[Marxism] Greece: completing the vicious circle | Michael Roberts Blog

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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So the full circle is completed.  The corrupt pro-business conservative 
New Democracy party in Greece that was ousted by the anti-capitalist 
Syriza party in 2015 has been returned to office in yesterday’s general 
election, with an outright majority over all other parties.


https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2019/07/08/greece-completing-the-vicious-circle/
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[Marxism] Greece: the spectre of debt | Michael Roberts Blog

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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I’ve just got back from a visit to Greece to speak at a conference on my 
book, Marx 200.  While I was there I talked to several left activists 
and academics and it seems that little has improved for the Greek people 
since my last visit two years ago.  Back in 2010, Greece started to sink 
fast under the Aegean, hitting the bottom in 2015.  But since then, the 
economy has remained stuck in the mud and hardly moved


https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2018/05/22/greece-the-spectre-of-debt/
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[Marxism] Greece: SYRIZA's scores clear win amid high abstention, more austerity

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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By Dick Nichols

SYRIZA pulled off a remarkable victory at the September 20 Greek election.
Although burdened  by its acceptance of the draconian third memorandum of
Greece's creditors and eight months of rule in the midst of recession,
closed banks and capital controls, SYRIZA's vote fell by only 0.88% and its
parliamentary seats by just four.

http://links.org.au/node/4580

-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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Re: [Marxism] Greece and foreign advisor/experts on the left

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Oops, I meant to add:  Much more interesting in Greece is the KOE.  They
have no foreign motherships and have built a significantly larger current
than any of the Trotskyist beneficiaries of the great wisdom of motherships.

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/09/14/the-situation-in-greece/

Phil


On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 2:36 PM, Philip Ferguson 
wrote:

> Louis wrote:
> >And is there any reason to ask why the people who get their advice from
> Alex Callinicos can hardly make a dent in Greece? Taaffe's group is no
> better.
>
> And the failure of the Taaffites and the SWP to make a dent in Britain
> doesn't inhibit them from being experts on Greece and countries even
> further away and even more different to Britain.
>
> Grief, these folks couldn't even work together in the Socialist Alliance
> in Britain and, instead, tore it apart with their petty rivalry.
>
> Moreover, the Taaffites couldn't even oppose British imperialism's war in
> the South Atlantic in the early 1980s or British imperialism's armed
> occupation in the north of Ireland - they couldn't even support (indeed
> they tried to sabotage) the campaign for the five modest demands of the
> republican comrades on hunger strike in 1980 and 1981.  Yet they attack
> Tsipras for not standing up to the Troika.  (I also think Tsipras didn't
> stand up to the troika but groups like the Taafites, who have a record of
> surrendering to their own imperialist rulers, have no business criticising
> anyone else for capitulating.)  At least the British SWP opposes British
> imperialism's wars.
>
> Ah, the topsy-turvy world of the left sects.
>
> Phil
>
>
>
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[Marxism] Greece and foreign advisor/experts on the left

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Louis wrote:
>And is there any reason to ask why the people who get their advice from
Alex Callinicos can hardly make a dent in Greece? Taaffe's group is no
better.

And the failure of the Taaffites and the SWP to make a dent in Britain
doesn't inhibit them from being experts on Greece and countries even
further away and even more different to Britain.

Grief, these folks couldn't even work together in the Socialist Alliance in
Britain and, instead, tore it apart with their petty rivalry.

Moreover, the Taaffites couldn't even oppose British imperialism's war in
the South Atlantic in the early 1980s or British imperialism's armed
occupation in the north of Ireland - they couldn't even support (indeed
they tried to sabotage) the campaign for the five modest demands of the
republican comrades on hunger strike in 1980 and 1981.  Yet they attack
Tsipras for not standing up to the Troika.  (I also think Tsipras didn't
stand up to the troika but groups like the Taafites, who have a record of
surrendering to their own imperialist rulers, have no business criticising
anyone else for capitulating.)  At least the British SWP opposes British
imperialism's wars.

Ah, the topsy-turvy world of the left sects.

Phil
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[Marxism] Greece: What's beneath 'eerily calm' election campaign?

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Dick Nichols

It is hard to imagine two election campaigns more different than that
leading up to SYRIZA's triumph in Greece's January 25 elections and
country's September 20 vote.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/60106



-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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[Marxism] Greece: SYRIZA on brink of split over new bail out deal

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Dick Nichols

By any logic, Greece's SYRIZA-led government should be sinking in the
opinion polls.

At the Brussels Eurosummit of Eurozone leaders on July 12, SYRIZA Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras agreed to a set of draconian preconditions for
obtaining a third €86 billion bailout. The decision effectively reversed
the opposition to austerity on which SYRIZA was elected in January.

Surely the Greek public would feel, as SYRIZA’s internal critics in its
Left Platform do, that by caving in to the European establishment, Tsipras
and finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos had betrayed the Greek people’s
61.3% vote against such austerity measures at the July 5 referendum?

Not if the most recent Greek opinion polls are anything to go by
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59785


-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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Re: [Marxism] ​ Greece: the trial of the arrested in July 15th

[Celeste Murillo via Marxism]

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​Well, this time you will have to blame Greek folks too (they are not
Morenoites, but we aren't either for that matter) because it's their
account of the repression in Athens.

Also, there is a statement of a Greek left organization (OKDE-Spartakos,
they're members of ANTARSYA), maybe you should ask them.

I don't know why the surprise. The Guardian published a feature a few years
ago where a senior police officer said that Golden Dawn had infiltrated the
police; and that the Police thought Golden Dawn could be used against the
Left. Also, a Greek newspaper (To Vima) issued an analysis that found that
more than one out of two police officers had voted for Golden Dawn.

You thought Syriza had all its cops democratically trained for their "left
government"?


Saludos,
Celeste
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Re: [Marxism] Greece: the trial of the arrested in July 15th

[ioannis aposperites via Marxism]

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On 30/07/2015 05:57 μμ, Louis Proyect wrote:



On 7/30/15 10:45 AM, ioannis aposperites via Marxism wrote:


More details about the trial of the arrested on leftvoice
http://www.leftvoice.org/Greece-A-scandalous-trial-targeting-left-wing-activists



Yesterday in an interview to the SYRIZA's radio "stokokkkino" Tsipras


I am absolutely for releasing those arrested but this article strains
credulity since I just can't picture cops asking such questions:

It is a very well known cop's attitude to ask questions while beating 
their victims pretending that it is precisely because of their answers 
that they reserve been beaten. And it is under our beloved left 
government that, surprisingly may it be, such things may occur. The cops 
have been also heard saying each other "it's since 2012 that we hadn't 
that fun". To be sure, i have definitely checked it out in my 
dictionary, they call it torture.


JA
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Re: [Marxism] Greece: A scandalous trial targeting left-wing activists

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/30/15 11:06 AM, Celeste Murillo via Marxism wrote:

*

​Full article:
http://www.leftvoice.org/Greece-A-scandalous-trial-targeting-left-wing-activists
​


Ah, the Morenoite press. That explains everything.
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[Marxism] Greece: A scandalous trial targeting left-wing activists

[Celeste Murillo via Marxism]

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​Full article:
http://www.leftvoice.org/Greece-A-scandalous-trial-targeting-left-wing-activists
​


On Tuesday July 28, the charges faced by three activists arrested on July
15 during the mobilisation in Syntagma Square were announced. While the
police was beating the demonstrators, the government led by Alexis Tsipras
was debating the draconian agreement with the Troika. The activists were
sentenced to several months of imprisonment on suspended sentences of three
years.

During the demonstration, the police attacked demonstrators with tear gas
and pepper spray. The police – whose members are known for their support to
right-wing extremist and xenophobic party Golden Dawn – launched a
concerted attack to disperse the anti-austerity protesters using extreme
force specially targeting at left-wing groups.

Some of the activists arrested told that while they were beaten and shoved
by batons and dragged by the arms, the police officers asked, “Have you
voted Syriza?” and when the demonstrators replied “no”, the police officers
asked, “Have you voted Antarsya?”, while kept beating at them.
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Re: [Marxism] Greece: the trial of the arrested in July 15th

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/30/15 10:45 AM, ioannis aposperites via Marxism wrote:


More details about the trial of the arrested on leftvoice
http://www.leftvoice.org/Greece-A-scandalous-trial-targeting-left-wing-activists


Yesterday in an interview to the SYRIZA's radio "stokokkkino" Tsipras


I am absolutely for releasing those arrested but this article strains 
credulity since I just can't picture cops asking such questions:


During the demonstration, the police attacked demonstrators with tear 
gas and pepper spray. The police – whose members are known for their 
support to right-wing extremist and xenophobic party Golden Dawn – 
launched a concerted attack to disperse the anti-austerity protesters 
using extreme force specially targeting at left-wing groups.


Some of the activists arrested told that while they were beaten and 
shoved by batons and dragged by the arms, the police officers asked, 
“Have you voted Syriza?” and when the demonstrators replied “no”, the 
police officers asked, “Have you voted Antarsya?”, while kept beating at 
them.




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[Marxism] Greece: the trial of the arrested in July 15th

[ioannis aposperites via Marxism]

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More details about the trial of the arrested on leftvoice 
http://www.leftvoice.org/Greece-A-scandalous-trial-targeting-left-wing-activists


Yesterday in an interview to the SYRIZA's radio "stokokkkino" Tsipras 
alluded to 15 agents provocateurs agents of some foreign power's 
intelligence services arrested by the police during its assault against 
the protesters on July 15.


In fact there were 6-7 foreigners among the arrested. They were just 
tourists unlucky enough to be found in the wrong place at the wrong 
moment. They alerted their embassies and were liberated with no charges.


Claiming that there were no protesters demonstrating on July 15 but 
spies and agents of foreign powers, indicates his moral and political 
uneasy, to say the least, position.

JA


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[Marxism] Greece: Follow-up to Tsipras surrender to Troika

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Two important articles on the follow-up to the Tsipras surrender to the
Troika:

Greece: The First Consequences of the Capitulation, by Eric Toussaint
http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article35519

Greece: The struggle for the soul of Syriza, by Soritiris Martalis, Syriza
CC member,
interviewed by Lee Sustar
http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article35484

plus another article worth reading, by Phil Hearse, a British FI leader,
that (inter alia) critiques the positions taken by Leo Panitch and Sam
Gindin
Dreaming in Technicolor - On Greece and the debate in the international left
http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article35478

Richard

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[Marxism] Greece, the Sacrificial Lamb

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times Op-Ed, July 26 2015
Greece, the Sacrificial Lamb
By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ

ATHENS — AS the Greek crisis proceeds to its next stage, Germany, Greece 
and the triumvirate of the International Monetary Fund, the European 
Central Bank and the European Commission (now better known as the 
troika) have all faced serious criticism. While there is plenty of blame 
to share, we shouldn’t lose sight of what is really going on. I’ve been 
watching this Greek tragedy closely for five years, engaged with those 
on all sides. Having spent the last week in Athens talking to ordinary 
citizens, young and old, as well as current and past officials, I’ve 
come to the view that this is about far more than just Greece and the euro.


Some of the basic laws demanded by the troika deal with taxes and 
expenditures and the balance between the two, and some deal with the 
rules and regulations affecting specific markets. What is striking about 
the new program (called “the third memorandum”) is that on both scores 
it makes no sense either for Greece or for its creditors.


As I read the details, I had a sense of déjà vu. As chief economist of 
the World Bank in the late 1990s, I saw firsthand in East Asia the 
devastating effects of the programs imposed on the countries that had 
turned to the I.M.F. for help. This resulted not just from austerity but 
also from so-called structural reforms, where too often the I.M.F. was 
duped into imposing demands that favored one special interest relative 
to others. There were hundreds of conditions, some little, some big, 
many irrelevant, some good, some outright wrong, and most missing the 
big changes that were really required.


Back in 1998 in Indonesia, I saw how the I.M.F. ruined that country’s 
banking system. I recall the picture of Michel Camdessus, the managing 
director of the I.M.F. at the time, standing over President Suharto as 
Indonesia surrendered its economic sovereignty. At a meeting in Kuala 
Lumpur in December 1997, I warned that there would be bloodshed in the 
streets within six months; the riots broke out five months later in 
Jakarta and elsewhere in Indonesia. Both before and after the crisis in 
East Asia, and those in Africa and in Latin America (most recently, in 
Argentina), these programs failed, turning downturns into recessions, 
recessions into depressions. I had thought that the lesson from these 
failures had been well learned, so it came as a surprise that Europe, 
beginning a half-decade ago, would impose this same stiff and 
ineffective program on one of its own.


Whether or not the program is well implemented, it will lead to 
unsustainable levels of debt, just as a similar approach did in 
Argentina: The macro-policies demanded by the troika will lead to a 
deeper Greek depression. That’s why the I.M.F.’s current managing 
director, Christine Lagarde, said that there needs to be what is 
euphemistically called “debt restructuring” — that is, in one way or 
another, a write-off of a significant portion of the debt. The troika 
program is thus incoherent: The Germans say there is to be no debt 
write-off and that the I.M.F. must be part of the program. But the 
I.M.F. cannot participate in a program in which debt levels are 
unsustainable, and Greece’s debts are unsustainable.


Austerity is largely to blame for Greece’s current depression — a 
decline of gross domestic product of 25 percent since 2008, an 
unemployment rate of 25 percent and a youth unemployment rate twice 
that. But this new program ratchets the pressure up still further: a 
target of 3.5 percent primary budget surplus by 2018 (up from around 1 
percent this year). Now, if the targets are not met, as they almost 
surely won’t be because of the design of the program itself, additional 
doses of austerity become automatic. It’s a built-in destabilizer. The 
high unemployment rate will drive down wages, but the troika does not 
seem satisfied by the pace of the lowering of Greeks’ standard of 
living. The third memorandum also demands the “modernization” of 
collective bargaining, which means weakening unions by replacing 
industry-level bargaining.


None of this makes sense even from the perspective of the creditors. 
It’s like a 19th-century debtors’ prison. Just as imprisoned debtors 
could not make the income to repay, the deepening depression in Greece 
will make it less and less able to repay.


Structural reforms are needed, just as they were in Indonesia, but too 
many that are being demanded have little to do with attacking the real 
problems Greece faces. The rationale behind many of the key structural 
reforms has not been explained well, either to 

Re: [Marxism] Greece: Donald Tusk warns of extremist political contagion

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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agreed, let's move on
in that spirit: doesn't it seem remarkable that the mainstream press has
had to quote the Left Platform and various of its members openly calling
for nationalization of the banks, sometimes with the added "under worker
control"?
Yes, I know, every bourgeois populist and their sister has nationalized
banks.
But obviously the dynamic is different here.
(And by the way I bet in discussions in the US some workers would say
"that's what we shoulda done to those fuckers in 2008 when they crashed OUR
economy!")

On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 9:28 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> On 7/17/15 9:14 AM, ioannis aposperites via Marxism wrote:
>
>> Donald Tusk may have no such fear. As demonstrated in this list
>> revolutions are just impossible for technical reasons (lack of
>> appropriate software etc)
>>
>
> Instead of caviling about my observation, maybe you can put forward some
> ideas on how Antarsya can become the vanguard of the Greek people now that
> Syriza has been discredited. The spotlight is on you and the KKE now.
>
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Re: [Marxism] Greece: Donald Tusk warns of extremist political contagion

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/17/15 9:14 AM, ioannis aposperites via Marxism wrote:

Donald Tusk may have no such fear. As demonstrated in this list
revolutions are just impossible for technical reasons (lack of
appropriate software etc)


Instead of caviling about my observation, maybe you can put forward some 
ideas on how Antarsya can become the vanguard of the Greek people now 
that Syriza has been discredited. The spotlight is on you and the KKE now.

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Re: [Marxism] Greece: Donald Tusk warns of extremist political contagion

[ioannis aposperites via Marxism]

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On 17/07/2015 03:55 μμ, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:

[Donald Tusk warns of extremist political contagion]   “I can feel, maybe not a 
revolutionary mood, but something like
widespread impatience. When impatience becomes not an individual but a
social experience of feeling, this is the introduction for revolutions.”


Donald Tusk may have no such fear. As demonstrated in this list 
revolutions are just impossible for technical reasons (lack of 
appropriate software etc)


JA
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[Marxism] Greece: Donald Tusk warns of extremist political contagion

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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FT, July 16, 2015 10:55 pm
Greece: Donald Tusk warns of extremist political contagion
Peter Spiegel in Brussels

The bitter stand-off over Greece has given new energy to radical 
political groups on the left and right, creating a pre-revolutionary 
atmosphere that Europe has not seen since 1968, the EU leader who 
brokered Monday’s bailout deal has warned.


Donald Tusk, the former Polish prime minister who now heads the European 
Council, said he feared “political contagion” from the Greek crisis far 
more than its financial fallout, arguing that common cause between 
far-right and far-left groups has been a precursor to some of Europe’s 
darkest moments of the last century.


“I am really afraid of this ideological or political contagion, not 
financial contagion, of this Greek crisis,” said Mr Tusk.


“It was always the same game before the biggest tragedies in our 
European history, this tactical alliance between radicals from all 
sides. Today, for sure, we can observe the same political phenomenon.”
Mr Tusk, who chairs all EU summits, played a central role in forcing 
Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, and Angela Merkel, his German 
counterpart, to agree terms on Monday that will allow talks to restart 
on a new €86bn bailout as soon as this weekend.


The new bailout deal, which involves sweeping austerity measures 
including a requirement to put an estimated €50bn of Greek public assets 
into a privatisation fund supervised by EU authorities, has led to 
accusations in Athens that Ms Merkel forced on Greece the kind of 
punitive conditions Germany was saddled with at the end of the first 
world war.


Mr Tusk disputed such criticisms, saying he was “100 per cent sure that 
Germany is not the winner in the context of political power”, 
particularly since “Germany has to sacrifice much more than other 
countries” in terms of financial aid it will soon have to send to Athens.


“I can’t accept this argument, that someone was punished, especially 
Tsipras or Greece. The whole process was about assistance to Greece,” Mr 
Tusk said.


“When we discuss facts, deeds and numbers, this is the only number on 
the table: €80bn for Greek assistance, and quite soft conditions. Not 
only [soft] financial conditions, but political conditions — in fact, 
without collateral. Come on: what is the reason to claim it’s something 
humiliating for Greece, or this is punishment for Tsipras?”


Mr Tusk said he had been unsettled by the bitter recriminations that 
have characterised the contentious six-month Greek negotiations, 
particularly the anti-EU and anti-German sentiment that he believes has 
become part of mainstream political discourse.


He said he was taken aback by a speech Mr Tsipras gave to the European 
Parliament last week where his criticism of Germany — including an 
argument that whereas Germany was provided “solidarity” and debt relief 
after the second world war, Greece had been denied similar treatment — 
was loudly cheered by a large number of MEPs.


“It was the first time I saw radicals with such emotion, in this context 
anti-German emotion. It was almost half of the European Parliament. This 
is why I think nobody, but in particular Germany, are political winners 
in this process.”


For me, the atmosphere is a little similar to the time after 1968 in Europe

Mr Tusk said he was concerned about the far left, which he believes is 
advocating “this radical leftist illusion that you can build some 
alternative” to the current EU economic model. He argued those far-left 
leaders were pushing to cast aside traditional European values like 
“frugality” and liberal, market-based principles that have served the EU 
in good stead.


He insisted these beliefs did not influence his negotiations with Mr 
Tsipras, whose Syriza party has been the most successful far-left party 
in Europe in decades. Mr Tusk said he took a pragmatic, non-ideological 
approach to the Greek leader.


Still, he said the febrile rhetoric from far-left leaders, coupled with 
high youth unemployment in several countries, could be an explosive 
combination.


“For me, the atmosphere is a little similar to the time after 1968 in 
Europe,” he said.


“I can feel, maybe not a revolutionary mood, but something like 
widespread impatience. When impatience becomes not an individual but a 
social experience of feeling, this is the introduction for revolutions.”

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[Marxism] Greece and the Left, the fight against Austerity continues through the EU, not for a ‘new Britain’.

[andrew coates via Marxism]

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Greece and the Left, the fight against Austerity continues through the EU, not 
for a ‘new Britain’Extract.

Can I say by the way how useful and important I - and I'm sure many others - 
have found the Marxism List posts/links/discussions on Greece over the last 
weeks...

The Greek crisis has been a 
perceived as proof that the ‘pro-European’ left has failed, largely by 
those who were already convinced that this is so.
Briefly basking in Syriza’s reflected glory they have now returned to their own 
political projects.

In France, apart from the 
anti-Euro and ‘Sovereigntist’  Front National, a minority of the Parti 
de Gauche (45%) voted at their recent conference for this as part of a 
general “Eurosceptic” line (Libération).  Their leader, Jean–Luc Mélenchon, has 
made frequent nationalist and anti-German remarks during the Greek crisis.

He said a few days ago,

“Pour la troisième fois dans l’histoire de l’Europe, l’obstination d’un 
gouvernement allemand est en train de détruire l’Europe”
For the third time in the History of Europe, the obstination of the German 
government is destroying Europe.








There is little doubt the same mood exists across Europe.

In Britain some see the Greek crisis as a sign to join in the campaign for the 
UK to leave the European Union.

This, Owen Jones dreams, 
(http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/14/left-reject-eu-greece-eurosceptic)
 would
 ” focus on building a new Britain, one of workers’ rights, a genuine 
living wage, public ownership, industrial activism and tax justice. Such
 a populist campaign could help the left reconnect with working-class 
communities it lost touch with long ago.”

Unfortunately this option 
will appear on no Referendum Ballot paper, when, one assumes the 
believers in a New Britain will mark their slips in the same way as the 
‘populists’ of the far-right,  and hard-line anti-socialist economic 
liberals.

https://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2015/07/16/greece-and-the-left-the-fight-against-austerity-continues-through-the-eu-not-for-a-new-britain/

Andrew Coates 
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[Marxism] Greece: Austerity bill passes despite SYRIZA rebellion, street protests

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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The Greek Parliament voted

in
the early hours of July 16 to back the deal agreed to by Prime Minister
Alexis Tsipras on the tough economic measures demanded by Greece's
creditors.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59501


-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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[Marxism] Greece: the scissors trap

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(This was posted on FB by Jeff Richards. It overlaps with my article on 
the drachma conversion issues.)


