy movement. The following year,
an estimated 60 to 100 protesters encamped in a grassy area below the
building until the police cleared it in August. The eviction took place
without any major incidents.
On Wednesday, many businesses near the headquarters shut their doors,
and residents watched the action on the street from their windows,
coffee and cameras in hand.
One protester, a woman from Denmark who would give her name only as
Sara, said she had arrived on an overnight bus with about 80 others to
show her disdain for the way the capitalist system enriched some but
impoverished others.
“I believe in fighting against the system,” she said, taking a break in
a bakery. “It won’t change if you don’t do something. I am here for
solidarity.”
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