Greece: The scissors trap.
The story of why Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras changed his mind in 
the July 2015 negotiations with the European Union will, I am sure, be 
revealed by memoirs and investigative reporting in the future. At 
present any political assessment must be provisional. I am not one of 
those on the radical left (and the radical right in the case of Nigel 
Farrage) who are now letting off a lot of steam with cries of 
‘treachery’ or ‘betrayal’ etc. etc. etc.


Former Finance minister in the Syriza government Yanis Varoufakis, in a 
wide ranging interview with Phillip Adams on the radio programme Late 
Night Live alluded to one of the reasons why Tsipras recommitted himself 
to negotiations with the EU. Grexit would have required a new currency, 
a new Drachma. The task of creating a new currency is a very big 
organisational undertaking. Adams reminded the listener the vast 
logistical operation that was required to implement a new currency in 
Iraq following the invasion of that country by the Bush and Blair 
administrations.


Varoufakis said in the interview that the new Syriza government did have 
plans to opt for a new currency and they had assigned a special 
committee to look into the matter. That committee consisted of five 
members, whereas Varoufakis said that they would need to have a minimum 
of 500 personnel to take the process of a new currency to the next 
level. The reason why the finance ministry (which Varoufakis was leading 
at the time) did not take it to this next stage was the fear that 
setting up such a government department would harm the negotiations with 
the EU ministers. So the Greek government was caught in a trap, on the 
one hand trying to negotiate with intransigent ministers and hoping to 
exploit internal divisions within the EU -between Germany and France- 
and on the other hand not trying to do anything that might harm the 
negotiations with the EU (like being seen to be creating a new currency).


Greece exiting the European Currency Union (which is not the same as the 
European Union) is not an impossibly difficult task. It is however, a 
major logistical operation that would require the full mobilisation of 
the resources of the state, and the backing of the citizenry to 
implement. Syriza have alway indicated that it was their intention to 
try to negotiate and remain in the Euro with improved conditions. Plan B 
would have been to create a new currency. Syriza were simply unprepared 
for plan B, and were left with no option but to swallow the poison and 
hope they will survive without the country descending into a nazi 
revival. In many ways, it is an understandable why Syriza were caught 
unprepared. The relative newness in government, the enormity of the 
problems they were faced with, the urgent need to focus on meeting the 
needs of those left destitute by the policies of previous right wing 
governments. Most speculatively, I wondered if the lack of party cadres 
with limited experience in managing governments and state bureaucracies 
also played a role in the ‘turnaround’ by Tsipras.

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Re: [Marxism] Greece: The Struggle Continues | Jacobin

[Rod Holt via Marxism]

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There is no firewall or pay wall. I just clicked the URL provided by L.P. Works 
fine.
--rod

On Jul 14, 2015, at 9:34 PM, annette gagne via Marxism wrote:

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> 
> Looks like Jacobin has a firewall?
> 
> Best Wishes,
> - A
> On Jul 14, 2015 10:44 PM, "Louis Proyect via Marxism" <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
> 
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>> 
>> 
>> https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-varoufakis-kouvelakis-syriza-euro-debt/
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[Marxism] Greece: The Struggle Continues - Budgen interviews Kouvelakis

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece: The Struggle Continues
A definitive account of what has transpired over the last few weeks in
Greece, and what’s next for Syriza and the European left.
by Sebastian Budgen & Stathis Kouvelakis
Jacobin magazine, July 14



Key Points

*The government was overtaken by the referendum's momentum.
*The ideology of left-Europeanism explains much.
*Remaining unprepared for Grexit was deliberate.
*The government has two main camps.
*The "No" campaign was driven by class.
*After the vote, Tsipras revived a discredited opposition.
*The Left Platform plans to stay and fight to reclaim Syriza.
*Syriza's leadership would like to purge the party.
*The new agreement is the worst yet.
*It's unknown what resistance will follow.
*Syriza's left made some errors.


Sebastian Budgen is an editor for Verso Books and serves on the
editorial board of Historical Materialism. Stathis Kouvelakis teaches
political theory at King’s College London and serves on the central
committee of Syriza.

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[Marxism] Greece: public workers general strike against the agreement

[Celeste Murillo via Marxism]

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Full:
http://leftvoice.org/Tsipras-capitulation-and-the-general-strike-against-the-agreement



​
The public sector union federation ADEDY has called for a general strike
against the new memorandum on the same day of the Congressional vote. This
strike will be the first one held by ADEDY since Tsipras took office, but
it won’t be the first strike against the Syriza government. At the end of
May, doctors and health workers shut down the public hospitals demanding
more staff and more money for the public health care system.

According to the ADEDY’s statement, “We are calling for a 24 hour strike at
the same time that the Congress will be voting for the unpopular agreement;
we are calling a rally at 7 pm at Syntagma Square."

During the last five years, the Greek working class took part in 33 general
strikes against Pasok and the New Democracy governments. This 24-hour
strike represents the first one against Trispras’ government and its
agreement with the creditors. The general strike will come a week after the
resounding victory of the NO vote in the referendum.
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Re: [Marxism] Greece: general strikes and factory occupations

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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That was my point. THIS general strike could be different because after the
experience of failed previous strikes and failed parliamentary
efforts,workers are open as never before to NOT going home when the strike
ends...

On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 9:13 PM, Philip Ferguson via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> As Louis noted, general strikes in Greece are somewhat a dime a dozen.  The
> Greek ruling class has long since grown accustomed to them.  The problem is
> that the workers strike for a day and then go back to work and nothing has
> changed.
>
> The point about a general strike is that unless they're connected to the
> question of *actual power* they are quite easily managed in a country like
> Greece which has so many of them.  (Of course, in many capitalist
> countries, any strike wave around workers' rights would be a step
> forward!!!)
>
> One of the problems in Greece is the one Louis alluded to.  That Greek
> workers had general strike after general strike and in the end, because
> they didn't get anywhere, opted to use parliamentary politics and voted for
> Syriza.  The electoral process ran ahead of the process on the ground.
>
> Unless workers were occupying workplaces and beginning to organise
> alternative structures of power, the possibilities for serious resistance,
> let alone going on the offensive, were limited.  For instance, what if the
> government nationalised the banks, without workers having occupied them and
> demanding workers' control over them?
>
> Tsipras was always going to do a deal, he's a social democrat at best.
> Surely the role of the left was to prepare for that eventuality.
>
> In 2013 I interviewed a spokesperson for the Vio.me factory occupation in
> Thessaloniki and he told me that after the general strikes and mass
> protests, the Greek working class had gone home and tried to make ends meet
> the best they could.  Vio.me was very much an exception.  But this, it
> seems to me, is the road that hasn't been taken but offers a fruitful
> alternative to trying to manage things within the confines of capitalism.
> And surely the chief task of the global left is not around bemoaning the
> fact that a social democrat acted in a social democratic way, but advancing
> the struggle where we are and supporting concrete advances by workers in
> Greece, like the Vio.me occupation.
>
> The interview is here:
>
> https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/workers-self-management-only-solution-interview-with-spokesperson-for-vio-me-occupation/
>
> It links also to other articles on the occupation and a video:
>
> https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/workers-self-management-only-solution-interview-with-spokesperson-for-vio-me-occupation/
>
> Phil
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[Marxism] Greece: general strikes and factory occupations

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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As Louis noted, general strikes in Greece are somewhat a dime a dozen.  The
Greek ruling class has long since grown accustomed to them.  The problem is
that the workers strike for a day and then go back to work and nothing has
changed.

The point about a general strike is that unless they're connected to the
question of *actual power* they are quite easily managed in a country like
Greece which has so many of them.  (Of course, in many capitalist
countries, any strike wave around workers' rights would be a step
forward!!!)

One of the problems in Greece is the one Louis alluded to.  That Greek
workers had general strike after general strike and in the end, because
they didn't get anywhere, opted to use parliamentary politics and voted for
Syriza.  The electoral process ran ahead of the process on the ground.

Unless workers were occupying workplaces and beginning to organise
alternative structures of power, the possibilities for serious resistance,
let alone going on the offensive, were limited.  For instance, what if the
government nationalised the banks, without workers having occupied them and
demanding workers' control over them?

Tsipras was always going to do a deal, he's a social democrat at best.
Surely the role of the left was to prepare for that eventuality.

In 2013 I interviewed a spokesperson for the Vio.me factory occupation in
Thessaloniki and he told me that after the general strikes and mass
protests, the Greek working class had gone home and tried to make ends meet
the best they could.  Vio.me was very much an exception.  But this, it
seems to me, is the road that hasn't been taken but offers a fruitful
alternative to trying to manage things within the confines of capitalism.
And surely the chief task of the global left is not around bemoaning the
fact that a social democrat acted in a social democratic way, but advancing
the struggle where we are and supporting concrete advances by workers in
Greece, like the Vio.me occupation.

The interview is here:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/workers-self-management-only-solution-interview-with-spokesperson-for-vio-me-occupation/

It links also to other articles on the occupation and a video:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/workers-self-management-only-solution-interview-with-spokesperson-for-vio-me-occupation/

Phil
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[Marxism] Greece: Eurogroup meeting continues today; gov't reshuffle ahead; banking controls to last for months (5)

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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1.a)  Greece talks spill into second day as finance chiefs deadlock
by Karl Stagno Navarra, Radoslav Tomek & Ott Ummelas
I Kathimerini, Athens, July 12  (Bloomberg)


European finance ministers deadlocked over how to keep Greece in the
euro, forcing emergency talks to continue Sunday and threatening to
delay the infusion Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras desperately needs.

With Greece running out of money and its banks shut for the past two
weeks, the hardline group led by Germany signaled that the country’s
debt was too great, Tsipras’s reform proposals were inadequate and, in
any event, the Greeks couldn’t be trusted to keep their word. Finance
ministry aides will work through the night, allowing finance chiefs to
reconvene at 11 a.m. in Brussels before a leaders’ summit.

“It’s still very difficult, but work is still in progress,” Dutch
Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the head of the Eurogroup, told
reporters after nine hours of talks that ended at midnight. “The issue
of credibility and trust was discussed and also, of course, the
financial issues.”

The skepticism expressed by the policy makers came hours after Tsipras
won overwhelming support in the Greek Parliament for a package of
spending cuts, pension savings and tax increases intended to win
financial aid of at least 74 billion euros ($83 billion). Among its
shortcomings, the proposals failed to reflect the economic
deterioration since talks collapsed and capital controls were imposed
two weeks ago, according to Dijsselbloem.

Their concerns were reflected by the media back home. Germany’s
Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported a finance ministry
proposal to suspend Greece from the euro area for five years. The idea
was dismissed as illegal and nonsense by a European Union official who
asked not to be named because the talks are private.

Finnish media reported the Helsinki government flatly opposed the bailout.
 . . .
Greece and its creditors are struggling for common ground after
Tsipras missed a payment to the International Monetary Fund June 30
and allowed its second rescue package to lapse the same day. A new
bailout will be Greece’s third in five years.

The five-month standoff between the former communist student leader,
whose party translates to Coalition of the Radical Left, and his
creditors deepened the country’s economic misery. Bank withdrawals are
limited to 60 euros a day, pensions have been rationed and commerce is
grinding to a halt.
 . . .
The finance chiefs also rebuffed any talk of debt relief, a step that
the IMF has backed.

“Debt relief is impossible,” Germany’s Wolfgang Schaeuble said on his
way into Saturday’s meeting.
 . . .
The schedule for the summits of both the euro area and European Union
leaders will be determined by EU President Donald Tusk after meeting
Dijsselbloem Sunday morning.

The creditors still view the country’s reform proposals as
insufficient to meet fiscal targets, Frankfurter Allgemeine
Sonntagszeitung said, citing an assessment paper provided to euro area
finance ministers.

Tsipras faces political antagonists not just in Berlin and Brussels
but within his own party. More than a dozen SYRIZA members refused to
back the plan, with some of them denouncing the harsh measures it
prescribes less than a week after Tsipras won an anti-austerity
referendum. The prime minister said after the vote that his priority
would be to complete negotiations with the creditors on a bailout
deal.
 . . .


1.b)  Creditors Skeptical Over Greece’s Willingness to Implement Reforms
by Philip Chrysopoulos
The Greek Reporter, July 11


Greece’s creditors are skeptical over the leftist government’s
willingness and ability to implement the reforms required in order to
grant the country a third bailout package.

Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos had a hard time trying to
persuade his Eurozone peers that Athens is determined to proceed with
the reforms needed to save the country from bankruptcy and recover
from a five-year economic crisis.

However, Eurozone Finance Ministers expressed reservations whether
Greece can implement reforms after several Ministers and lawmakers of
the country’s coalition government essentially voted against the Greek
proposals and asked Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras not to sign an
agreement that includes austerity measures such as supplementary
pension cuts and tax hikes. Some of them have openly expressed the
opinion that Greece should le

Re: [Marxism] Greece again

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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WTF???

On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 2:35 PM, Sheldon Ranz via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
> Short of fire, sexual blackmail is one way to keel politicians in line.  It
> has worked for the LBGT community in the US, and folks should not be afraid
> to 'stoop' to that level if it can prevent future betrayals.
>
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Re: [Marxism] Greece again

[Sheldon Ranz via Marxism]

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Short of fire, sexual blackmail is one way to keel politicians in line.  It
has worked for the LBGT community in the US, and folks should not be afraid
to 'stoop' to that level if it can prevent future betrayals.
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[Marxism] Greece again

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Richard Seymour is busy working and so has retreated it seems to twitter.
Pity that.  His latest tweet is
"Full horrible detail of Greece deal: http://www.
naftemporiki.gr/finance/story/976680/the-greek-reform-proposals …
 < privatisations, VAT rises, pension cuts, no
trace of progressive agenda left."
I don't have the heart to follow the link. This is, it would appear, a
terrible defeat. I won't go on about that, but let me just repeat one of my
favourite sayings "Mann kann sich tot siegen". that, as list members would
know, is what Mandel wrote to Ben Gurion just after the Zionists' greatest
victory - the "6 Day War".

It is not only the people who will pay for the Troika victory. One day, and
there will be another day, the people will rise up and it will be a case of
"No more water; the fire next time".

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Greece accepts bailout terms

[Sheldon Ranz via Marxism]

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I was wrong to give Tsipras the benefit of the doubt.  He's no chess master
- just another Obama-nation. I hope the Greek people rise up and throw that
faker out of office.

'Tsipras' is Greek for 'tsores'.
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Re: [Marxism] Greece accepts bailout terms

[Marv Gandall via Marxism]

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The party is a coalition of different tendencies dominated by Tsipris’ 
Synapsimos faction of former euro-communists.  At present, it looks like this 
development will split Syriza, with the Left Platform and other left-wing 
groups and individuals opposed to the latest overture. How deeply and 
permanently the party will be split remains to be seen. 


On Jul 9, 2015, at 9:43 PM, A.R. G  wrote:

> So, SYRIZA was in fact as fraudulent as the other lefties were suggesting? 
> What is SYRIZA's excuse for this behavior? 
> 
> - Amith
> 
> On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 3:38 AM, Marv Gandall  wrote:
> On Jul 9, 2015, at 6:14 PM, A.R. G  wrote:
> 
> > Wait, so what was the point of the No vote and all of that?
> >
> > - Amith
> 
> As was suggested, the Tsipras leadership very likely anticipated a Yes vote 
> which would justify acceptance of the package and an expansion of the 
> governing coalition to the right as an expression of the popular will. At the 
> same time, campaigning for a No vote would keep its base intact regardless of 
> the outcome. The resounding No vote exploded that cover. The leadership is 
> not able to justify acceptance of the package as an expression of the popular 
> will and signalled a de facto expansion of the governing coalition to the 
> right by inviting the leaders of New Democracy and To Potami to sign onto a 
> government statement affirming the goal of an agreement with the troika. That 
> this joint statement was issued in haste a day after the referendum leads to 
> no other conclusion, IMO, than that the government, in concert with the 
> opposition, wanted to quickly stem the mass momentum resulting from the No 
> vote.
> 
> 
> > On Jul 9, 2015, at 5:28 PM, james pitman via Marxism 
> >  wrote:
> >
> > > http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/09/greece-debt-crisis-athens-accepts-harsh-austerity-as-bailout-deal-nears
> >
> > As a Guardian correspondent tweeted earlier:
> >
> > “The irony has not been lost on anyone - even though governing MPs are 
> > making light of it - that after the Greeks’ resounding rejection of further 
> > biting austerity at the weekend, prime minister Alexis Tsipras has with 
> > lightning speed now agreed to put his name to the most punitive austerity 
> > package any government has been asked to implement during the five years of 
> > economic crisis in Greece.”
> >
> > http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jul/09/greek-crisis-reform-plan-grexit-tsipras-draghi-live#block-559ee760e4b07fc6a121f5af
> >
> > This latest development is a betrayal of the popular will, no matter how 
> > much it will be sugar-coated with promises of (very modest) debt relief. It 
> > would have been more principled, though equally out of touch with mass 
> > sentiment, to have campaigned openly for a Yes vote if the Tsipras wing 
> > believed there was no possibility of resisting the troika, a belief which, 
> > judging by its erratic behaviour, seems to have taken root soon after it 
> > formed the government. The message this capitulation communicates, and the 
> > eurozone powers will spin it this way, is that resistance is futile. Let’s 
> > hope this becomes one of those rare historical instances where this proves 
> > not to be the case.
> >
> >
> > _
> > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> > Set your options at: 
> > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com
> >
> 
> 


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Re: [Marxism] Greece accepts bailout terms

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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So, SYRIZA was in fact as fraudulent as the other lefties were suggesting?
What is SYRIZA's excuse for this behavior?

- Amith

On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 3:38 AM, Marv Gandall  wrote:

> On Jul 9, 2015, at 6:14 PM, A.R. G  wrote:
>
> > Wait, so what was the point of the No vote and all of that?
> >
> > - Amith
>
> As was suggested, the Tsipras leadership very likely anticipated a Yes
> vote which would justify acceptance of the package and an expansion of the
> governing coalition to the right as an expression of the popular will. At
> the same time, campaigning for a No vote would keep its base intact
> regardless of the outcome. The resounding No vote exploded that cover. The
> leadership is not able to justify acceptance of the package as an
> expression of the popular will and signalled a de facto expansion of the
> governing coalition to the right by inviting the leaders of New Democracy
> and To Potami to sign onto a government statement affirming the goal of an
> agreement with the troika. That this joint statement was issued in haste a
> day after the referendum leads to no other conclusion, IMO, than that the
> government, in concert with the opposition, wanted to quickly stem the mass
> momentum resulting from the No vote.
>
>
> > On Jul 9, 2015, at 5:28 PM, james pitman via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
> >
> > >
> http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/09/greece-debt-crisis-athens-accepts-harsh-austerity-as-bailout-deal-nears
> >
> > As a Guardian correspondent tweeted earlier:
> >
> > “The irony has not been lost on anyone - even though governing MPs are
> making light of it - that after the Greeks’ resounding rejection of further
> biting austerity at the weekend, prime minister Alexis Tsipras has with
> lightning speed now agreed to put his name to the most punitive austerity
> package any government has been asked to implement during the five years of
> economic crisis in Greece.”
> >
> >
> http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jul/09/greek-crisis-reform-plan-grexit-tsipras-draghi-live#block-559ee760e4b07fc6a121f5af
> >
> > This latest development is a betrayal of the popular will, no matter how
> much it will be sugar-coated with promises of (very modest) debt relief. It
> would have been more principled, though equally out of touch with mass
> sentiment, to have campaigned openly for a Yes vote if the Tsipras wing
> believed there was no possibility of resisting the troika, a belief which,
> judging by its erratic behaviour, seems to have taken root soon after it
> formed the government. The message this capitulation communicates, and the
> eurozone powers will spin it this way, is that resistance is futile. Let’s
> hope this becomes one of those rare historical instances where this proves
> not to be the case.
> >
> >
> > _
> > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> > Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com
> >
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] Greece accepts bailout terms

[Marv Gandall via Marxism]

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On Jul 9, 2015, at 6:14 PM, A.R. G  wrote:

> Wait, so what was the point of the No vote and all of that? 
> 
> - Amith

As was suggested, the Tsipras leadership very likely anticipated a Yes vote 
which would justify acceptance of the package and an expansion of the governing 
coalition to the right as an expression of the popular will. At the same time, 
campaigning for a No vote would keep its base intact regardless of the outcome. 
The resounding No vote exploded that cover. The leadership is not able to 
justify acceptance of the package as an expression of the popular will and 
signalled a de facto expansion of the governing coalition to the right by 
inviting the leaders of New Democracy and To Potami to sign onto a government 
statement affirming the goal of an agreement with the troika. That this joint 
statement was issued in haste a day after the referendum leads to no other 
conclusion, IMO, than that the government, in concert with the opposition, 
wanted to quickly stem the mass momentum resulting from the No vote. 


> On Jul 9, 2015, at 5:28 PM, james pitman via Marxism 
>  wrote:
> 
> > http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/09/greece-debt-crisis-athens-accepts-harsh-austerity-as-bailout-deal-nears
> 
> As a Guardian correspondent tweeted earlier:
> 
> “The irony has not been lost on anyone - even though governing MPs are making 
> light of it - that after the Greeks’ resounding rejection of further biting 
> austerity at the weekend, prime minister Alexis Tsipras has with lightning 
> speed now agreed to put his name to the most punitive austerity package any 
> government has been asked to implement during the five years of economic 
> crisis in Greece.”
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jul/09/greek-crisis-reform-plan-grexit-tsipras-draghi-live#block-559ee760e4b07fc6a121f5af
> 
> This latest development is a betrayal of the popular will, no matter how much 
> it will be sugar-coated with promises of (very modest) debt relief. It would 
> have been more principled, though equally out of touch with mass sentiment, 
> to have campaigned openly for a Yes vote if the Tsipras wing believed there 
> was no possibility of resisting the troika, a belief which, judging by its 
> erratic behaviour, seems to have taken root soon after it formed the 
> government. The message this capitulation communicates, and the eurozone 
> powers will spin it this way, is that resistance is futile. Let’s hope this 
> becomes one of those rare historical instances where this proves not to be 
> the case.
> 
> 
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: 
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com
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Re: [Marxism] Greece accepts bailout terms

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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[all, part or just link to six articles from English language press in
Greece; lays out Greek gov't proposal, the process so far and for the
coming days. d]

This is Greece’s Final Bailout Proposal to the Creditors; Full
Document of Reforms
by Anastasios Papapostolou
The Greek Reporter, July 9



Greek Govt Agrees on Final Bailout Proposals
by Anastassios Adamopoulos
The Greek Reporter, July 9


Greece has now almost completed every official step it needs to reach
an agreement with its international creditors.

The SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government agreed on Thursday evening on the
final proposals it will send to creditors for the ESM bailout program.

Defense Minister and Independent Greeks (ANEL) leader Panos Kammenos
said the proposals will officially be submitted later in the day.

“As it had been agreed in the political leaders’ meeting, under the
President of the Hellenic Republic, the Greek proposals will be
submitted soon, exactly as it has been described,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Productive Reconstruction, Energy and Environment
Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis had said the government will not sign a
deal that does not respect Greece and include austerity measures.

Kammenos also tweeted that the special status of the Greek islands,
which are subjected to lower VAT, is guaranteed by the Constitution
and the Amsterdam Convention. This special status has been an issue of
dispute between the Greek government and creditors.
 . . .


Greece submits proposals, awaits response from creditors, MPs
I Kathimerini, Athens, July 9


The Greek government sent to Brussels on Thursday night a set of
proposals it hopes will form the basis of an agreement for a new
bailout with lenders. The same proposals were also submitted to
Parliament, which is due to vote on them on Friday.

The reform package was finalized during a morning meeting between
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Deputy Prime Minister Yiannis
Dragasakis, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and Economy Minister
Giorgos Stathakis.

The proposals were later presented to the cabinet. During the meeting,
Tsipras made it clear to his ministers that he wants to reach an
agreement with lenders, sources said.

The majority of the cabinet accepted the proposals but Energy Minister
Panayiotis Lafazanis was among those who raised objections, arguing
that they did not solve Greece’s problem.

Earlier in the day, Lafazanis told an energy conference in Athens that
the government would not sign another memorandum of understanding. The
proposals put together by the government are thought to contain around
12 billion euros’ worth of measures, which is more than some 8 billion
euros included in the plan rejected by Greek voters in Sunday’s
referendum.

The government was due to submit the proposals to Parliament on
Thursday night ahead of a joint meeting of SYRIZA’s parliamentary
group and political secretariat on Friday morning. It is likely that
the government will ask for MPs to vote on the proposals by Friday
evening, ahead of a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Saturday
and a leaders’ summit on Sunday.

Sources in Brussels told Kathimerini that if the Eurogroup deems that
the proposals are not satisfactory it will reject them immediately as
there are a number of eurozone members who have lost their patience
with Greece.

The institutions will study the Greek proposals throughout the day on
Friday in order to present a report to the Euro Working Group, which
is due to meet on Saturday morning in Brussels, before it makes its
recommendation to the Eurogroup. Eurozone finance ministers are due to
gather in the Belgian capital at 4 p.m.

If the agreement is to progress there will also have to be a decision
on how Greece will fund itself over the next few weeks as there are
unlikely to be any disbursements for at least the next month. A
3.7-billion-euro Greek bond held by the European Central Bank matures
on July 20, while another payment of 350 million euros is also due to
the International Monetary Fund on Monday.

Greece has already defaulted on one payment to the IMF, when it failed
to pay out 1.6 billion euros at the end of last month. As the IMF has
seniority, Athens will have to pay the Fund first.

New Democracy sent a delegation to Brussels on Thursday for a meeting
with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, wh

Re: [Marxism] Greece accepts bailout terms

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece beats deadline, offers reform plan that yields to lender demands
by Carol J. Williams and Dody Tsiantar
Los Angeles Times, July 11


Sobered by reports that Eurozone partners were ready to let Greece
fall out of the common currency club, the Greek government Thursday
delivered a new package of economic reforms to its creditors that
capitulated to lenders’ demands for raising taxes and the retirement
age.

The leftist leadership of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had just two
weeks ago drawn “red lines” around pensions and state workers’
salaries to shield them from deeper spending cuts demanded by the
lenders, a bold rejection that was endorsed by a healthy majority of
Greek voters in a referendum Sunday.

But faced with imminent collapse of the country's banking system and
the specter of economic catastrophe and social unrest, the populist
government was reported by Greek media to have yielded on the sticking
points that led to collapse of previous talks on a new rescue plan.
The proposals were delivered two hours before Thursday’s midnight
deadline, the iEfimerida news site reported.

“The government is doing all that it can to reach an immediate deal
and end this cycle of uncertainty,” said government spokesman Gabriel
Sakellarides. “We are optimistic that a deal will be reached.”

The Tsipras Cabinet endorsed the new plan Thursday evening, reversing
its earlier insistence that pensioners be spared any further hardship.
The new reform package would push the retirement age to 67 and cut
pensions by 15% for those who choose to retire at 62, which those with
40 years or more in government service are eligible to do.

The government also plans to withhold more tax from state salaries and
pensions and to deduct a 6% healthcare premium from retirees' checks,
Mega TV and other Greek media reported.

The program of spending cuts and tax increases is aimed at securing at
least an additional $55 billion from the creditors to keep the economy
afloat for the next two years. In exchange, the government also
pledges to boost the value-added tax on restaurant bills to 23% from
13% and end the special tax exemptions for Greek island businesses.
The reforms are predicted to generate at least $13.2 billion in
revenue over the next two years to service the country's debt from
$270 billion in two previous bailouts.

On Wednesday, the Greek government sent a letter to the European
Stability Mechanism, a fund set up since the country first sought
bailout funds in 2010, requesting immediate assistance because of the
fragility of the banking system and a clear shortage of cash. The
letter did not give specifics but said that the government would
immediately begin to implement budget reforms as early as Monday.

Greece has been in an economic free fall since Tsipras last week
called a snap referendum on the austerity measures demanded as a
condition for new talks with the creditors on a third bailout. Banks
have been closed and capital controls have been imposed for nearly two
weeks, paralyzing the economy. Greeks cannot withdraw more than $66 a
day from ATMs, and pensioners without ATM cards are allotted about
$132 a week. Banks will remain closed through Monday, the Economy
Ministry said.

Greeks rejoiced when a 61% majority in Sunday’s vote rejected more
austerity measures. However, the excitement dissipated as the reality
began to sink in: If the government fails to secure new rescue loans
by Sunday’s European Union summit, the spigot of assistance will be
turned off and banks will run out of cash.

The apparent concessions by Athens were probably aided by a growing
recognition among the creditors and Eurozone colleagues that Greece’s
debt, more than 175% of GDP, is unmanageable and needs to be reduced
or rescheduled for payment over a longer period. There is also
discussion on the lenders’ side of ensuring that interest rates remain
low to prevent the debt burden from growing further.

The Greek reform plan will have “to be matched by an equally realistic
proposal on debt sustainability from the creditors,” European Council
President Donald Tusk said Thursday. “Only then will we have a win-win
situation. Otherwise, we will continue the lethargic dance we have
been dancing for the past five months.”

Meanwhile, European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker
acknowledged that a scenario that sees Greece exiting the euro has
been prepared in detail. A Reuters poll of economists Thursday showed
that 55% of respondents expected such an exit.

After Sunday's referendum, the European Central Bank said it would not
increase liq

Re: [Marxism] Greece accepts bailout terms

[Ralph Johansen via Marxism]

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Syriza, at least its predominating faction, seems to have resolved a 
seemingly intractable contradiction by grasping the regressive aspect, 
splitting, as Mao had it, the "revolutionary front", but that may be an 
ultra view under the circumstances. A faction not ripe, or times not 
ripe because of the absence of European solidarity, or possibly still as 
a situation inaccurately read. Into ignominious historical obscurity in 
any event, if true, then; someone mentioned Blum - "/Tout est 
possible!/" (Everything is possible) and in the end another coalition 
paralyzed by nationalism, economic crisis and geopolitical fears. But 
even if disillusionment and apathy for the time being, they by no 
stretch take the left into obscurity with them. (After all, the left's 
already obscure?) I will remember two things, though: that the Syriza 
coalition was predominantly reformist in its approach ("it is the Left’s 
historical duty, at this particular juncture, to stabilise capitalism; 
to save European capitalism from itself and from the inane handlers of 
the Eurozone’s inevitable crisis"), fearing (or unable) to take control 
of commanding heights, and that the Greek class structure (leaving aside 
the over all European class structure and the absence of pan-European 
solidarity with Syriza) was, although moving toward proletariat in 
composition, still small-business-informal 
economy-tourist-and-colonialist-minded - a peripheral country within a 
metropolitan complex, with metropolitan predilections.



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Re: [Marxism] Greece accepts bailout terms

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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Wait, so what was the point of the No vote and all of that?

- Amith

On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 12:12 AM, Marv Gandall via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
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> *
>
>
> On Jul 9, 2015, at 5:28 PM, james pitman via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/09/greece-debt-crisis-athens-accepts-harsh-austerity-as-bailout-deal-nears
>
> As a Guardian correspondent tweeted earlier:
>
> “The irony has not been lost on anyone - even though governing MPs are
> making light of it - that after the Greeks’ resounding rejection of further
> biting austerity at the weekend, prime minister Alexis Tsipras has with
> lightning speed now agreed to put his name to the most punitive austerity
> package any government has been asked to implement during the five years of
> economic crisis in Greece.”
>
>
> http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jul/09/greek-crisis-reform-plan-grexit-tsipras-draghi-live#block-559ee760e4b07fc6a121f5af
>
> This latest development is a betrayal of the popular will, no matter how
> much it will be sugar-coated with promises of (very modest) debt relief. It
> would have been more principled, though equally out of touch with mass
> sentiment, to have campaigned openly for a Yes vote if the Tsipras wing
> believed there was no possibility of resisting the troika, a belief which,
> judging by its erratic behaviour, seems to have taken root soon after it
> formed the government. The message this capitulation communicates, and the
> eurozone powers will spin it this way, is that resistance is futile. Let’s
> hope this becomes one of those rare historical instances where this proves
> not to be the case.
>
>
> _
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Re: [Marxism] Greece accepts bailout terms

[Marv Gandall via Marxism]

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On Jul 9, 2015, at 5:28 PM, james pitman via Marxism 
 wrote:

> http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/09/greece-debt-crisis-athens-accepts-harsh-austerity-as-bailout-deal-nears

As a Guardian correspondent tweeted earlier:

“The irony has not been lost on anyone - even though governing MPs are making 
light of it - that after the Greeks’ resounding rejection of further biting 
austerity at the weekend, prime minister Alexis Tsipras has with lightning 
speed now agreed to put his name to the most punitive austerity package any 
government has been asked to implement during the five years of economic crisis 
in Greece.”

http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jul/09/greek-crisis-reform-plan-grexit-tsipras-draghi-live#block-559ee760e4b07fc6a121f5af

This latest development is a betrayal of the popular will, no matter how much 
it will be sugar-coated with promises of (very modest) debt relief. It would 
have been more principled, though equally out of touch with mass sentiment, to 
have campaigned openly for a Yes vote if the Tsipras wing believed there was no 
possibility of resisting the troika, a belief which, judging by its erratic 
behaviour, seems to have taken root soon after it formed the government. The 
message this capitulation communicates, and the eurozone powers will spin it 
this way, is that resistance is futile. Let’s hope this becomes one of those 
rare historical instances where this proves not to be the case.


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[Marxism] Greece accepts bailout terms

[james pitman via Marxism]

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http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/09/greece-debt-crisis-athens-accepts-harsh-austerity-as-bailout-deal-nears

Jamie.
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[Marxism] Greece should reject the Eurozone’s latest ultimatum; The Financial Attack on Greece, Michael Hudson

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece should reject the Eurozone’s latest ultimatum
by Jerome Roos
ROAR magazine, July 8

 . . .
Given this constellation of forces and the acute economic emergency at
home, there seems to be only one sensible thing for Tsipras to do
right now: to fly back home and inform his people that he really tried
to restart negotiations in good faith but was rebuffed by the
creditors, who presented him with yet another ultimatum and yet
another disastrous and self-defeating austerity program.

This announcement should then immediately be followed by a series of
rapid unilateral moves to stave off financial collapse while formally
staying within the euro, at least until the government can get the
proper preparations in place for a more radical rupture with the
single currency.

These unilateral moves would include taking over the four systemic
banks, issuing an emergency decree to seize the central bank,
replacing its governor and taking control of its secret reserves, and
immediately starting to issue fresh liquidity (in the form of IOUs and
20 euro bills printed by the Bank of Greece without the ECB’s
approval) to keep the economy going.

As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports, Tsipras rejected this precise
course of action after Sunday’s referendum, deeming it too risky and
too confrontational. But now that the creditors have taken their
financial blackmail to a whole new level and the domestic economic
emergency is spinning out of control, it looks like he will soon run
out of other options. The choice — rupture or surrender — is still the
same, but the circumstances have changed dramatically. Now the streets
are full and the banks are empty. This is the time for bold action.

Last Sunday, 61% of Greeks said NO to austerity and financial
blackmail. Next Sunday, Tsipras should do the same.
   _   _   _   _   _   _   _   _
Jerome Roos is a PhD researcher in International Political Economy at
the European University Institute, and founding editor of ROAR
Magazine.


The Financial Attack on Greece: Where Do We Go From Here?
by Michael Hudson
Counterpunch, July 8

. . .
Imposed by the monopoly of inter-governmental financial institutions –
the IMF, ECB, U.S. Treasury, and so forth – creditor financial
leverage has become the 21st century’s new mode of warfare. It is as
devastating as military war in its effect on population: rising
suicide rates, shorter lifespans, and emigration of the age-cohort
that always have been the major casualties of war, young adults.
Instead of being drafted into the army to fight foreign foes, they are
driven from their homes to find work abroad. What used to be a rural
exodus from the land to the cities from the 17th century onward is now
a “debtor exodus” from countries whose governments owe unpayably high
sums to creditor governments and to the banks and bondholders on whose
behalf they impose their policy.

While pushing the world economy into a state of war internationally,
high finance also is waging a class war against labor – and ultimately
against governments and thus against democracy. The ECB’s policy has
been brutal toward Greece this year: “If you do not re-elect a
right-wing party or coalition, we will destroy your banking system. If
you do not sell off your public domain to buyers we will make life
even harder for you.”

No wonder Greece’s former Finance Minister Janis Varoufakis called the
Troika’s negotiating position “financial terrorism.” Their idea of
“negotiation” is surrender. They are unyielding. Official creditor
institutions threaten to isolate, sanction and destroy entire
economies, including their industry as well as labor. It transforms
the 19th-century class war into a purely destructive meltdown.
 . . .
Summary

Every nation has a right to defend itself against attack – financial
attack just as overt military attack. That is an essential element in
the principle of self-determination.

Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and other debtor countries have been
under the same mode of attack that was waged by the IMF and its
austerity doctrine that bankrupted Latin America from the 1970s
onward. International law needs to be updated to recognize that
finance has become the modern-day mode of warfare. Its objectives are
the same: acquisition of land, raw materials and monopolies.
 . . .
Current eurozone rules – the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties – aim to
block governments from running budget deficits in a way that spend
money into the economy to revive employment. The new goal is only to
rescue bondholders and banks from making bad loans and even fraudu

[Marxism] Greece: Grassroots solidarity centres celebrate 'no', call for urgent solidarity

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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The grassroots solidarity movement already prepares for the next round of
resistance in the difficult ground of imposed capital controls, financial
straggling, further recession and humanitarian crisis.

We ask you now, more than ever, to stand by our side, by the side of the
Greek society by developing as soon as possible concrete and material
solidarity campaigns.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59427





-- 
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original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

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[Marxism] Greece Given Until Sunday to Settle Debt Crisis or Face Disaster

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, July 7 2015
Greece Given Until Sunday to Settle Debt Crisis or Face Disaster
By ANDREW HIGGINS and JAMES KANTER

BRUSSELS — Frustrated European leaders gave Greece until Sunday to reach 
an agreement to save its collapsing economy from catastrophe after an 
emergency summit meeting here on Tuesday ended without the Athens 
government offering a substantive new proposal to resolve its debt crisis.


“The situation is really critical and unfortunately we can’t exclude the 
black scenarios of no agreement,” said Donald Tusk, the president of the 
European Council, warning that those scenarios included “the bankruptcy 
of Greece and the insolvency of its banking system” and great pain for 
the Greek people. Also looming ever larger was the prospect of Greece 
leaving the European currency union.


“Until now I have avoided talking about deadlines,” Mr. Tusk, a former 
prime minister of Poland, told reporters after a day of fruitless 
meetings. “But tonight I have to say it loud and clear — the final 
deadline ends this week.”


“I have no doubt that this is the most critical moment in our history.” 
And Sunday was not the only deadline fast approaching for the Greeks: 
Mr. Tusk said that the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had 
until Thursday to deliver a new plan Greece’s creditors.



Then, on Sunday in Brussels, all 28 European Union leaders will gather 
at yet another emergency summit meeting for what might well be the last 
chance to resolve a crisis that began more than five years ago and, 
after a period of calm following huge bailout deals, resumed with fierce 
intensity in January following the victory of Syriza, the left-wing 
party led by Mr. Tsipras, in Greek parliamentary elections.


Deadlines have repeatedly slipped in the past, but the emergency 
gathering on Sunday might really be a crunch point. “This could be the 
last meeting about Greece,” Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy told 
reporters on Tuesday night.


In a sign of how the previously taboo topic of “Grexit” — Greece’s exit 
from the euro — has surfaced as a serious option, Jean-Claude Juncker, 
the president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive 
arm, said at a brief news conference late Tuesday night that his staff 
had drawn up plans for several possible outcomes. “We have a Grexit 
scenario prepared in detail,” he said.


Mr. Juncker expressed fury at a barrage of verbal attacks on Greece’s 
European creditors by Syriza officials, particularly a remark made by 
the recently departed Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, accusing 
creditors of “terrorism.”


“Who are they and who do they think I am?” Mr. Juncker said, sputtering 
with rage. He asserted that he was “strongly against” Greece leaving the 
euro but “I cannot prevent it if the Greek government is not doing what 
we expect it to do to respect the dignity of the Greek people.”


Tuesday’s efforts to break the deadlock got off to an inauspicious start 
when Greece’s new finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, on his second day 
in the job after replacing Mr. Varoufakis, failed to present a detailed 
plan at a meeting of finance ministers called to review Syriza’s demands 
after Greek voters rejected previous terms on offer from Europe in a 
referendum last Sunday.


The failure to present concrete proposals turned what had been billed as 
a last-chance opportunity for Greece into another display of the 
substantive and stylistic gulf between Mr. Tsipras’ government and his 
country’s big creditors, starting with Germany and other European 
countries that use the euro.


Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, speaking after an inconclusive 
meeting attended by Mr. Tsipras and leaders of 17 other countries that 
use the euro, made it clear that eurozone leaders were determined to set 
a very high bar for Athens before the Thursday deadline.


“There are only a few days left for a discussion on what’s going to 
happen in the future,” she said. Yet if a Greek offer made by Thursday 
won a preliminary green light, that would “pave the way for 
negotiations,” she said.


The decision by Mr. Tsipras to hold the referendum on whether to accept 
previous terms by creditors had only made matters worse for Greece’s 
chances of a favorable deal, Ms. Merkel added.


Still, it appears that no one wants to take the blame for a Greek 
departure from the eurozone. That means that all sides seem ready to 
keep talking even as the crisis reaches new levels of intensity, and 
even as Greece hurtles toward a July 20 deadline to make a payment of 
3.5 billion euros, or about $3.8 billion, to the European Central Bank. 
Many analysts s

[Marxism] Greece what now?

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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The curse (of needing to make a prediction) has come upon me (yet again).
My reading of the entrails is influenced by Krugman, Galbraith and above
all by Alan Kohler's comment.  The latter, a regular on Australian TV, said
that YES would prevail because there was no alternative.  I am inclined to
think he genuinely believed that.

But NO has triumphed and so an alternative must emerge and fairly quickly
too.  Merkel, Juncker, Gabriel, Schauble, Draghi, Lagarde and Hollande all
have egg and worse on their face.  For them the unthinkable has happened.
They have allowed a political drama to develop and what was designed to be
an object lesson for the Irish, the Spaniards, the Portuguese and the
Italians has achieved the exact opposite. I can sense the stink of fear
from all of the pro-austerity governments.

Merkel & Co will either toughen their stance, as Gabriel seems to have
suggested, or retreat. More harshness would mean that the current
politicization of the masses will continue. A crisis of legitimization
might ensue with unpredictable consequences.

So what is my prediction?  They will retreat. All they have to do is to
accept Syriza's compromise offer.  Tsirpas has shown himself willing to
retreat.  It was just that Merkel and co got too far ahead of themselves
and went for the big prizes, regime change and the crushing of the
anti-austerity movement.  Watch Kevin Kostner's awful film *Draft Day* to
get an idea of what they thought they were doing.

If I read the entrails correctly, Krugman and Galbraith offer a way out.  A
retreat to moderate Keynesianism is on the cards. Everything will be done
to return to business as usual. Bruised egos aside, a renewed attack on
Greece puts the whole bloody system in danger.  I suspect that somewhere
behind the scenes the Americans  are handing out sedatives to the European
leaders and advising a fall back.

What this means for the anti-austerity movement is hard to predict (that
word again!). Obviously, it has had a tremendous victory.  & may be we
should just enjoy that for the moment.

comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] Greece debt crisis: Greek voters reject bailout offer, BBC News 1 hour ago

[Ralph Johansen via Marxism]

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33403665


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[Marxism] Greece: the referendum is on (4)

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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1.a)  Greece’s PM Tsipras Votes in Referendum; Says ‘Greeks Open Path
for Europe’
by Anastasios Papapostolou
The Greek Reporter, July 5


Surrounded by hundreds of NO supporters and international media, Greek
Prime Minster Alexis Tsipras casted his ballot in a referendum that
has divided Greece.

The SYRIZA leader arrived at 10:30 am local time at the polling
station of Kipseli, a middle-class neighborhood in the center of
Athens, to cast his NO ballot rejecting a bailout agreement offered by
Greece’s creditors.

The Greek PM who campaigned for the NO vote said that today is a
celebration of democracy for Greece and Europe.

“The Greek people have the choice, many can reject a government’s will
but nobody can reject the will of the people,” said Tsipras after
casting his vote.

He noted that Greece has opened a path for European nations to follow
and that democracy has overcome fear in search for solutions.

The Greek PM concluded that he wants Greece to stay in the EU and work
and prosper together with the other nations as equal members of the
union.


1.b)  Yanis Varoufakis: 'We've made hope return to Europe'
Paul Mason interviews Yanis Varoufakis, July 4



2.a)  On eve of referendum, Greeks refuse to give in to fear
by Jerome Roos
ROAR magazine, July 5

w/ video at site

*The campaign of fear and lies by the political, financial and media
establishment has backfired: as Greece prepares to vote, the fear is
changing sides.*

As Greece prepares to vote in a historic referendum, a slightly
surreal calm has descended over Athens. The optimistic attitude of
many activists in the NO camp, especially, contrasts sharply with the
ruthless propaganda war of the Greek and international media — not to
mention the terror campaign waged by EU officials and the Greek
opposition.

For a full week now, the big corporate TV stations here have been
bombarding Greeks with images of pure panic and impending catastrophe:
shuttered banks, lines in front of the ATMs, empty supermarket
shelves, pharmacies running out of drugs, scuffles between protesters
and police. On top of this, they have repeatedly shown inconclusive
polls that show the vote to be on knife’s edge.

The international media have in many cases ended up uncritically
reproducing this narrative of fear and uncertainty, often without
double-checking basic facts or warning their viewers and readers about
the political agenda of their sources.

Let there be no mistake: the Greek economy is in deep trouble at the
moment. The financial system is on the brink of collapse and trade and
production have ground to a screeching halt. If things continue like
this there is a serious risk of cash depletion by the start of next
week, possibly even food shortages soon after. There is no denying
that Greek society is hanging by a thread.

Obviously the media have a responsibility to report on this impending
economic meltdown. The problem, however, is the particular way in
which the unfolding situation has been portrayed — especially when it
comes to the role of the political, financial and media establishment
in creating the crisis.

The implosion of the Greek banks was triggered by the Eurogroup and
the ECB in a very deliberate attempt to financially asphyxiate Greece
and terrorize its citizens into voting yes to further austerity, or
even to overthrow the Syriza-led government and bring about
technocratic regime change, as the President of European Parliament
Martin Schulz openly suggested.

The Greek and international media, for their part, have been fully
complicit in this effort. Over the past week, they have tried
everything in their power to undermine the calm and peaceful
conclusion of the historic democratic process that is currently
underway in Greece. The thing is: among large segments of the
population the strategy simply isn’t working anymore. After years of
vicious propaganda, large parts of society have long since tuned out.
Many people simply refuse to give in to the fear and the lies.

It’s not like the other side hasn’t tried hard enough. On Friday
evening, for instance, an incredible document was leaked: a
step-by-step instruction sheet that New Democracy — the main
right-wing, pro-austerity opposition party — had sent to the country’s
biggest TV stations. [see here:
]

The document urged editors to show li

[Marxism] Greece: Huge march says 'No!' to austerity

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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"The 'No' rally of this evening was quite simply the biggest political
rally since the fall of the dictatorship," SYRIZA activist Stathis
Kouvelakis said via Facebook

on
July 3 of the mass rally to back the SYRIZA government's call for a "No"
vote in Greece's July 5 referendum on whether to accept the crippling
austerity demanded by the nation's creditors.

"Just amazing in terms of mass and also of its combative and cheerful
spirit. Tens of thousand of people, probably near one hundred thousand,
with a massive presence of the youth, socially diverse but essentially
working-class."

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59387



-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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[Marxism] Greece: The Referendum as Rupture

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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The Referendum as Rupture
For Greece, only a “no” vote on Sunday can make possible a lasting
anti-austerity alternative.
by Panagiotis Sotiris
Panagiotis Sotiris is a member of Antarsya and teaches at the
University of the Aegean.
Jacobin magazine, July 2


The referendum to be held in Greece on Sunday is not a political
debate. It is a battle in an ongoing war between Greek society and the
European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which
are trying to turn Greece into the most brutal recent experiment in
neoliberal social engineering.

Carl Schmitt once wrote that the only existentialist categories are
those of friend and foe. It is exactly this that can explain the
tactics of the EU, particularly Germany, during the Greek crisis.
There has never been a negotiation. It has been from the beginning an
existential war, in the Schmittian sense, one in which you are not
looking for common ground or a compromise in your favor but for the
full capitulation of the enemy.

This can account for the refusal to actually negotiate with the Greek
side, despite the painful concessions the latter had made and its
acceptance of austerity. That is why there were always new terms and
new demands arising during the negotiations. That is why they refused
any discussion of reducing Greece’s debt burden, exactly because it is
debt that has been the most convenient tool for this open and cynical
blackmail of an entire society.

The Greek government’s decision to hold the referendum was an act of
rupture with the EU. We should remember that the EU is allergic to
referendums after the traumatic experience of 2005
()
and is generally hostile to any exercise of popular sovereignty that
undermines its neoliberal policies. Moreover, here we have a
referendum not on a policy to be adopted but on a policy already
implemented — actually for the core of the current version of the
disciplinary European Economic Governance. Rejecting the creditors’
proposals equals rejecting the essence of the contemporary form of
European integration.

Consequently, for the EU and in particular Germany, the very decision
to hold a referendum meant the end of negotiations. In a certain way
the German tactic is simple: go through with the referendum. If there
is a “yes” vote, you will get a new harsher austerity package. If
there is a “no” vote, then brace for Greece’s exit from the eurozone
(“Grexit”).

In this sense Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s idea that after a
massive “no” vote there will be a restart of negotiations is
groundless. Even if they still want a humiliating deal and not a
punitive forced exit, they will probably take advantage of the current
condition (banks with no liquidity, capital controls, market collapse,
cash shortages, and probable shortages in basic goods) and prolong it
as a means to impose the full version of the politics of social
devastation.

The idea of a referendum was correct, and it has liberated social
forces and potential in a manner that we had not seen in the past few
months. For the first time, we can see the forces of the Left — with
the exception of the Communist Party, which remains entrapped in its
paranoid leftism — giving an actual fight. But the referendum is not a
negotiation. It is the beginning of the rupture.

Unfortunately, Syriza has not been prepared for that. The fact that
many Syriza heavyweights such as Yannis Dragasakis, Giorgos Stathakis,
Dimitrios Papadimoulis, and others openly called for acceptance of any
deal offered, in defiance of Tsipras’s insistence that there should
first be a “no” vote, is an example of the limits of Syriza. Tsipras
has shown courage and determination, refusing to capitulate and giving
all his weight in favor of No. Nevertheless, he still presents the
“no” vote as a negotiation tactic, making proposals even at the last
minute, and not as the beginning of a broader confrontation.

At the same time, we already see a massive polarization of Greek
society. The Yes campaign is combining a mobilization of bourgeois and
middle-class strata (a very large number of professional associations
support Yes) and the deployment of all forms of ideological warfare.
The private media are propaganda machines for the “yes” vote, and
Greek corporations openly threaten their employees with mass layoffs
if there is a “no” vote, using the refusal to pay wages as a means to
make the threat credible.

Fear is beginning to become the determining factor. At the same time,
you see also sign

[Marxism] Greece and the Third World.

[Prashad, Vijay via Marxism]

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As Greece takes it on the chin from the Troika, I reflect on the IMF's reaction 
to the Global Debt Crisis of the 1980s. My takeaway: ""The Global South, which 
well knows the vulturine behaviour of the Northern bankers and their policy 
experts, should stand in solidarity with the Greek people. What they do in 
their referendum is their business. But what they are going through is not 
dissimilar to the Great Debt Crisis of the 1980s, which flushed the dreams of 
the Third World deep into the sewers of history."

The article, out today, is here: 
http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2015/7/1/what-if-greece-were-in-the-third-world.

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[Marxism] Greece Misses Debt Payment, Deepening a Crisis

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, June 30 2015
Greece Misses Debt Payment, Deepening a Crisis
By JIM YARDLEY and JAMES KANTER

ATHENS — The International Monetary Fund said shortly after midnight 
Wednesday that Greece had missed a crucial debt payment to the fund.


“We have informed our executive board that Greece is now in arrears and 
can only receive I.M.F. financing once the arrears are cleared,” said 
Gerry Rice, a spokesman for the fund.


Greece is not technically in default, but missing the payment is yet 
another an unmistakable warning that the country will probably be unable 
to meet its other obligations in coming weeks, to its bond holders and 
to the European Central Bank. That may might make the European Central 
Bank, one of its principal creditors, less willing to continue emergency 
loans that have been propping up Greek banks for the past several months.


By declaring Greece in arrears, the I.M.F. avoided using the term 
“default.” Credit rating agencies also will not consider Greece to be in 
default based on missing the I.M.F. payment, for the technical reason 
that the I.M.F. is not considered a commercial borrower.


The weak link in the 19-nation eurozone is struggling to tame its debt. 
On Tuesday, Greece missed an important payment to the International 
Monetary Fund.


But the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said in a statement Tuesday 
that it would designate Greece as being in default if the country cannot 
make payments to private creditors, like €2 billion in Greek Treasury 
bills that are due on July 10.With just hours to go before the deadline 
for the payment, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had asked the other 
nations that use the euro to provide another bailout that would buy 
Athens time to renegotiate its crippling debt load.


Finance ministers of the eurozone countries discussed the proposal on 
Tuesday night and left open the possibility that Greece could eventually 
win a new aid package, but dashed any hopes Athens had for immediate 
action. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany had said earlier in the day 
that no deal with Mr. Tsipras’s government could be negotiated until 
after a referendum on Sunday in which Greeks will be asked to accept or 
reject an offer made last week by Greece’s creditors.


Mr. Rice confirmed that the I.M.F. had received a request on Tuesday 
from the Greek authorities for an extension on the repayment.


That request, he said, “will go to the I.M.F.’s Executive Board in due 
course.”


Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, 
also said on Tuesday night that Greece was effectively in default and 
could now face even tougher conditions for a new aid package.


Mr. Dijsselbloem was speaking to CNBC shortly before midnight Central 
European Time when Greece formally missed a payment due the 
International Monetary Fund, and the European part of the country’s 
current bailout program expired. During a conference call earlier in the 
evening, the Eurogroup ministers refused a last-minute bid by Mr. 
Tsipras to extend that program.


“I think the fact of the matter is that Greece is in default or will be 
in default tomorrow morning on the I.M.F. and also, I believe, on a loan 
to their own central bank,” Mr. Dijsselbloem told CNBC. “But they will 
be in default, and I don’t think can alter that in the short term.”


Any new program for Greece from the European bailout fund, the European 
Stability Mechanism — something that was requested by Mr. Tsipras on 
Tuesday — would require a number of procedural steps and raise 
significant new challenges for Greece.


“Any talks about a future program will have to be discussed in the 
Eurogroup" and "will have to be assessed by the institutions,” Mr. 
Dijsselbloem said.


He was referring to the three institutions — the European Commission, 
the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank — that 
oversee Greece’s compliance with the terms of the two giant bailouts it 
has been granted since 2010.


Earlier, Alexander Stubb, the Finnish finance minister, wrote on his 
Twitter account that extending Greece’s current bailout program had not 
been possible. But Mr. Stubb said the request for what amounts to a 
third bailout for Greece would be “dealt with through normal 
procedures,” as was “always” the case after such requests.


The developments came after top European Union officials had outlined 
another offer to Mr. Tsipras on Monday night, and suggested that both 
sides were interested in defusing a crisis that has left Greece 
financially crippled and at risk of becoming the first nation to leave 
the euro currency union. France and the United States, among oth

[Marxism] Greece

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I read Hudson's Counterpunch article. He is of course pro-Syriza.  That
party seems to have assiduously cultivated the Keynesians and is fighting
under the banner of "Save capitalism from the capitalists'; not "Save the
people from capitalism".  Still, as I have said before, sooner Syriza than
PASOK or British Labor or the Australian Labor Party or even worse the
Democrats..

The polls are said to predict a defeat for Syriza in the coming referendum,
and that the people will say Yes to the deal being offered by the Troika.
Frankly, I do not believe that.  I think the proposal will be defeated and
that the No vote will prevail.

But a defeat will not now be the end of Syriza.  Only a climb down, that is
 a betrayal of their supporters,would have destroyed them. Tsirpas has
emerged as a champion of responsiveness rather than an avatar of
responsibility (as defined by the Troika and News LTD).  The dialectic
between responsibility and responsiveness is one of the keys to
understanding electoral politics as the Irish political scientist Peter
Mair pointed out.  The latter wrote

“The age of party democracy has passed. Although the parties themselves
remain, they have become so disconnected from the wider society, and pursue
a form of competition that is so lacking in meaning, that they no longer
seem capable of sustaining democracy in its present form.”

It is because Tsirpas and his party represent a challenge to this trend
that the elite in Europe and elsewhere want them crushed. These attacks,
especially the ones directed at Tsirpas, serve to build the legend of
Syriza and that is why they will survive a Yes vote if it happens.

For those of us (and I count myself among them) in the closet still
dreaming of soviets and barricades and of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, the temptation is to think that this is all just a spat
between Keynesian and Neoclassical economics. After all one only has to
read Stiglitz' halfhearted endorsement ("It is hard to advise Greeks how to
vote on 5 July.") to realize that Keynesians do not revolutionaries make.
And that is putting it mildly.

Yet to see the conflict only in terms of Keynes versus Hayek, would be a
mistake, I am inclined to believe. This could turn out to be a very
decisive moment indeed. I am doubly inclined to believe so after hearing
that the KKE is calling for a boycott of the referendum. When Stalinists
tell us to go back, you know we must press forward.

comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] Greece defiant

[John Passant via Marxism]

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Greece defiant

Lee Sustar writing in Socialist Worker US explains the background to the 
announcement of a July 5 referendum on austerity measures in Greece–and 
how it will affect the struggles to come.


http://enpassant.com.au/2015/06/29/greece-defiant/


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[Marxism] Greece: referendum OKed; troika vengeful; if 'Yes' vote, new gov't? (3)

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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1)  Defiant Tsipras issues call to reject "insulting bailout" in referendum
The parliament approved Alexis Tsipras' motion for a referendum next
Sunday, with the PM issuing a defiant call of rejection of the
"insulting bailout offer".
Times of Change, Greece, June 28   (Reuters, AMNA)


In the early hours of Sunday, the Greek parliament approved a motion
to hold a referendum on the proposals submitted by the institutions to
the government on July 5. Voting by roll call vote, 178 lawmakers
approved the motion, 120 were against, while two were absent,
Parliament President Zoi Konstantopoulou announced.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras issued a defiant call on Greeks to
reject an "insulting" bailout offer from foreign creditors in the
referendum. "The day of truth is coming for the creditors, the time
when they will see that Greece will not surrender, that Greece is not
a game that has ended," he said in an address to parliament laced with
references to democracy and national dignity.

"I am certain that the Greek people will rise to the historical
circumstances and issue a resounding 'No' to the ultimatum," he said
as he wound up the debate before a vote to authorize the referendum.

“We will all respect the result. We will defend democracy, popular
sovereignty and the founding values of Europe,” Tsipras told
lawmakers, while adding that the government will not ask permission by
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble or Eurogroup chief Jeroen
Dijsselbloem to allow the people to have their say and secure
democracy in the country it was born.

He criticized the exclusion of Finance Minister Vanis Varoufakis by
the second Eurogroup meeting earlier today, saying “this day will go
down in our common European story as gloomy, not only because some
decided outside and beyond any institutional process to block an equal
partner from a meeting, but also because finance ministers questioned
the right of a sovereign country to decide on its future
democratically.”

Earlier in the House debate, former Conservative Greek Prime Minister
Antonis Samaras said the July 5th referendum proposed by the ruling
Syriza government on the country's bailout terms would end up
thrusting Greece out of the euro zone. "In the referendum, it's not
really the deal that is being decided; it's the fate of our country in
staying in the euro," Samaras said during the heated late-night debate
in parliament.


2.a)  Greek MPs approve referendum as lenders see difficulties ahead
I Kathimerini, Athens, June 28  (Reuters & Bloomberg)


Greek lawmakers on Sunday authorized Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras'
proposed July 5th bailout referendum, setting Greece on course for a
plebiscite that has enraged international creditors and increased
Greece's chances of exiting the euro zone.

The government easily passed the 151-vote threshold needed to
authorize the referendum, with deputies from the far right Golden Dawn
voting with the government and pro-European opposition parties New
Democracy, PASOK and To Potami and the KKE Communist Party voting
against.
. . .
European partners have reacted negatively to the announcement of the
referendum. On Saturday, they rejected a request by Tsipras to extend
the current bailout in order to cover the period leading up to the
referendum. The rejection means Athens is likely to default on a key
payment to the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday.

Meeting in Brussels Saturday evening after rejecting Greece’s request
to extend its aid program beyond June 30, eurozone finance ministers
said the cash-strapped nation will need to take steps to protect its
banks. The European Central Bank, which has kept the nation afloat, is
set to discuss Sunday whether to pull the plug on its emergency
lending, leaving the country with no backstop.

“Monday could be a bank holiday” in Greece, Ireland’s Michael Noonan
told reporters. “It’s not a question of waiting to see what might
happen on Monday in terms of crisis. The crisis has commenced.”
 . . .
Public opinion is at odds with Tsipras, according to a survey
published Saturday. Two-thirds say Greece should remain in the euro
area and 57.5 percent say the government should back down to reach a
deal with creditors, the Kapa Research poll for To Vima newspaper
showed.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister and head of the
Eurogroup, told reporters in Brussels that Varoufakis had requested a
one-month extension. With “no comprehensive package agreed” to by
ministers, Dijsselblo

Re: [Marxism] Greece: Tsipras calls referendum over Troika's 'blackmailing' deal

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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In addition to the Green Left Weekly report and text of Tsipras' 1am
speech on Greek television, both at link below provided by Stuart,
here are five current reports in three English language Greek news
media sources (link at second one, from Greek Reporter, gives text of
the last creditors' proposal that Syriza expects will be voted on) -

1)  Greece to Hold Referendum on Bailout Agreement
by Anastasios Papapostolou
The Greek Reporter, June 26


Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced that Greece will hold a
referendum on July 5 to ask the Greek people if they approve of a
bailout deal with the country’s creditors.

In a speech on national TV, Tsipras said his government had been asked
to accept “unbearable” austerity measures.

He said German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Central Bank
chief Mario Draghi have been informed of the plan, and he’ll request
an extension of Greece’s existing bailout, due to end June 30, by a
few days to permit the vote without having to introduce capital
controls in the Greek banks. A Greek government source said the
country’s banks will open on Monday and no capital controls are
planned.

The referendum is expected to ask Greek citizens if they approve the
proposed bailout agreement with Greece’s foreign creditors without
touching upon a possible Grexit that could follow if the nation votes
no on the deal.

Greece’s State Minister Nikos Pappas said that he expects the Greek
people to vote no on the “humiliating” deal the creditors have offered
the Greek government.

“Those who are rushing to connect the referendum’s outcome with
Greece’s stay in the Eurozone are pro-memoranda political forces that
favor austerity” stated the Greek minister.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Greece to accept the deal
[creditors' proposal], describing it as “extraordinarily generous”.

On Saturday the Greek parliament will convene to approve the
referendum, as it is required by Greek law.


2)  Greece Referendum: This is the Bailout Deal Greeks Will Vote On
by Anastasios Papapostolou
Greek Reporter, June 26


As Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced that Greece will hold
a referendum to ask the Greek people if they approve of a bailout deal
with the country’s creditors, here is a final draft of the creditors
proposal for Greece, as it was obtained by the Financial Times.

The referendum, to be conducted on July 5th, will ask the Greek
citizens if they approve a deal based on the following document the
Greek government has already described as “humiliating” since it
includes more austerity for the country.

See the proposal [here]




3)  PM Tsipras calls referendum on bailout on July 5
Times of Change, Greece, June 27  (Reuters)


Late Friday night, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called a referendum
on July 5 whether the country should accept or reject a bailout
agreement offered by creditors.

"These proposals, which clearly violate the European rules and the
basic rights to work, equality and dignity show that the purpose of
some of the partners and institutions was not a viable agreement for
all parties, but possibly the humiliation of an entire people,"
Tsipras said in a televised address to the nation.

He made the comments hours after flying back from Brussels, where
European and IMF creditors offered Greece a deal that his government
rejected as inadequate.

Athens will ask for an extension of its bailout agreement, which ends
on June 30, by a few days in light of the referendum, he said.

Greek State Minister Nikos Pappas, a senior aide to Prime Minister
Alexis Tsipras, said he believed Greeks would vote to reject a bailout
agreement offered by creditors in a referendum called on July 5.

Right-wing junior government coalition partners Independent Greeks
party will urge voters to reject a bailout agreement when they vote in
a referendum on July 5, the party's leader said on Saturday.

"Just like in 1940 when Greek people decided to say no to foreign
armies, as president of the Independent Greeks party I call for all of
the party to participate in this big celebration of democracy called a
referendum and to vote 'No' - no to handing away our independence,"
Panos Kammenos, whose party is the junior partner in Prime Minister
Alexis Tsipras's coalition, told Greek 

[Marxism] Greece: Tsipras calls referendum over Troika's 'blackmailing' deal

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced on June 26 that a referendum
will be called over the bailout deal being proposed for the country by
Greece's creditors. the deal is pushed by the "Troika" of the European
Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59324


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original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

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[Marxism] Greece/troika at impasse, meetings continuing (4)

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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No Results After Tsipras’ Meeting with Institutions – Greek Talks to
Be Repeated on Thursday
by A. Makris, The Greek Reporter, June 24


Eurozone Finance Ministers arrived for a Eurogroup meeting on Greece
but exited shortly after since talks between Greek Prime Minister
Alexis Tsipras and the institutions ended without a conclusive result.
. . .

Greek positions remain 'firm' after talks end
The Greek positions in negotiations remain firm and talks with the
international creditors will resume Thursday morning, according to a
government official.
Times of Change, Greece, June 25  (Reuters)


Greece's positions in negotiations for a cash-for-reforms deal remain
firm and talks with its international creditors will resume at 0900
Brussels time (0700 GMT) on Thursday, a Greek government official said
after late-night discussions ended. Technical teams will meet three
hours earlier at 0400 GMT, the official said.

Negotiations to avert a Greek debt default had stumbled on Wednesday
and euro zone finance ministers accused Athens of refusing to
compromise despite a deadline next week that could put it on a path
out of the eurozone. "The Greek government remains firm on its
positions," [a Greek] official said.

With European Union leaders due in Brussels for a summit on Thursday,
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras negotiated into the early hours with
heads of creditor institutions to try to thrash out a cash-for-reform
deal before the eurozone ministers reconvene at 1 p.m.

"Unfortunately we have not reached an agreement yet, but we are
determined to continue work, this work will go on during the night if
necessary," Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem told reporters.


1)  Greece debt crisis talks end in renewed deadlock
Negotiations in Brussels between Athens and its creditors break down
again as optimism over new Syriza proposals evaporates
by Ian Traynor in Brussels
The Guardian, June 24


Gruelling negotiations between Greece and its creditors broke up
without agreement on Wednesday evening as lenders warned the country
that it must accept more austerity if it is to avoid defaulting on its
debts.
. . .
The finance ministers will reassemble on Thursday in a bid to achieve
an elusive breakthrough, as Greece strives to meet next Tuesday’s
deadline for a €1.6bn (£1.1bn) payment to the International Monetary
Fund. A deal could not be reached at the finance minister’s gathering
despite six hours of talks earlier in the day between Tsipras and the
heads of the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission.
Tsipras met the creditors again on Wednesday night. The meeting ended
in the early hours of Thursday with Greece “remaining firm on its
position” according to a Greek government official.

Tsipras was dressed down at the creditors’ meeting on Wednesday
morning, despite having presented new budget proposals on Monday that
were generally welcomed as constructive. However, by the time he met
the creditors on Wednesday he was being asked to toughen his plans.

Tsipras sounded bitter and wounded after the creditors, led by
Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund, raised a host of
problems with the 11-page policy document he had tabled. A revised
version of the Greek proposals, littered with corrections entered in
red type by the creditors, was soon leaked to the media.

“The repeated rejection of equivalent measures by certain institutions
never occurred before, neither in [bailout countries] Ireland nor
Portugal,” said Tsipras. “This odd stance seems to indicate that
either there is no interest in an agreement or that special interests
are being backed.”

Both sides are in a race to cut a deal before five years of bailouts
worth €240bn (£171bn) lapse next Tuesday, the same day that Greece
must repay the IMF.

The Tuesday deadline is doubly pressing because the ECB, which is
keeping the Greek banking system on life support, has indicated that
it will not support banks if the bailout programme expires without a
new agreement in place. Without ECB’s support Greek banks are expected
to buckle, which would force the Tsipras government to impose capital
controls and threaten the country’s exit from the eurozone.

Earlier in the week the Europeans had been unanimous in describing
Tsipras’s offer on Monday as the first serious proposal he has
delivered since he was elected in January. Senior s

[Marxism] Greece, Syriza divided over new financial proposal (5)

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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1)  Greece divided over reforms and future
by Holly Ellyatt and Stephen Sedgwick
CNBC, June 23


Greece's last-ditch offer of new reforms might have raised a cheer on
the markets Monday, but whether the measures will pass muster among
the country's creditors – let alone its own parliament and people --
is another matter.
. . .
Adonis Georgiadis, a member of parliament (MP) for the Greek
opposition party, New Democracy, told CNBC the reforms –based on
higher taxation on businesses and the wealthy -- would "kill the
economy" and should not be accepted by Greece's creditors, the
so-called "troika" of the European Commission, European Central Bank
(ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
. . .
Speaking to CNBC in Athens, Georgiadis said that the higher taxation
would prompt Greece's wealthy class to leave the country and would
damage investment. "At the end of the day we'll have less money….they
(Syriza) cannot put us in a program that will destroy the economy for
ever."
. . .
Worrying for Tsipras, the proposals don't appear to have met with much
more favor from within his own camp either. Syriza MP Costas
Lapavitsas said that he was "deeply concerned" by the proposed
reforms.

"I'm deeply troubled by what I read. It looks like we'll be imposing a
lot of taxes and okay, there will be some re-distributive aspect to
the taxes, but they are new taxes and are designed to make a primary
surplus and they are recessionary measures."

He said he would "wait and see" what creditors said about reforms
before deciding whether to approve the reform measures himself, or
not. "I shall have to wait and see, I am skeptical about what the
lenders say, I expected a hard response tomorrow (from lenders) and I
expect new demands from them."

Asked whether the measures could tear his party apart, Lapavitsas said
he was "very worried" about the party's future.

"If (the reforms) looks like this then I, and many other Syriza MPs,
will have a lot of difficulty approving them…the Greek people voted us
in because we opposed austerity and I'm very concerned about what this
situation will do to our grass-roots support. There will be a lot of
people who are very concerned and troubled about this situation."
. . .

2.a)  Greece crisis: Greek people prepared for painful compromise amid
growing talk of EU exit
by Nathalie Savaricas
The Independent, Britain, June 23


There was no jubilation on the streets of Athens on Tuesday over signs
that Greece’s government was finally near to reaching a deal with its
international creditors. Instead, the talk was of the concessions
made, at what the rest of Europe regarded as the last minute, by Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras – and the pain they would mean for ordinary
Greeks.
. . .
On Tuesday night several thousand people marched near the Greek
parliament and outside the European Commission’s office – which was
sealed off by police buses – in a demonstration against the imminent
measure organised by a communist-backed union. They bore banners
reading “They deprive us of life and dignity” and “No to health cuts,
no to pension cuts.”

Earlier, a group of pensioners enjoying the relative cool of late
afternoon in Syntagma square were together reading the front page of a
newspaper that hung from many kiosks. “We avoided the guillotine, but
the noose awaits,” read the commentary in Peloponissos, which
circulates in southern Greece...
. . .
But a short distance away Thomas, 32, an auditor at a financial
services company who declined to give his surname, was in no doubt.
...This is really bad,” he said. “I personally didn’t expect
anything different with this new government and Greek people can’t
expect any prospect of better days as long as they remain in the
European capitalist system.”

In his view, Greece’s coalition government, comprised of left-wing
Syriza and right-wing Independent Greeks, has made matters worse. It
is reportedly offering the International Monetary Fund, the European
Commission and the European Central Bank measures that will cut the
fiscal gap by roughly €8bn – higher than had been anticipated under
the previous, conservative-led administration.
. . .
Above him, the headline of the Journalist’s newspaper, typically
left-wing and supportive of the government, was morose, reflecting the
mood of many: “Painful compromise.” MPs from across the coalition
government also began stating their objections to the proposed
measures, raising fears of a government crisis.

One prominent Syriza MP, El

[Marxism] Greece today, illuminating report by Paul Mason

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece – five pictures of a troubled country
by Paul Mason
Channel 4 News, England


[slightly behind the front edge of the latest news but lots of
perceptive observations, d]

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Re: [Marxism] Greece & Russia, BRICS' New Development Bank

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Russia and Greece consider collaborating to circumvent Western sanctions
by Carol J. Williams
Los Angeles Times, June 21


As Russia and Greece each endure strained relations with the rest of
Europe, their leaders have been pondering how they might collaborate
to sidestep their Western neighbors' sanctions and censure.

With his Balkan nation on the brink of economic collapse, Greek Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras on Friday paid his second visit in less than
three months to Russian President Vladimir Putin to sign a lucrative
pipeline construction deal and, presumably, to discuss what European
Union member Greece might do to ensure that Russia receives relief
from sanctions when current ones expire next month.

Kremlin officials denied that Tsipras asked for financial aid during
his meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the annual St. Petersburg
International Economic Forum. But two senior officials had said before
the meeting that Moscow was open to considering a loan to help Athens
avert default on bailout obligations due to international creditors.

In his address to the annual gathering of multinational chief
executives and Russian oligarchs, Tsipras blamed the misguided
European Union policies for the Greek economic crisis.

"The EU should go back to its initial principles of solidarity and
social justice," Tsipras, a former communist, said in lambasting
austerity measures imposed on Greece in exchange for its $270-billion
bailout, mostly financed by EU colleagues. "Ensuring strict economic
measures is leading us nowhere. The so-called problem of Greece is the
problem of the whole European Union."

Tsipras cast Greece as a ship navigating troubled waters as it faces a
June 30 deadline for a $1.8-billion loan payment that it can't cover
without borrowing more. Athens' creditors are refusing to provide
additional cash until the far-left government, which took power in
Greece in January, comes up with a credible plan to straighten out
domestic finances.

"We are now in the middle of a great storm," Tsipras told the St.
Petersburg gathering. "But we are a seafaring nation that knows how to
navigate through storms and is not afraid of heading to new seas and
reaching new harbors."

The quest for new refuge sounded to many like an appeal for a Russian
loan to help Athens with the looming debt payment. But Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that Tsipras made no appeal
for direct financial aid during his meeting with Putin.

The Greek leader did go home with a $2.77-billion deal to get in on
Russia's impending mega-project to reroute natural gas deliveries to
Western Europe through Turkey, bypassing Ukraine, where many of
Moscow's pipelines are routed. Relations with Ukraine have
deteriorated severely since Moscow's seizure of the Crimean peninsula
last year and its support for pro-Russia separatists occupying two
large regions of eastern Ukraine.

Greece and its major lenders — the International Monetary Fund, the
European Central Bank and the European Commission — have been
deadlocked in talks aimed at drafting a new plan for reducing the
staggering debt carried by Athens. The latest negotiating session, on
Thursday, ended with no progress toward an agreement and harsh words
from the creditors over Athens' failure to bring new proposals to the
table.

The fruitless meeting in Luxembourg lasted less than an hour, and its
failure to break a weeks-long impasse prompted the European Union to
call an emergency summit for Monday night to discuss ways to avert
fiscal implosion in Greece — or how the remaining Eurozone states can
guard against damage to their own economies if the currency union
suffers its first dropout.

Greeks have already begun pulling their euros out of Greek banks, with
at least $3.4 billion worth withdrawn last week, the Greek news site
ekathimerini.com reported.

The run on deposits prompted the Bank of Greece to appeal to the
European Central Bank on Friday for a $3.95-billion emergency
liquidity infusion to ensure that banks can open Monday.

Russia is suffering its own economic crisis because of sanctions
imposed by the European Union and the United States over its
aggression in Ukraine. The Russian economy has also been hit hard by
the past year's sharp drop in the price of oil, on which the Kremlin
depends for more than half of its annual budget.

Any Russian assistance to Greece could pay off for the Kremlin,
though, as Athens might be persuaded to withhold approval of a planned
extension of sanctions when the current ones expire next month. Under
European Union rules, all 28

[Marxism] Greece: Thousands protest austerity, as SYRIZA refuses demands for more cuts

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Thousands of Greek people took to the streets of Athens on June 17 to
reject austerity measures and support the SYRIZA-led government.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59282

-- 
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original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

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[Marxism] Greece & Russia, BRICS' New Development Bank

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece's Tsipras heads to Russia for some love
by Holly Ellyatt and Geoff Cutmore
CNBC, June 18


With Greece's relations with its European counterparts at a low ebb,
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will head to Russia on Thursday
and meet President Vladimir Putin at the St. Petersburg International
Economic Forum (SPIEF).

Tsipras' visit comes at a crisis point for Greece, with
reforms-for-rescue talks between the country and its international
lenders in deadlock.

He is due to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday
afternoon, the Greek government said in a statement Thursday, and
ahead of that meeting will make a keynote speech at the forum.

Tsipras' government has already warned it will not have the money to
pay a debt of 1.5 billion euros to the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) without an agreement, prompting increasing concern that Greece
will default and eventually leave the euro zone.

However on Thursday, Russian Deputy Finance Minister, Sergei Storchak,
said Greece had not asked the Russian Finance Ministry for financial
assistance, Dow Jones reported. The ministry would not comment on the
remarks when contacted by CNBC.

The head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, said that Greece would be in
default at the start of July if it fails to make a repayment on June
30 because there is no grace period or possibility to delay, Reuters
reported.

"It will be in default, it will be in arrears vis-a-vis the IMF on
July 1, but I hope it is not the case, I really do," Lagarde told
reporters following a meeting with the Luxembourg finance minister.

Russia's Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina told CNBC Russia had
considered the implications of such a scenario – for example, its
impact on money flow in Europe – and was worried.

"We do consider that scenario as one of possible risks which would
increase turbulence in the financial markets in the European market,
bearing in mind the fact the European Union is one of [our] major
trading partners, and we are definitely worried by it," she told CNBC
this week.

Voicing the fears of European politicians who are keen to avoid
contagion spreading throughout the euro zone, Nabiullina said a
"Grexit" was a possibility – and Russia too could be affected.

"There is a possibility of this kind of sentiment becoming stronger,
which could reduce the rate of the development of the recovery of the
European economy, and bring down the demand for our products," she
said

There is speculation that talks between the leaders will focus on the
proposed construction of a gas pipeline through Greece and the
country's potential participation in a new BRICS development bank, set
up by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa with a reserve
fund for emergency situations.

Tsipras is travelling to Russia with the Greek economy minister and
alternate finance minister, among others, plus some business leaders,
the Greek government said.

Russia invited cash-strapped Greece to participate in the new bank in May.

The Greek and Russian governments' warming relations have not come as
a surprise to some Europe-watchers.

"Ever since he became premier, Mr Tsipras has gone to great lengths to
accentuate Greece's cultural and historical ties to Russia as part of
his efforts to reorient Greece's economic and foreign policies away
from conventional euro zone-centric ones," Nicholas Spiro, managing
director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy, told CNBC Thursday.

"He's playing the nationalist card and cosying up to Russia is part of
his brinkmanship with Greece's creditors. This is music to the ears of
Mr Putin who already has good relations with a number of EU leaders,
notably Hungary's, and wants to showcase Russian influence in Europe,"
he said.

"All this adds to fears that if Greece exits the euro zone, Russia is
waiting in the wings."


Russia won’t comment on possible aid to Greece
by Nataliya Vasilyeva
Associated Press, Salt Lake Tribune, June 18

. . .
Tsipras is traveling with four cabinet ministers, arrived Thursday and
is due to stay in St. Petersburg until late Friday, when he will meet
Putin.

Asked by The Associated Press whether Russia is going to offer Greece
money, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said he "cannot comment
on specific decisions."

The Greek economy has also been hit by Russia's EU food imports ban,
depriving it of millions of euros in agricultural exports, and
although the Kremlin has indicated it could relax the restrictions on
Greece, there has been no decision to do so.

Speaking on the sidelines of an investment fo

[Marxism] Greece: building solidarity at the grassroots; the drive for 'national unity' from the right

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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[three from the Socialist Worker 
published by the International Socialist Organization in the U.S.]

1)  Building solidarity at the grassroots in Greece
speech by Christos Giovanopoulos, a member of SYRIZA and co-founder of
the Greek organization Solidarity For All


Christos Giovanopoulosecently completed a speaking tour in the U.S.
that took him to New York City, Baltimore, Oakland, San Francisco,
Seattle and Chicago. On June 11, he spoke alongside Chicago Teachers
Union activist Albert Ramirez about the fight against austerity from
Chicago to Greece.
Here, we reprint an edited version of his speech.
Socialist Worker, U.S., June 18


. . .
I HAVE been active since the mid-1980s and have participated in more
traditional left politics and activism, but I would not be able to say
what I am telling you now without the mobilization of the Greek
people, who took matters in their own hands and opened up new horizons
and perspectives. It's impossible to communicate how transformative
this experience has been if you haven't lived through it.

Solidarity For All was created in 2012, after the Greek people had
already gone into motion, because we identified a need. This movement
started as a mutation of the people's assemblies and the squares
occupation movement in a spontaneous and organic way that developed
according to whatever was the focus of the political struggle.

But at the same time, each area of work--the health clinics, the food
banks, the workplace efforts--was disconnected from the rest. So we
said we had to give the movement power and visibility. The first thing
we did was create a map of Greece with each solidarity structure that
existed at the time--there were about 180 solidarity structures. By
mapping this out and holding assemblies in Athens in September and
October of 2012, it changed in the minds of the people how they
thought about themselves.
. . .
This was the need that we identified in order to develop this
movement--to serve as a clearinghouse for campaigns underway and to
share know-how--and now we have double the number of solidarity
groups, nearly 400, throughout Greece. This includes the cooperative
economy, such as the factory self-managed by its workers in
Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece. This was one reason
why Solidarity For All was formed and how it came about.

The second reason is SYRIZA. After the 2012 elections that marked a
breakthrough for SYRIZA, one of the first decisions of SYRIZA's
parliamentarian group was that each SYRIZA member of parliament would
donate 10 percent of his or her wage to a solidarity fund that is
available to self-organized solidarity structures. So this means that
SYRIZA didn't have to develop solidarity structures itself, but it
created the means to help the self-organization of people into
solidarity structures.
. . .
The fund itself, which is a nonprofit organization, also has its own
decision-making body composed of representatives of the
parliamentarian group of SYRIZA and some members of Solidarity For
All. We are a minority within this body, but we are trusted by SYRIZA.
It took us time to convince the whole of the party that this way of
organizing was better than going around and having SYRIZA giving out
food, as the fascists for example did in Greece.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I'D LIKE to conclude by saying that the international support that the
Greek people have received has been great. There are initiatives and
groups to organize solidarity with Greece in many countries around the
world, but especially in Europe, where there are dozens, and
especially in Germany, which has the majority of those.

Another aspect of this international solidarity is that new practices
and structures of solidarity and resistance developed by the Greek
people have found parallel organizational and practical
expression--for example, with the "marea blanca" (white tide) in Spain
or the movement against evictions in Italy or in Ireland with the
water. We have tried to establish international networks where we work
together on these matters.

The latest development of the Greek solidarity movement is the
organization of solidarity campaigns with other peoples in struggle,
such as the Palestinian people and the Kurdish people in Rojava. I
think it's important not to lose this internationalist perspective
because the fight we have in Greece is one that we cannot win alone.

We may be the ones on the front lines, but if we don't have solidarity
and there isn't substantial resistance 

[Marxism] Greece: Committee finds debt 'illegal, illegitimate and odious'; should not be paid

[glparramatta . via Marxism]

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*In June 2015 Greece stands at a crossroad of choosing between furthering
the failed macroeconomic adjustment programmes imposed by the creditors or
making a real change to break the chains of debt. Five years since the
economic adjustment programmes began, the country remains deeply cemented
in an economic, social, democratic and ecological crisis. The black box of
debt has remained closed, and until now no authority, Greek or
international, has sought to bring to light the truth about how and why
Greece was subjected to the Troika regime. The debt, in whose name nothing
has been spared, remains the rule through which neoliberal adjustment is
imposed, and the deepest and longest recession experienced in Europe during
peacetime.*

Executive summary at http://links.org.au/node/4468
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[Marxism] Greece-Troika negotiations: last turns of the screw?; 'Why Greece Should Choose Grexit' Irish Times column

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece-Troika negotiations: last turns of the screw?
by Dick Nichols
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, June 15

. . .
At the same time, reinforcing the lie that the deadlock in
negotiations is due to irrational Greek stubbornness, the
social-democrat European Parliament speaker Martin Schultz told a
popular German television chat show that “he is getting tired of
Greece”, while Guy Verhofstadt, the president of the Alliance of
Liberals and Democrats for Europe tweeted: “Keep Calm and Reform
Greece.”

As Greece’s creditors intensify their offensive against SYRIZA, they
necessarily have to thicken the smokescreen of myths about Greece to
cover up their aggression.

"If the Greek government can't accept the fact that there are no easy
solutions and that the difficult decisions just must be made, it is
alone. We can't help Greece if Greece doesn't want to help itself,"
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister and chair of the
Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, told Finnish daily Helsingin
Sanomat on June 11.

In the last week, a media campaign led by gutter press like the German
rag Bild has emerged in the eurozone surplus countries, targeted
against sending any more “good” Northern European money after “bad” in
loans to Greece.

On June 7, French progressive web site Mediapart produced a “little
guide against media bullshit” on Greece. It demolished a number of
myths that are at the heart of this campaign.

*The European taxpayer would have to pay for forgiven Greek debt? No,
at most the European taxpayer would forego the interest payment made
by Greece on this debt, around €15 a year per person in France’s case.

 *All debts must be repaid? No, excessive public debt has been
restructured in many cases in Europe (Germany 1953, Poland 1991,
Iceland 2011, Ireland 2103).

 *Greece has a bloated and inefficient public service, which needs
radical surgery before any new loans can be approved? No, while the
Greek public sector needs modernising—as SYRIZA recognises—public
servants account for only 8% of total employment, as opposed to 11% in
Germany and 23% in France.

 *The Greeks have already received €320 billion in loans? No, 77% of
these “loans to Greeks” went to recapitalising Greek banks and paying
private creditors.

 *Greece must agree to continue with Troika-imposed “reforms”—they are
the only way to modernise the ramshackle Greek economy? No, in the
words of a June 5 open letter to the Financial Times signed, among
others, by Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, former Italian prime
minister Massimo D’Alema and Thomas Picketty, author of Capital in the
21st Century, “austerity is undermining SYRIZA’s key reforms, on which
EU leaders should surely have been collaborating with the Greek
government: most notably to overcome tax evasion and corruption.”

 *Austerity is tough, but it ends up working? Austerity has not only
produced catastrophic social crisis in southern Europe and Ireland, it
has also has not even achieved its goal of reducing public debt, which
for the Eurozone has gone from 65% of GDP in 2008 to 94%, at the end
of 2014.

 *In signing its February 20 agreement with its creditors Greece
actually accepted troika conditions? No, SYRIZA only agreed to
postpone the introduction of some of its policies in exchange for
continuing negotiations, including over the size of the Greek
government’s primary surpluses.
. . .
International solidarity critical

In this high-risk game, a critical element needs to be
strengthened—active solidarity with the Greek government. While there
have been a number of appeals from important economists and
intellectuals to see reason—including the June 5 open letter to the
Financial Times—these alone will not force SYRIZA’s enemies to
retreat.  [In the final hour, a plea for economic sanity and humanity
]

Critical will be increasing the political cost to other European
governments of continued support to the Troika-led stance. The June
20-26 week of solidarity with Greece will be a very important first
step in raising the level of solidarity with Greece in Europe, and
making it a factor governments ignore at their peril.

In the Spanish state, the week will see the main organisations of the
left come together in support of the embattled Mediterranean sister
country. Those participating will include Podemos, the United Left
(IU), the Workers Commissions (CC.OO, the principal trade union
confederation) and the Marches for Dignity.

The main solidarity action of the week, to be held in Madrid on June
27, will be coordinated with

[Marxism] Greece/EU talks collapse; next?

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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'No deal' with Greece as talks in Brussels fail
BBC, June 14


The latest round of talks between Greek and EU officials in Brussels
has failed to reach an agreement.

A European Commission spokesman said while that progress was made on
Sunday, "significant gaps" remained.

Europe wants Greece to make spending cuts worth €2bn (£1.44bn), to
secure a deal that will unlock bailout funds.

Greek deputy prime minister Yannis Dragasakis said that Athens was
still ready to negotiate with its lenders.

He said Greek government proposals submitted on Sunday had fully
covered the fiscal deficit as demanded.

However, Mr Dragasakis added that the EU and IMF still wanted Greece
to cut pensions - something Athens has said it would never accept.

The cash-strapped nation is trying to agree a funding deal with the
European Union and IMF before the end of June to avoid a default.

Eurozone finance ministers will discuss Greece when they meet on
Thursday. The gathering is regarded as Greece's last chance to strike
a deal.

The Commission spokesman said: "President [Jean-Claude] Juncker
remains convinced that with stronger reform efforts on the Greek side
and political will on all sides, a solution can still be found before
the end of the month."

The talks come as Germany ramps up pressure on Greece. Vice-chancellor
Sigmar Gabriel said on Sunday that European nations were losing
patience with Greece.

Germany wanted to keep Greece in the eurozone, but writing in Bild he
warned that "not only is time running out, but so too is patience
across Europe".

Mr Sigmar is also economy minister and head of junior coalition
partners the Social Democrats.

His article is seen as a warning, particularly as his party has been
more sympathetic to Greece in the past.

"Everywhere in Europe, the sentiment is growing that enough is
enough," he wrote.

Greece is seeking to avoid defaulting on a €1.5bn debt repayment to
the IMF due by the end of the month.

Creditors have demanded cuts in spending in return for another tranche
of bailout funds.

But Greece's ruling left-wing Syriza party, led by Alexis Tsipras, was
elected in January on promises to ease up on the highly unpopular
austerity measures, increase the minimum monthly wage and create more
jobs.

However, on Saturday Mr Tsipras warned the Greek people to prepare for
a "difficult compromise".


Greek default fears rise as ‘11th-hour’ talks collapse
by Peter Spiegel in Brussels and Kerin Hope in Athens
Financial Times, June 14  [full text]


Talks aimed at reaching an 11th-hour deal between Greek ministers and
their bailout creditors collapsed on Sunday evening after a new
economic reform proposal submitted by Athens was deemed inadequate to
continue negotiations.

The breakdown is the clearest sign yet that differences between the
two sides may be too wide to breach, increasing the possibility that
Athens will not secure the €7.2bn in bailout aid it needs to avoid
defaulting on its debts — including a €1.5bn loan repayment due to the
International Monetary Fund in just two weeks.

Greek negotiators, including Nikos Pappas, aide-de-camp to Alexis
Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, left the headquarters of the
European Commission only 45 minutes after entering the building for
what were characterised as a “last try” by one of the eurozone
officials involved in the talks.

A commission spokesman said there remained a “significant gap” between
the two sides, amounting to up to €2bn per year, and there was no
longer time to reach a “positive assessment” of Greek efforts before a
high-stakes meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Thursday.

“While some progress was made, the talks did not succeed,” said the
spokesman. “On this basis, further discussion will now have to take
place in the eurogroup.”

That eurogroup meeting is seen by many officials as the last chance
for Athens to secure a deal on an agreed list of the economic reforms
its creditors are demanding in order to release the €7.2bn aid tranche
before Greece’s EU bailout runs out at the end of the month.

Asked as he exited the commission headquarters whether the break-off
in talks was a bad sign, Mr Pappas told the Financial Times: “We will
see.”

Without the endorsement of Greece’s trio of bailout monitors — the
commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central
Bank — the prospects of an amicable agreement on Thursday is remote,
raising the prospect eurozone negotiators may resort to the “take it
or leave it” strategy used on Cyprus at a eurogroup meeting two years
ago.

On that

[Marxism] Greece wants overall debt relief

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greeks seek debt relief as EU steps up warnings
by Jan Strupczewski and Renee Maltezou
Reuters, June 14

. . .
Giving instructions to his negotiating team before it headed to
Brussels, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has said he may accept bitter
compromises on the creditors' demands, but signalled he wants a
significant easing of Greece's huge debt burden in return.

A person familiar with the long-running negotiations between Athens
and its creditors told Reuters that discussions were under way on the
debt relief issue. He declined to say who was involved but
acknowledged that Greece could not take on yet more debt without some
kind of relief.

Athens faces immediate problems in repaying debts over the summer with
money it does not have, as the European Union and IMF have not paid
any money from Greece's 240 billion euro bailout programmes since the
middle of last year. On top of the IMF loan, it must also repay 6.7
billion euros when Greek bonds held by the European Central Bank fall
due in July and August.

Even if this short-term hump can be overcome, Greece still faces the
daunting prospect of eventually repaying the bailout loans, something
that will hang over its enfeebled economy for decades unless a relief
deal is achieved.
. . .
Greece already gained significant relief when a large part of its debt
held by private investors was written off in 2012. But any deal that
involves writing off public debt is likely to provoke outrage among
European taxpayers, who funded the bulk of the bailout loans.

That resistance is strongest in Germany, the biggest contributor to
the two bailout programmes since 2010, when Greece was forced out of
international debt markets and slid deeper into a depression made yet
worse by austerity policies imposed at the creditors' behest.

Nevertheless, the debt relief topic is not taboo. "There is a
conversation going on," the source familiar with the negotiations
said, without saying at which level it was being conducted.

Creditors are pressing Greece to achieve a sizeable primary surplus on
the state budget that excludes debt repayments. This would allow
Athens to set aside funds to pay off loans in the future without
having to borrow yet more from international lenders.

However, the leftist-led government wants lower surpluses to free up
funds for helping Greeks who have suffered worst in the depression,
during which the economy has shrunk by a quarter and unemployment has
soared over 25 percent.

"There is a much larger financing need for the next several years than
expected. So Greece will have to take on lots more debt. That’s
inevitable if you have lower fiscal surpluses," the source said.
"Greece does not have the capacity to take on more debt without some
form of relief."

Such a deal need not necessarily involve writing down the value of the
debt, something that German Chancellor Angela Merkel would be unlikely
to accept. Merely pushing repayment periods into the future might do
the trick.

"Extending maturities would do for many years. It's a perfectly
economically reasonable way of making this manageable," the source
said.

EU officials question Greek assertions that the debt is asphyxiating
the economy as Athens does not have to start repaying the bailout
loans until 2023. The debt is accruing interest, meaning that it will
grow over the next eight years, but the annual rate is below what
Italy pays and in any case the interest payments also begin only in
2023.

Nevertheless, Tsipras appears to be seeking a gesture on debt from
Europe that will allow him to sell a harsh deal to his radical left
Syriza party and Greek voters.

Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has proposed a debt swap involving
the ESM, Europe's bailout mechanism, to help Athens meet the ECB
repayments over the summer.

While the debate goes on, the clock ticks. "Time is not on our side,"
European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told Germany's
Die Welt newspaper. "We need a deal in the next few days."


Financial Engineering to Athens’s Rescue
by Hugo Dixon
NYTimes column, June 14


Athens has struggled to get its eurozone creditors to talk about debt
relief. This is because it’s not urgent. But if the negotiators
resolve the immediate crisis, which could lead to bankruptcy in a few
weeks, debt relief should come onto the table.

Debt relief isn’t front and center in the current talks because
Greece’s borrowings have already been restructured once, in 2012.

The debt is still huge — 313

[Marxism] Greece and lenders 'last try' talks

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece and lenders discuss new way to reach agreement
I Kathimerini, Athens, June 14
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_14/06/2015_551030

Greek officials were locked in talks with the country’s lenders over
the weekend, with both sides having proposals on how a deal to unlock
further bailout funding could be reached.

Deputy Prime Minister Yiannis Dragasakis, State Minister Nikos Pappas
and Alternate Minister for International Economic Relations Euclid
Tsakalotos traveled to Brussels, where they met with a representative
of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Saturday.

Greece is thought to be proposing a nine-month extension of its
program and for the European Stability Mechanism to provide up to 27
billion euros for Athens to buy back the Greek bonds held by the
European Central Bank so it could withdraw them and reduce its
short-term funding needs.

However, the institutions do not appear interested in such a deal.
Instead, they are believed to favor an extension of the bailout
program until September, with money Greece has already borrowed for
bank recapitalization being used to cover its funding needs over the
summer. Athens had some 11 billion euros left over for this purpose
but had to return it in February, when it signed the agreement for the
current extension, which runs until the end of the month.

Creditors see some of this 11 billion euros (but not all, as banks
could need further recapitalization) being used to cover its immediate
needs, which include paying the International Monetary Fund 1.6
billion euros by the end of the month and covering two bonds worth 6.7
billion euros, which are held by the ECB and mature in July and
August.

Government sources told Kathimerini that the delegation sent to
Brussels was prepared to commit to cuts to higher pensions and public
sector salaries, to introduce debt and deficit “brakes” through
legislation and to create escrow accounts into which it will pay funds
that can only be used to pay off public debt so there can be no doubts
in the future about whether Greece has the money to pay its creditors.

Sources said the Greek government was also close to agreeing with its
lenders on the primary surplus targets for the next years. The
institutions are asking for 1 percent of GDP this year, 2 percent in
2016, 3 percent in 2017 and 3.5 percent from 2018 onwards. Athens is
also said to be prepared to increase revenue from value-added tax to
the lenders’ target of 1 percent of GDP.


Greece locked in ‘last try’ talks with bailout negotiators
by Peter Spiegel in Brussels and Kerin Hope in Athens
Financial Times, June 14  [full text]


Talks between Athens and its international bailout creditors were
expected to resume late on Sunday after Greek government officials
were told to submit a final list of economic reforms in order to
secure €7.2bn in desperately needed rescue aid.

The request came in a meeting in Brussels on Saturday between Nikos
Pappas, aide-de-camp to Alexis Tsipras, Greek prime minister, and
Martin Selmayr, chief of staff to Jean-Claude Juncker, the European
Commission president who has played a central role in trying to broker
an 11th-hour deal.

A spokesman for Mr Juncker would only say that talks would continue on
Sunday. But others briefed on the talks said the meeting had been
“difficult” and that senior eurozone officials were concerned whether
a deal could be reached in time for Greece to access the aid before
its bailout expires at the end of the month.

“Positions are still far apart,” said one EU diplomat. “It’s not
certain there will be an outcome.”

Another senior eurozone official said the Greek team returned to
Brussels on Saturday without new proposals and that Sunday’s evening
session would be a “last try.”

“Greek movement [is] not discernible,” said the official. “I think
they do not want a solution.”

Mr Pappas, the Greek minister of state and a longtime political ally
of Mr Tsipras’, took to Twitter to push for politicians to become
engaged in the negotiations rather than technocrats who normally
hammer out such agreements. “A political solution is needed to
permanently exit from the crisis,” Mr Pappas wrote.

Eurozone officials are pressing for a deal on a full list of economic
reforms to be reached early this week so that it can be presented to a
meeting of eurozone finance ministers at their regularly scheduled
monthly gathering on Thursday.

Without approval of the eurogroup at that meeting, officials believe
there will not be enough time for national parliaments to approve the
bailout aid before the pr

[Marxism] Greece talks: Troika turn screws in new bid to break SYRIZA

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Dick Nichols

For a while in late May, it looked as if negotiations over terms for
releasing the last €7.2 billion owed to Greece under its second bailout
package with the “Troika” of the European Union, European Central Bank and
International Monetary Fund might have some chance of success.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59217

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original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

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[Marxism] Greece defies creditors’ demands for decisions on reform

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FT, June 13 2015
Greece defies creditors’ demands for decisions on reform
Peter Spiegel in Brussels and Michael Hunter in London

ATHENS, GREECE - JUNE 11: Supporters of the Greek Communist party's 
labor union PAME take part in an anti-austerity rally at Syntagma square 
on June 11, 2015 in Athens, Greece. Greek unions have held protests in 
Athens and other cities in Greece against the prospect of new austerity 
cuts demanded by the country's international creditors.


Athens insisted on Friday that it was still negotiating with its 
creditors to unlock €7.2bn in desperately needed bailout aid, but showed 
little sign of acquiescing to their demands for concessions on economic 
reform.


A day after the International Monetary Fund pulled its officials out of 
talks and EU leaders said it was decision time for Greece, Athens said 
it had submitted a new plan that included debt restructuring but 
excluded cuts to pensions, elements rejected by bailout monitors earlier 
this week.


According to a Greek government official, the plan should also include 
“low” budget surplus targets this year and next; creditors have sought 
surpluses of 1 per cent of economic output this year and 2 per cent in 
2016. Those levels are significantly below the current bailout 
programme’s targets, but higher than Athens has sought.
Negotiations between Athens and its creditors have ground to a halt just 
days before a critical meeting of eurozone finance ministers next week 
that officials believe may be the final chance for a deal to be struck 
to avoid a Greek default.


The IMF on Thursday said that it had pulled out its negotiating team 
because long-standing differences between the two sides were not being 
discussed. Senior EU officials signalled they were no longer willing to 
compromise.


The Greek government plan on Friday brushed aside the latest warnings 
and blamed the IMF pull-out on “an internal dispute” among bailout monitors.


Athens said it would be sending top officials to Brussels on Saturday to 
present its counter-proposals.


But its renewed demand for debt restructuring is likely to be met with 
dismissal from creditors. Although some eurozone officials believe a 
promise of future debt relief could be part of a final deal, they have 
repeatedly insisted a writedown would not be part of the current 
negotiations over the €7.2bn aid tranche.


In addition, the IMF has continued to insist that pension cuts totalling 
1 per cent of gross domestic output be included in any deal, arguing 
that Greece’s pension system is unsustainable. While Athens has resisted 
such cuts, citing already-impoverished pensioners, creditors have asked 
Greek officials to find cuts elsewhere if it wants to avoid such pension 
reductions for the poor.


Greece’s creditors have become increasingly exasperated at its 
negotiating strategy in recent days. During a meeting of eurozone 
finance ministry officials in Bratislava, several governments made clear 
they no longer supported a follow-on bailout once the current Greek 
programme ends this month, although the current rescue could conceivably 
be extended by several months.


The warnings from creditors that negotiations are at an end sent 
financial stocks on the Athens exchange tumbling on Friday while 
investors also dumped Greek government debt.


The euro edged back up after earlier pressure, rising by 0.2 per cent to 
$1.12, shrugging off comments by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, 
who made a rare intervention in the currency markets. Ms Merkel said a 
single currency that was “too strong” was making it harder for eurozone 
countries such as Spain and Ireland to reform.


Friday’s sharp declines took shares in Greece’s biggest banks down 
across the board. Bank of Piraeus fell 13.4 per cent and National Bank 
of Greece, one of the biggest private holders of Greek government debt, 
fell 11 per cent.


The Athens General index was down 5.9 per cent in mid-afternoon trading.
Yields on Greek sovereign bonds rose as investors flew from the debt, 
with benchmark 10-year debt costs rising by 4.7 per cent to yield 11.3 
per cent.


Athens took the IMF to task for its decision to pull out of the talks, 
insisting that its withdrawal was due as much to conflict with Greece’s 
other two bailout monitors — the European Central Bank and the European 
Commission — as with Greece.


Although the IMF has clashed with the commission, particularly on its 
insistence for pension cuts, those differences were largely set aside 
last week after the heads of the two institutions — Christine Lagarde at 
the IMF and Jean-Claude Juncker at the commission — hammered out a 
co

[Marxism] Greece/EU negotiation news today: compromise, memorandum extension ahead

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Greece bailout talks: markets surge on rumours of German compromise
Apparent softening of Berlin’s stance towards Athens cheers investors
keen to see sustainable rescue after months of wrangling
by Phillip Inman, Economics correspondent
The Guardian, June 10


Stock markets surged on Wednesday after reports of a German proposal
to allow Greece to receive a drip-feed of loans in return for a
staggered reform programme.

The softening of the German stance towards Athens cheered investors
keen to see a sustainable rescue of the debt-stricken country after
more than four months of wrangling.

According to the reports, the chancellor Angela Merkel is prepared to
accept a much-reduced reform programme, slimmed down to just one or
two areas as part of an initial package, to salvage a deal with Greece
and prevent it exiting the eurozone.
. . .
The European commission, the International Monetary Fund and the
European Central Bank, which have lent Greece €240bn (£175bn) between
them, had until recently demanded all-encompassing reforms in return
for the last tranche of bailout funds worth €7.6bn.

News agency Bloomberg said it spoke to at least two German officials
close to the bailout talks who described the compromise deal as a
possible way to end the impasse between the radical leftist Greek
government and its creditors.

The report, later denied by the German government as official policy,
followed statements by Merkel and the French president, François
Hollande, that they were ready to meet Greece’s embattled prime
minister, Alexis Tsipras, at a summit in Brussels.

Merkel said a solution was possible as she arrived for a summit of EU
and Latin American leaders, just hours after the European commission
dismissed the latest Athens plan, saying it failed to address the need
for deep changes.

“The goal is to keep Greece in the eurozone. I always approach these
things with the attitude, if there is a will there is a way,” Merkel
said as she arrived in Brussels.

Europe’s most powerful leader said she was available to meet the
radical leftist Greek leader on the sidelines of the summit as he had
earlier requested, and Hollande said he was willing to do the same.

There had been doubt earlier about whether a meeting would take place,
after the European commission rejected the latest Greek proposals as
inadequate as a basis for new talks.
. . .


Germans May Have Found Way to Break Greek Deadlock
by Katerina Papathanasiou
The Greek Reporter, June 10


Although Germans remain persistent regarding Greek reforms on taxes,
state asset sales and retirement benefits, German Chancellor Angela
Merkel appears to be more flexible in unlocking further financial aid
to Greece if the country decides to initiate at least one major
overhaul, two anonymous sources close to the German government told
Bloomberg.

If Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is willing to take immediate
action, liquidity could be released in early July, the sources said,
without giving further clues though about which measure should Greece
take in order to convince its international creditors.
. . .


ECB Increases Greek Banks’ ELA by a Hefty 2.3 Billion Euros
by A. Makris
The Greek Reporter, June 10


The European Central Bank (ECB) is said to have significantly
increased the ceiling of emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) provided
to Greek banks on Wednesday by 2.3 billion euros.

According to Greek media, during a teleconference of the central
bank’s board, it was decided to raise liquidity to 83 billion euros
from 80.7 billion. The situation will be re-evaluated next week.


Head of Parliament’s Budget Office Testifies in Bailouts Probe, Sees
‘Memorandums’ Until 2018
by A. Makris
The Greek Reporter, June 10


Greece will most likely remain under “memorandum” regimes until at
least 2018 unless there is an “honest agreement” with its creditors,
the head of the Greek Parliament‘s Budget Office Panagiotis Liargovas
said on Tuesday. He was testifying in an ongoing Parliamentary inquiry
examining the conditions that led Greece to accept bailout memorandums
in 2010.

“Perhaps a different honest agreement with our partners could create
the conditions that allow us to gradually — because these things
cannot b

Re: [Marxism] Greece! Re: Fwd: Ten minutes past midnight | Michael Roberts Blog

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Alexandros Orphanides writes that in order to break with the EU's
austerity policies (as promised in the January election), Greece must
leave the Eurozone.

And here's the link to a column by conservative journalist Ian Birrell
in The Telegraph also arguing that Greece must leave the Euro -
"Who will put Greece out of its misery? It's time they left the euro"
by Ian Birrell, The Telegraph, June 5



Syriza Has No Choice: Greece Must Prepare to Leave the Eurozone
To break from the program of brutal austerity that has been imposed on
Greece, its leaders have no choice but to take radical action.
by Alexandros Orphanides
In these Times, June 5


While leaving the currency will most certainly be economically,
politically and socially traumatic, the last five months of cyclical
negotiations have proven to be ineffective in accomplishing the kind
of change Syriza promised during its campaign. And the last five years
have been disastrous for the people of Greece.

When Syriza won Greece’s parliamentary elections in January of 2015,
much ado was made in the international press about the rise of a new
radical Left in Greece—a development that had punctured Greece’s
longstanding two-party stalemate and opened up the possibility of
rolling back the brutal austerity measures imposed upon it by “the
troika,” the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and
the European Central Bank. The upstart Leftists, born of
anti-austerity social movements, won by running on a platform that
highlighted two central positions. First, they would end the austerity
that was driving Greece deeper into a humanitarian crisis. Second,
they would keep the country in the European Union.

Almost five months later, Syriza hasn’t made a radical break from the
program of debt repayments and austerity. Fears of being catapulted
out of the currency union have paralyzed attempts at equitable
negotiations. Instead, the Greek government remains in an exhausting
carousel of brief extensions and frequent meetings with creditors, as
they virtually beg for more loans while simultaneously postponing any
opportunity to address Greece’s pressing social issues.

Meanwhile, the realities on the streets of Greece remain grim.
Unemployment hovers at about 25 percent; cuts to healthcare have
exacerbated public health concerns; and thousands of Afghan, Syrian
and Eritrean refugees continue to pour in, seeking safe shores along
the Mediterranean. And there are no signs of improvement on the
horizon. Just this week, the OECD (Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development) forecasted worsening unemployment and a
growing debt-to-GDP ratio in Greece in the coming months.

This past Wednesday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met with his
country’s creditors in Brussels to discuss the terms of Greece
remaining in the currency union. Taking an optimistic tone, Tsipras
maintains that Syriza’s proposal to reduce the austerity burden and
allow his government some breathing room to address the social costs
of the ongoing crisis is the only reasonable path forward. But Jeroen
Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup’s finance ministers, has been
less optimistic that a deal will be struck on Greece’s terms. It
appears that any deal will require Syriza to capitulate further by
increasing sales taxes on prescription drugs, making cuts to already
dramatically-reduced pensions and running an even larger budget
surplus. Any steps in this direction would constitute the continued
betrayal of Syriza’s original promise: to end the austerity.

All this is important because, as of last Thursday evening, Greece has
announced that it will not make the 305 million euro debt payment they
were scheduled to make to the IMF this Friday. Instead, they will
bundle this payment with the next and fork over 1.5 billion euros at
the end of the month. This development pushes back the date of the
payment and buys some time on the negotiations of “cash-for-reform,”
whereby Syriza agrees to implement reforms aimed at producing “growth”
by cutting into social spending in return for loans. By delaying the
payment, Greece and its creditors will continue working on the
differences they maintain over taxes and pensions.

Taking a characteristically defiant stance, Finance Minister Yanis
Varoufakis, has implied that no more compromises can be made by Greece
as the solvency issues have been “politically engineered by our
creditors to try to squeeze us into effectively perpetuating this
debt-deflationary crisis.”

[Marxism] Greece! Re: Fwd: Ten minutes past midnight | Michael Roberts Blog

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Below is the full article in the Telegraph (by Ambrose
Evans-Pritchard) which provides the information Michael Roberts uses
to begin today's "Ten Minutes Past Midnight" essay which concludes
with Roberts quoting himself from last March:

*As I said in a post last March
(https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/greece-breaking-illusions/):
“the issue for Syriza and the Greek labour movement in June is not
whether to break with the euro as such, but whether to break with
capitalist policies and implement socialist measures to reverse
austerity and launch a pan-European campaign for change. Greece cannot
succeed on its own in overcoming the rule of the law of value.”*

And here's a link to yesterday's Joseph Stiglitz article (which was
published several places) arguing, like Evans-Pritchard, for the
creditors to change course:
Greece's creditors need a dose of reality – this is no time for
European disunion
by Joseph Stiglitz
The Guardian, June 5



IMF has betrayed its mission in Greece, captive to EMU creditors
The IMF’s Original Sin in Greece was to let Dominique Strauss-Kahn
hijack the institution to save Europe's banks and the euro when the
crisis erupted, dooming Greece to disaster.
by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The Telegraph,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11654639/IMF-has-betrayed-its-mission-in-Greece-captive-to-EMU-creditors.html

The International Monetary Fund is in very serious trouble. Events
have reached a point in Greece where the Fund's own credibility and
long-term survival are at stake.

The Greeks are not withholding a €300m payment to the IMF because they
have run out of money, though they soon will do.

Five key players in the radical-Left Syriza movement – meeting in the
Maximus Mansion in Athens yesterday – took an ice-cold, calculated,
and carefully-considered decision not to pay.

They knew exactly what they were doing. The IMF’s Christine Lagarde
was caught badly off guard. Staff officials in Washington were
stunned.

On one level, the “bundling” of €1.6bn of payments due to the IMF in
June is just a technical shuffle, albeit invoking a procedure last
used by Zambia for different reasons in the 1980s. In reality it is a
warning shot, and a dangerous escalation for all parties.

Syriza’s leaders are letting it be known that they are so angry, and
so driven by a sense of injustice, that they may indeed default to the
IMF on June 30 and in so doing place the institution in the invidious
position of explaining to its 188 member countries why it has lost
their money so carelessly, and why it has made such a colossal hash of
its affairs.

The Greeks accuse the IMF of colluding in an EMU-imposed austerity
regime that breaches the Fund’s own rules and is in open contradiction
with five years of analysis by its own excellent research department
and chief economist, Olivier Blanchard.

Greece’s public debt is 180pc of GDP. The loans are in a currency that
the country does not control. It is therefore foreign currency debt.
The IMF knows that Greece cannot possibly pay this down by draconian
austerity – the policy already implemented for five years with such
self-defeating effects – and the longer it pretends otherwise, the
more its authority drains away.

It is has pushed for debt relief behind closed doors but only
half-heartedly, unwilling to confront the EMU creditor powers head on.
Objectively, it is acting as an imperialist lackey – as Greek Marxists
might say.

Indeed, it has brought about the worst possible outcome. The Fund’s
man on the ground in Athens – Poul Thomsen – has pushed the austerity
agenda with a curious passion that shocks even officials in the
European Commission, pussy cats by comparison.

This would be justifiable (sort of) if the other side of the usual IMF
bargain were available: debt relief and devaluation. This how IMF
programmes normally work: impose tough reforms but also wipe the slate
clean on debt and restore crippled countries to external viability.

It is a very successful formula. On the rare occasion when the IMF
goes wrong it is usually because it tries to prop up a fixed-exchange
rate long past its sell-by date.

All of this went out of the window in Greece. The IMF enforced brute
liquidation without compensating stimulus or relief. It claimed that
its policies would lead to a 2.6pc contraction of GDP in 2010 followed
by brisk recovery.

What in fact happened was six years of depression, a deflationary
spiral, a 26pc fall in GDP, 60pc youth unemployment, mass exodus of
the young and the brighte

[Marxism] Greece: anger w/ 'troika,' June 5 IMF payment postponed; Syriza dissent "grounded" Tsipras?

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Alexis Tsipras grounded by dissent from within Syriza
by Kerin Hope in Athens
Financial Times, June 4  [full text]


After four hours of discussions with EU leaders in Brussels on
Wednesday night, Alexis Tsipras was planning to return on Friday in
hopes of at last sealing a bailout deal with creditors.

But the Greek prime minister has been grounded by a torrent of anger
and resistance from his Syriza party. Instead of flying to Brussels,
he will on Friday be appealing to a restive parliament in Athens with
his government — and the country’s financial future — on the line.

“The overwhelming sentiment in the [Syriza] parliamentary group will
be one of rejection,” Antonis Kamaras, a Greek political commentator,
said of the bailout terms being offered by creditors. “It’s hard to
see how the leadership can prevail.”

Mr Tsipras had called Wednesday’s talks “constructive and friendly.”
But a senior Greek official said the International Monetary Fund,
which was not represented at the meeting, had imposed new conditions
that had not been tackled in earlier negotiations in Brussels.

Back in Athens, Mr Tsipras later told aides: “Extreme proposals are
not acceptable to the Greek government. We must all understand how
much people have suffered in the last five years and games must stop
being played at their expense.”

With members of Syriza’s far-left faction already stridently
denouncing the creditors, the party could face a split if the premier
crosses his self-imposed “red lines” on pensions and taxes in order to
strike a deal with bailout monitors.

Sitting in a cramped office at party headquarters, Alecos Kalyvas,
Syriza’s economic strategy chief, captured the mood of the party’s
mainstream. Greece faced big problems and “time was running out”, he
said, but he “cannot accept” more pensions reductions, energy price
rises and public sector job cuts.

Asked if a deal would be reached before the current bailout extension
runs out at the end of June, Mr Kalyvas responded: “I’m optimistic but
only moderately.”

In the meantime, Greeks continue to withdraw cash from local banks
amid fears that capital controls may be imposed if the negotiations
run into problems, or if Athens is unable to pay a series of four loan
instalments totalling €1.5bn to the IMF this month.

Last week depositors pulled more than €2bn out of their accounts,
according to two senior bankers. The outflows resumed this week but in
smaller amounts, they said.

Even though Greece’s central bank made clear on Thursday evening that
the cash-strapped government will not make a €300m payment to the IMF
due on Friday, Athens does have the cash to cover that bill — as well
as another €350m instalment due on June 12, according to Greek
officials with knowledge of the national accountants.

One such official said the government had enough money to cover its
full €1.5bn in obligations to the IMF this month — raising the
prospect that the latest moves were a form of posturing by Mr Tsipras
to impress his party.

Before Mr Tsipras flew back from Brussels, members of Syriza’s extreme
left faction urged him to call an immediate general election if the
talks resulted in an ultimatum from bailout monitors.

John Milios, the party’s previous economic strategy chief and leader
of a new far-left faction, the Red Network, called for Greece to halt
payments to the IMF and impose capital controls.

“We’re at a critical point, and I don’t know if there will be an
agreement. The government is on a slippery slope . . . and what I see
ahead is blackmail,” Mr Milios told a meeting of his supporters.

Panayotis Lafazanis, the hardline energy minister and official leader
of the Left Platform, insisted that electricity prices would remain
unchanged and that impoverished households would continue to be
supplied with free electricity.

“This agreement isn’t in compliance with Syriza’s progressive platform
and it’s not going to happen,” Mr Lafazanis said. “We’re a government
of principle and we won’t be responsible for doing such great damage
to the country.”


Greece refuses to make €305m IMF payment in show of defiance
by Szu Ping Chan
The Telegraph, June 4
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11652623/Greece-refuses-to-make-305m-payment-due-tomorrow-to-IMF.html

Greece will miss its €305m (£218m) payment to the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday in a show of defiance as a deal between
Athens and its creditors remains out of reach.

The country invoked a rule created by the IMF in the 1970s that allows
it to bundle all of its €1.6bn payments due this month into

[Marxism] Greece: default ahead (5); & bank preparations

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1)  Interior minister warns Greece will default on June IMF repayment
by Kerin Hope in Athens
Financial Times, May 24


Greece has again threatened to default on loan repayments due to the
International Monetary Fund, saying it will be unable to meet pension
and wage bills in June and also reimburse €1.6bn owed to the IMF
without a bailout deal with creditors.

“The money won’t be given . . . It isn’t there to be given,” Nikos
Voutsis, the interior minister, told the Greek television station
Mega. He claimed the EU and IMF were pressing Greece to make
unacceptable concessions in the bailout talks in return for unlocking
€7.2bn of aid frozen since last year.
. . .
Predicting when Athens will run out of cash has proven a fraught
affair for eurozone officials, who have been bracing for default since
March.

Given the repeated warnings from Greek officials that bankruptcy is
imminent, some officials have begun to disregard such threats,
believing Athens is now using them as a negotiating tactic.

But a senior Greek official with knowledge of the government’s funding
position confirmed that Athens would be unable to make the IMF
payments, which fall due in four separate instalments of more than
€300m each between June 5 and June 19,

“It’s clear the June payments to the fund can’t be covered without
external financing,” the official said. Athens is under pressure to
agree to more cuts and reforms to secure the financing.

“We won’t accept blackmail that says it’s either liquidity with a
memorandum [the Greek term for a bailout programme] or bankruptcy,” Mr
Voutsis said.

The talks have picked up pace in recent days after a four-month
stand-off but German chancellor Angela Merkel warned at last week’s EU
summit in Riga that “there is very, very intensive work to be done”.

The government has ruled out a domestic default on payment obligations
to Greece’s 2.9m pensioners and 600,000 public sector workers, saying
they have first claim on the country’s shrinking resources.

People who have spoken to Mr Tsipras say he is in a dour mood and
willing to acknowledge the serious risk of an accident in coming
weeks.

One official in contact with the prime minister said: “The
negotiations are going badly. Germany is playing hard. Even Merkel
isn’t as open to helping as before.”

Athens is particularly worried by the IMF stance and Mr Tsipras has
been attempting to convince the US to use its influence on the IMF
board to soften the institution’s demands.

The prolonged cash squeeze in Greece has resulted in spending cuts
across the public sector with funds being diverted from hospitals, EU
subsidies and pension funds to keep up with monthly payments to the
IMF.

Mr Tsipras and his aides had to fly to last week’s EU summit in Riga
aboard a Greek air force Hercules-130 transport aircraft because all
three official government planes had been grounded for lack of spare
parts, a result of budget cuts.


2)  Greece 'can not afford' to repay IMF on schedule
Al Jazeera, May 24  [AFP]


Interior minister says Athens will not be able to pay $1.8bn
installment to IMF on schedule next month.
. . .
Last week, the parliamentary spokesman for Greece's ruling Syriza
Party said that the government cannot repay a loan to the IMF on June
5 as its priority is to pay salaries, pensions and running costs.

"No country can repay its debts with only the money from its budget,"
Nikos Filis told Ant1 television.

Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, speaking to the New York Times,
also raised the prospect.

"I am not going to pay the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and not
pay pensions in the next few weeks. So I said to them: 'Decide. Do you
want this to be a proper bargaining round, or do you want this to be a
post-mortem?'", he said with his trademark outspokeness.
. . .
In exchange for the aid, creditors are demanding Greece accept tough
reforms and spending cuts that anti-austerity Syriza pledged to reject
when it was elected in January.

According to reports, creditors are demanding further budget cuts
worth $5.5bn including pension cuts and mass lay-offs.


3)  Greece hasn't got the money to make June IMF repayment: interior minister
by George Georgiopoulos and Kylie MacLellan
Reuters, May 24


ATHENS/LONDON - Greece cannot make debt repayments to the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) next month unless it achieves a deal
with creditors, its interior minister said 

[Marxism] Greece: Negotiations hit crisis point, solidarity vital

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Dick Nichols

Will Greece's SYRIZA-led government reach a last-minute deal with its
creditors, the European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB) and
International Monetary Fund (IMF) - the “Troika” - to release the last €7.2
billion owed to the country under Greece's second bail-out agreement?

If so, would any such agreement be accepted by a majority of Greeks in a
national referendum? And even if it were, would SYRIZA’s Left Platform
accept the deal, or would Left Platform MPs vote against it, effectively
splitting the radical-left party and putting Prime Minister Alexis
Tsipras's government at risk?
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59092

-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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[Marxism] Greece had to drain an emergency fund to pay the IMF

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Greece's Payment Plan Is a Shell Game
by Mark Gilbert
Bloomberg View, May 12

. . .
Greece has to pay the International Monetary Fund about 750 million
euros ($847 million) today. To avoid a default, the nation pulled out
650 million of reserves -- from its account at the IMF, according to
Greece's Kathimerini newspaper. It's the equivalent of writing a check
to yourself to clear your bank overdraft; and the deadline it sets for
Greece may turn out to be the most serious one yet for the nation.

Greece has to replenish its IMF funds within a month, Kathimerini
says. With the IMF already struggling with its own rules that forbid
it from throwing good money after bad by lending to governments that
aren't at least on a path to fiscal rectitude, Greece may have done
nothing better than exchange one kind of default for another. The
hackneyed phrase "kicking the can down the road" has never seemed more
apt.
. . .


Greece had to drain an emergency fund to pay the IMF — and time is running out
by Mike Bird
Business Insider, NYC, May 12


Greece's cash situation is looking increasingly grim after the country
used an emergency fund it has contributed to over decades to make a
debt payment of €750 million (£538 million; $845 million) to the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday, the AFP reports.

Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Monday that the
country has, at most, two weeks of cash left to make its payments, but
reports suggest that the financial crunch will come even sooner.

According to a newsflash from MNI [Market News International], the
country only has €90 million (£64.5 million; $101 million) left in
cash reserves. For a country with a population of 11 million, that
doesn't go very far. The country has incoming tax revenues, but they
are not going to be enough to keep paying for monthly outgoings at
this rate.

Greece is effectively now only making the most urgent of payments
(debt, pensions, and public salaries). Major private businesses with
government contracts have confirmed to Business Insider in recent
weeks that they have not been paid. That's not a unique occurrence in
Greece, which has clipped payments to contractors during cashflow
crises before, but it does show how tight things are getting.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that the attempt made to drain funds from
local government and other state entities has raised about €600
million (£431 million; $674 million). But according to Bloomberg, the
government had initially expected to raise more like €2 billion from
the move.


Greece taps reserves to pay IMF loan
BBC, May 12


Greece was forced to tap into an emergency account to make a debt
interest payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it has
emerged.

The government raided its reserves to make the €750m (£538m) payment
on Monday, one day ahead of the deadline.

It comes after Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis warned his
country was weeks from running out of cash.

Greece is believed to have borrowed €650m from its IMF holding account
to meet the debt interest payment.

Member countries have two accounts with the IMF - one where they
deposit their annual quota, in effect their membership fee, and
another where they store reserves, including gold, for emergencies.

Country quotas are based on each country's relative size in the world economy.

One Greek official told Reuters on Tuesday that the reserves that the
government used must be replenished in the IMF account in "several
weeks".

Greece also used €100m of its cash reserves to make the full payment
on its IMF bailout loan interest, the official said.
. . .

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Re: [Marxism] Greece: Referendum on cards if EU deal not reached

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Most Greeks want euro even with new bailout deal
I Kathimerini May 5


The majority of Greeks want the country to stay in the eurozone should
ongoing negotiations with foreign creditors fail, even if that means
signing a new bailout deal, a new survey has found.

Asked whether they want to keep the euro or return to the drachma,
66.5 percent said they preferred the common currency over 27 percent
who would prefer a return to the nation’s old currency. A smaller
majority, 55.5 percent over 35 percent, were in favor of euro
membership if that entailed signing up to a new memorandum.

The opinion poll by the research institute of the University of
Macedonia was commissioned by Skai TV.

The survey also featured a breakdown by political party of those in
favor of euro membership: 53.5 percent of SYRIZA voters want in,
compared to 92.5 of New Democracy, 100 percent of To Potami and PASOK,
36.5 of Independent Greeks and 27.5 percent of Communist Party (KKE).
Golden Dawn voters were evenly split, the poll said.

On the prospect of a new memorandum as a prerequisite for euro
membership, support among SYRIZA voters fell to 34 [percent] compared
to 58 percent who would rather return to the drachma. Backing was at
95.5 among ND voters, 90 for PASOK, 83.5 for To Potami, 37.5 for
Independent Greeks, 6 for KKE and 58.5 for GD.

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Re: [Marxism] Greece: Referendum on cards if EU deal not reached

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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SYRIZA to start mulling position on possible deal
I Kathimerini [The Daily], Athens, May 6


SYRIZA’s political secretariat is due to meet on Friday as the party
begins deliberating the concessions set to be made by the Greek
government to its lenders.

The meeting will take place amid increasing calls from SYRIZA MPs and
members for any deal to be put to a referendum.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras may take part in Friday’s gathering,
giving him a chance to get a taste of the mood within his party. It is
not yet clear if a central committee meeting will be held over the
weekend or if Tsipras will wait for further progress to be made in the
talks before the party body convenes.

Labor rights are the most sensitive issue for SYRIZA members and it is
not yet clear if the government has had to water down its plans to
reintroduce collective wage bargaining. However, party members are
becoming aware that the government will have to backpedal on many of
the promises it made before the election, particularly in the
Thessaloniki Program unveiled last September.

However, there is a strong feeling within the party that there should
be a referendum on the final agreement between Greece and the
institutions. Speaking at an event in Athens on Wednesday night, State
Minister Alekos Flambouraris said the government would “not hesitate”
to hold a referendum if the talks do not conclude satisfactorily.


[Tsipras' 3-hour April 27 television appearance is now available at
Links with English translation
  ]


On Sat, May 2, 2015 at 2:21 AM, Stuart Munckton via Marxism
 wrote:
>
> Dick Nichols
>
> In a three-hour appearance on private TV channel Star TV on April 27, Greek
> Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke extensively about the challenges
> confronting the anti-austerity government led by the Coalition of the
> Radical Left (SYRIZA).
>
> The program began with a grilling of Tsipras by interviewer Niko
> Katsinikolao and ended with questions from a 50-strong audience.
> https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/58917
>

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[Marxism] Greece overturns civil service reforms

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Financial Times, 5/6/2015
Greece overturns civil service reforms
by Kerin Hope in Athens

The Greek parliament has approved a law proposed by the leftwing 
Syriza­led government overturning civil service reforms by the previous 
government aimed at streamlining the country’s inefficient public sector.


The legislation, which was passed on Tuesday night, called for the 
rehiring of about 13,000 civil servants whose jobs were cut in an 
overhaul of the public administration agreed with bailout lenders. It 
also eliminated annual evaluations for civil servants and promotions 
based on merit.


Giorgos Katrougalos, the leftwing Syriza­led government’s deputy 
minister for administrative reform, called the measures “a Band­Aid to 
repair the most extreme injustices and restore legality to the system”.


“This is not our last word, it’s the first step of [administrative] 
reforms we’re going to make that won’t be neoliberal but will have a 
social aspect,” he said, without giving details of how his plans to 
increase the public sector payroll would be financed.


The government rejected claims by opposition lawmakers that the 
legislation violated the terms of Greece’s current €172bn bailout which 
requires the country’s government to agree economic measures with 
creditors before presenting them to parliament. “We aren’t going to 
consult the institutions [the EU, the European Commission and the 
International Monetary Fund], we don’t have to, we’re a sovereign 
state,” Nikos Voutsis, the powerful interior minister, told parliament.


The municipal police force, which was disbanded 18 months ago, will be 
revived and several thousand caretakers at state schools, known as 
“guards”, are to be rehired.


Almost 600 women cleaners sacked by the finance ministry as a 
cost­cutting measure are expected to get their jobs back next month. The 
cleaners, who worked at tax offices around the country, have staged a 
round­the­clock sit­in for the past 12 months, occupying a stretch of 
pavement close to the finance ministry building in central Athens after 
they filed a collective lawsuit claiming unfair dismissal.


“I have a great feeling of satisfaction now that our campaign has 
succeeded,” said Anna Chrysikopoulou, a tax office cleaner who said she 
spent several nights a week at the sit­in sleeping in a tent. Mr 
Katrougalos, a lawyer who specialises in labour disputes, has become a 
controversial figure in the government.


He was accused soon after his appointment to the cabinet in January of 
conflict of interest over his involvement in cases of unfair dismissal 
brought by school guards. Mr Katrougalos denied the allegation, saying 
other partners in his law firm were representing the school guards. 
Government officials at the time defended Mr Katrougalos’s appointment 
on the grounds that his legal specialisation qualified him for the 
position.

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[Marxism] Greece: Referendum on cards if EU deal not reached

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Dick Nichols

In a three-hour appearance on private TV channel Star TV on April 27, Greek
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke extensively about the challenges
confronting the anti-austerity government led by the Coalition of the
Radical Left (SYRIZA).

The program began with a grilling of Tsipras by interviewer Niko
Katsinikolao and ended with questions from a 50-strong audience.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/58917


-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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[Marxism] Greece: redlines, grexit? (6)

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece defiant as creditors pile on the pressure
by Paul Tugwell
Irish Examiner, APRIL 20

. . .
Greece’s red lines are refusing to cut wages and pensions, introduce
new taxes or sell state assets, alternate health and social security
minister Dimitris Stratoulis said in an interview on Saturday with
Athens-based Skai TV. “The Syriza-led government will carry out the
reforms the Greek people need, not ones requested by our creditors,”
he said. The country won’t be pressured “by euro-exit threats,” he
added.

Greece won’t agree to any privatisation, Panagiotis Lafazanis, the
energy minister said yesterday. While “so-called” partners, including
unidentified IMF officials, want to “blackmail” the Greek government
into adopting measures that would hurt the working class, “we won’t
betray the people’s mandate,” he said.
. . .


1)  Greece, Euro-Area Partners Target Deal by Sunday
BloombergBusiness, April 29, 2015
by Karl Stagno Navarra, Eleni Chrepa, Nikos Chrysoloras


Greece and its euro-area partners are stepping up talks in a bid to
break an impasse over bailout aid amid conflicting signals from the
country’s government over its willingness to agree on long-stalled
reforms.

With Greece facing a cash crunch in early May, both sides in a meeting
of euro-area officials agreed to pursue intensive negotiations
beginning on Thursday with the target of a preliminary deal by May 3,
according to three people with knowledge of the talks. The aim would
be for finance ministers to sign off on the accord by their next
scheduled meeting on May 11, the officials said, asking not to be
named because the talks are private.
. . .
A key factor in a potential breakthrough may be the decision by Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras to intervene and play a major role in the
negotiations to help the process along. That gave the signal that his
government may at last be willing to do what’s needed to unlock the
stalled bailout.
. . .
Red Lines
. . .
An agreement could still stumble at opposition within Tsipras’s
government as his cabinet prepared to take stock of the bailout talks
at a meeting later Thursday. In a sign of the obstacles yet to
overcome for a deal, Greece’s finance ministry said in a statement
Wednesday that the government “retains red lines” in the negotiations,
which include a sales tax on islands, pension and labor market reforms
and asset sales.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis on Thursday said Greece
wouldn’t discuss pension cuts or the sales tax increase in the current
talks, with any pension reform being part of a broader agreement in
June. He expressed hope that Greece would be able to regain market
access after June.

“We hope that negotiations will result in a normalization of the
situation, so that we can enter a recovery period after June, regain
market access, sell bonds, in the framework of sustainable debt,”
Varoufakis told lawmakers in Athens.
. . .
Reform Bill

The new negotiating team, which includes Deputy Foreign Minister
Euclid Tsakalotos, is preparing a bill that may include changes to the
country’s taxation system and public administration. The bill won’t be
submitted to parliament unless it’s part of a deal with creditors, a
senior Greek official said.

Tsipras said earlier this week that he may need a referendum to garner
public support for a deal that would go against the government’s
campaign pledges. Yet, a poll conducted after his remarks and
broadcast on Mega TV on Wednesday showed that sixty-two percent of
Greeks oppose a referendum and 78 percent want the government to reach
a deal with its creditors.
. . .


2)  Greece signals concessions in crunch talks with lenders
by Lefteris Papadimas and Deepa Babington
Reuters, April 30


(ATHENS) - Greece's government signaled the biggest concessions so far
as talks with lenders on a cash-for-reforms package started in earnest
on Thursday, but tried to assure leftist supporters it had not
abandoned its anti-austerity principles.
. . .
Elected on promises to end austerity and scrap an unpopular EU/IMF
bailout program, Tsipras had so far refused to give ground on his "red
lines" - pensions, labor reform and state asset sales.

After a preparatory meeting of senior Greek officials on Wednesday, a
top government official said Athens was willing to sell a majority
stake in its two biggest ports and compromise on value-added tax rates
and s

[Marxism] Greece: money for military(1), not health care(2)?

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greek Gov’t Signs $500 Million Contract With U.S. Company for
Modernization of P-3B Orion Planes
by Aggelos Skordas
The Greek Reporter, April 5
 


The leftist led Greek government has signed its first major armament
deal with the U.S. contractor Lockheed Martin for the modernization of
five aged naval support jets. The deal, worth 500 million dollars, is
the first major deal in the last 10 years and was signed after the
recommendation of Defense Minister and coalition government junior
partner Independent Greeks (ANEL) leader Panos Kammenos. The agreement
was also signed by Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, Alternate Minister
of Citizen Protection Giannis Panousis as well as Alternate Economy,
Infrastructure, Maritime and Tourism Minister Thodoris Dritsas.

According to the Greek Sunday newspaper Proto Thema that published the
story first, the SYRIZA-led government has already authorized a down
payment of 45 million dollars to the U.S. colossal multinational
company as a first installment so that the upgrade can begin. The deal
comes at a time when state coffers are running low, while speculation
over whether Greece will manage to pay its next installment to the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the coming Thursday, April 9, as
well as pensions and public sector wages is topping Greek and
international media.

The modernization plan is a 7-year program and includes the
maintenance and support of five of the six P-3B Orion turbo-prop
aircraft granted to Greece by the United States during 1991 and 1992.
The Greek government hopes to extend their life span for another
15,000 flight hours. They had been in the service of the Hellenic Navy
until 2009 but were withdrawn as their modernization had been
considered too costly.

It should be noted that Mr. Dritsas, who is among those signing the
agreement, was a fierce critic of weapons expenditures during the past
years, when New Democracy and PASOK were in power. The deal has caused
the reaction of opposition parties and especially of the centrist To
Potami and its leader Stavros Theodorakis. “Two hundred million euros
for dealing with the humanitarian crisis but 500 million dollars for
arms,” Mr. Theodorakis is quoted as saying in regards to the contract.
“It is the largest weapons program over the last years, at a time when
the economic crisis is at its worst and state funds are literally
empty,” he added, recalling the outrage that SYRIZA Maritime Minister
Thodoris Dritsas showed when his party was in opposition, and when
referring to defense related expenditures for the 2015 state budget.


2)  Austerity, the destruction of the health system and the urgency of
a debt moratorium
by Charles-André Udry, April 26
Charles-Andre Udry, economist, is a member of the Movement for
Socialism (MPS, Switzerland).


A meeting of the Red Network was held in Athens on April 4, 2015. One
of the three workshops brought together about a hundred people who are
active to varying degrees in the health sector: doctors, nurses,
paramedics, those responsible for hospital pharmacies, cleaners,
members of local committees who have prevented the closure of a
primary care centre, one of the doctors responsible for the social
dispensary at Hellinikon. The discussion combined testimony, analysis
and initiatives. A common thread ran through all the interventions: we
should stop waiting for the results of the permanent and
highly-mediatized negotiations of the government, which maintain the
population in a passive attitude; we must build initiatives that
ensure the connection between caregivers, population, the trade-union
structure (META) influenced by Syriza and the members and supporters
of Syriza. Given the massive and continuous state of decay of the
health system, a slogan has to be put forward: immediate refusal to
pay the interest on the debt and repayments that are presented as
unavoidable, and the immediate use of these funds for the health
sector.

The decision of the Tsipras government to abolish the €5 charge for
medical visits is largely illusory, because the sums represented by
the one euro to be paid by patients when buying medicine are much
greater. In the interventions of caregivers, one fact stood out: the
vast majority of managers in the health system and the hospitals have
not been changed. The bureaucratic and clientelist apparatus of New
Democracy and PASOK remains in place. Ministers can always make
statements - they do so every day and in every way – but changing

[Marxism] Greece: struggle over Gold mine (msm,1); from the left, rightists on offensive (2,3)

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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1) Syriza Sits on Gold Mine as Repayment Date Approaches
by Luke Hurst
Newsweek magazine, April 23


A gold mine is at the centre of a fierce row in Greece between the
Left-wing Syriza government and a Canadian mining company that has
thrust simmering local tensions onto the national stage.

A battle between the energy and environment minister, Panagiotis
Lafazanis, who hails from the ultra-Left faction of Syriza, and Hellas
Gold which operates the Skouries mine in Halkidiki, has escalated
after the government revoked a licence for the construction of an
ore-grinding facility. The move is likely to cost jobs and lead to the
government losing out on valuable export revenue.

Expanding the mining projects could be lucrative for a country in
desperate need of funds. In total the mines in Halkidiki hold around
eight million ounces of gold as well as significant amounts of other
metals, which would make Greece around €500m per year in export
revenues by 2017, according to Eldorado Gold, the Canadian parent
company of Hellas Gold.

Eldorado has already invested around €400m n Halkidiki since 2012,
employing around 2,000 people, with plans to invest an extra €700m and
hire 1,000 more employees by 2020. Unemployment in Greece currently
runs at 26%, the highest of any EU country.

But Lafazanis says the environmental studies the mining permits were
based upon will be reassessed. Other Syriza politicians, including
local MP Katerina Igglezi, also oppose the mine, citing environmental
concerns and the negative impact the industry could have on tourism in
Halkidiki.  Around 4,000 miners and supporters marched on Athens to
protest against the decision to revoke the licence, but Lafazanis
suggested Eldorado was behind the demonstration, accusing the company
of trying to blackmail the Greek government. The row is indicative of
the tension between Syriza’s ideals and the pressure to raise revenue
to pay off its international creditors. Greece is due to pay a €200m
bailout installment to the IMF on 1 May ahead of a further €750m
payment on 12 May.

The company plan on beginning extraction next year, and the
ore-grinding facility is needed as part of this production process.

Anti-mining activists say the dispute is tearing the area’s local
towns apart as people clash over job opportunities and investment on
one side, and the mining’s impact on the environment and the tourism
industry on the other. Fifty-five people connected to anti-mining
protests are still facing charges following a spate of arrests in
2013.

Dimitrios Katsikas from the Hellenic Foundation for European and
Foreign Policy, a think tank, says that the decision to rescind the
licences was politically motivated. “It’s something they said they
wanted to do before, and they just fulfilled their pre-election
campaign despite the fact that it sends a negative message in terms of
investment in Greece, and of course it has a negative effect on the
people in the area in terms of employment.”
   ###


2)  A provocation that should alert us!
by Andreas Sartzekis
NPA France, April 26


The French press has said little or nothing about it... unlike the
Greek media, which we can say really created the event. On Thursday,
April 16 there took place in central Athens a workers’ rally and
demonstration... entirely taken in hand by bosses and managers, and
supported by every reactionary in the city.

We have mentioned it on several occasions: in the north of Greece, not
far from Thessaloniki, gold mines are being exploited, producing high
levels of pollution. The giant of the region, the Canadian company
Eldorado Gold, has been aiming for several years to expand its
activities around the town of Skouries, which triggered a massive
mobilization of the local population, with rallies and violent clashes
with the police of the Samaras government. Very early on, several
things became very clear: the former government of the Troika was
taking its orders from the employers and it used methods of barbaric
violence against the local people who had mobilized, with police
descending on their homes to terrorize them. Moreover, this company
took little notice of legality, and pushed forward with the
destruction of forests in order to open its new site, despite the
absence of any authorization to do so. Finally, it succeeded in
manipulating the company’s workers, turning them against the mobilized
people and forcing them to depend only on the company... and on the
members of the Nazi group Chryssi Avgi (Golden Dawn) who 

[Marxism] Greece: crisis (1) and hope (2)

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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1) "The Greek Crisis"
video of April 10 forum in Vancouver, CA by Left Streamed


three speakers each about 20 minutes:
* Ingo Schmidt, Academic Coordinator of Labour Studies at Athabasca
University [good basic education on austerity]
* Peter Prontzos, social activist, teaches political science at Langara
University [brief review of international capitalist
oppression/exploitation of Greece up to today]
* Natassa Romanou, climate scientist at Columbia University, Syriza member
and founding member of Syriza-NY


2)  A Very European Coup
by Costas Douzinas
openDemocracy, April 24


[Costas Douzinas is Professor of Law and Director of the Birkbeck
Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London. He is
a regular contributor for the Guardian and his latest book Philosophy
and Resistance in the Crisis (Polity) was released in 2013.]

. . .
The negotiations over the future of Greece dominating our news are
nothing less than a very European coup...

Following the German lead, the black arts of threat, blackmail and
misinformation have been put into overdrive. Daily anonymous briefings
and hostile commentary against the government in the press are
accompanied by official threats about a pending ‘Grexit’. The Greek
government did not reciprocate. It did not attack its tormentors and
it formally complained about the continuous leaking of its negotiating
position to the press despite a confidentiality agreement.

Get Syriza

No other interpretation can explain the emerging establishment
position except “Get Syriza”: either overthrow the government or make
it accept such humiliating conditions that it would lose popular
support or make the party split. Yanis Varoufakis was told that if
there is a liquidity problem the government should not pay salaries
and pensions for a couple of months. The attacks soon took on a
personal dimension - Varoufakis was attacked for his dress-code,
didacticism, academicism and bad manners. He is “foolishly naïve”, he
should be replaced - giving rise to a diplomatic incident with the
Greek ambassador in Berlin lodging a formal complaint. The CEO of the
Frankfurt stock exchange called Tsipras and Varoufakis “Taliban”,
while Spiegel claimed that Varoufakis displays symptoms of psychosis.
Like a schizophrenic he believes in a parallel reality in which it is
not Syriza to blame but the capitalism around it.

The threats have been followed by punitive measures bordering on
illegality. They have been described as fiscal strangulation and
liquidity Chinese water torture. The Europeans are not returning to
Greece the 1.9bl owed by the ECB on Greek bonds or any part of the
last installment of 7bl from the previous agreement. Furthermore, the
ECB piled on the pressure by pulling the normal credit lines and
capping emergency lending. Mario Draghi, totally inappropriately for a
“neutral” central banker, stated that if Greece continues with the
privatisation of airports, it may receive some of the sums owed. As
far as liquidity is concerned, the ECB has adopted a drip-drip
approach offering small sums of euros to the banks and keeping them
begging on a weekly basis. This is probably illegal. Greece is still
part of the old bailout programme. The ECB as the issuing bank is
legally obliged to offer liquidity to the Eurozone commercial banks.
. . .
The election victory does not mean that the government has acquired
power or ideological hegemony. It resembles a government in exile.
Time is necessary therefore in order to gain control of a hostile
state machinery and to prepare the specific policies that would
implement its election promises. This takes time for inexperienced
politicians never before in government positions, facing hostility or
indifference from the civil service.

The government needs time in order to communicate internally and
internationally the new direction against the resistance and
incomprehension they receive from officials and from media.

Finally, time is necessary to start building collaborations and
alliances with anyone prepared to accept that democratic decisions
should override the markets.

The time won is necessary in order to gain space and change the
terrain towards friendlier territory.

1. The first tactic is to complicate the negotiations by introducing
directly or indirectly third parties or issues considered extrinsic to
the table. The visits by Premier Alexis Tsipras and senior government
ministers to Russia, USA, China and Latin America move in this
direction. The strategy is to show that the fate of G

[Marxism] Greece requisitions spare cash in dash to stay solvent

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece requisitions spare cash in dash to stay solvent
by Renee Maltezou and George Georgiopoulos
Reuters, April 20


ATHENS - Greece ordered state entities from municipalities to a fund
meant for future generations to park idle cash at the central bank in
a scramble on Monday to pay its bills.
. . .
Monday's legislative order includes local administration but excludes
pension funds and some state-owned firms. Cash reserves that are
needed by these bodies for their immediate payment needs are also
excluded from the regulation.

Raising pressure on the government, local officials threatened to defy
the decision, which needs parliamentary approval. Most opposition
parties said the decision was arbitrary.
. . .
The latest effort to harness spare cash means parking money that a
public body does not need immediately at the Bank of Greece. The money
is lent to the debt agency for one to 15 days against collateral and
is paid back with interest at expiry.

Greek finance ministry officials told Reuters last week that Athens
will need to tap all the remaining cash reserves across its public
sector, a total of 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion), to pay civil
service wages and pensions at the end of the month. The finance
ministry denied this.

Greece must repay the International Monetary Fund almost 1 billion
euros due next month. Athens has said it wants to honor its debt
obligations but government officials have said that wages and pensions
would be a priority.

Tsipras needs to present detailed plans to reform the economy before a
meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Riga on April 24 to prevent
a default which could trigger a 'Grexit' from the euro.

The next regular Eurogroup meeting is on May 11, just a day before the
IMF requires a 750 million euro loan repayment.

On Monday, ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio said that a Greek exit
was not an option and that a default by a euro zone state would have
no automatic impact for its banks.

"We are convinced at the European Central Bank that there will be no
Greek exit. The Treaty does not foresee that a country can be
formally, legally expelled from the euro. We think it should not
happen," Constancio told lawmakers.
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[Marxism] Greece Flashes Warning Signals About Its Debt

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Apr. 20 2015
Greece Flashes Warning Signals About Its Debt
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.

WASHINGTON — By the standards of his frenzied schedule here last week, 
the meeting on Friday between Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance 
minister, and Lee C. Buchheit, the dean of international debt lawyers, 
was a quiet one.


There was none of the media scrum that had followed Mr. Varoufakis 
around town during the semiannual meetings of the International Monetary 
Fund and World Bank, as he paid calls on the I.M.F. chief, Christine 
Lagarde; the head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi; the United 
States Treasury secretary, Jacob J. Lew, and even President Obama.


But the get-together with Mr. Buchheit carried critical meaning, 
according to experts here. After all, it was Mr. Buchheit who helped 
broker Greece’s most recent debt refinancing, in 2012.


As Greece now gropes for a resolution to its current financial problems, 
the meeting suggests Athens might still be holding out hope for a 
restructuring of its debt burden of 303 billion euros, or $327 billion.


What Mr. Varoufakis and Mr. Buchheit discussed is not publicly known, 
and neither would comment on the meeting. But that Mr. Varoufakis might 
still be exploring a restructuring underscores just how close Greece is 
to defaulting on its staggering debt, billions of euros of which must be 
repaid in the coming weeks.


As the eurozone braced for the prospect of a default, financial markets 
were jittery last week and Greece’s own short-term borrowing costs were 
soaring. Repercussions of such a default are so difficult to predict 
that European officials have spent the last five years trying to avoid one.


Over the weekend, senior European officials said that while the Greek 
debt situation was dire, they still believed an agreement would be 
reached. And the United States, starting at the top with Mr. Obama, is 
actively engaged in pushing both sides to come together to prevent a 
market-rattling default.


After two international bailouts for Greece since 2010, about 90 percent 
of its debt is owed to its eurozone neighbors, the I.M.F. and the 
European Central Bank. At the moment, not one of those lenders is 
showing a willingness to give any additional payback relief to Mr. 
Varoufakis and the new left-leaning government in Athens.


Mr. Varoufakis’s next formal meeting with his country’s creditors is set 
for Friday in Riga, Latvia, where eurozone finance ministers are to 
assemble for their monthly gathering. Wolfgang Schäuble, the powerful 
German finance minister, said here last week that no one should expect 
the meeting on April 24 to resolve anything.


Unless the creditors agree soon to release the next allotment of bailout 
money, Greece could have trouble making a $763 million payment to the 
I.M.F. on May 12. It almost certainly would not be able to meet the €11 
billion in payments to the European Central Bank, the I.M.F. and 
payments on Treasury bills in June and July.


Mr. Varoufakis’s main message in Washington was that Greece was doing 
its best to carry out painful economic overhauls called for under the 
bailout program, while remaining true to his government’s anti-austerity 
mandate. “We know we are bound to a program,” Mr. Varoufakis said in an 
interview late last week, before his private meeting with Mr. Buchheit. 
“But there is another principle here: democracy.”


But the Greek government and its lenders remain far apart. Many European 
and I.M.F. officials are now openly complaining that Mr. Varoufakis is 
expending too much energy as a celebrity economist — he was a top draw 
at a panel discussion here last week at the Brookings Institution, the 
liberal organization — than on coming up with a viable plan to satisfy 
creditors.


In particular, Europe and the I.M.F. are furious that Greece has still 
not changed its generous pension system. Mr. Varoufakis has even gone in 
the opposite direction by increasing pension payments to lower-income 
workers.


“We still do not have a comprehensive, detailed plan,” one of Greece’s 
senior-most creditors said here last week. “Plus, the numbers just don’t 
add up.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity.


Mr. Buchheit, a lawyer at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, has for more 
than 30 years represented governments that are unable to pay their 
debts. He was the brains behind Greece’s €200 billion debt restructuring 
in 2012, at a time when the specter of a Greek default — and the 
potential that a country might be the first member to leave, or be 
forced out of, the euro currency union — had the eurozone in a state of 
crisis.


The plan brok

[Marxism] Greece releases migrants from 'barbaric' detention centres

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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“The people that were there, were living an indescribable barbarity,” said
Greek immigration minister Tasia Christodoulopoulou. According to
Christodoulopoulou, many of the detainees were illegally being held
indefinitely.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/58778

-- 
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original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

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[Marxism] Greece: talk of debt default, Graccident

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece prepares for debt default if talks with creditors fail
by Kerin Hope and Tony Barber, Athens
Financial Times [full text], April 13 pm

Greece is preparing to take the dramatic step of declaring a debt
default unless it can reach a deal with its international creditors by
the end of April, according to people briefed on the radical leftist
government’s thinking.

The government, which is rapidly running out of funds to pay public
sector salaries and state pensions, has decided to withhold €2.5bn of
payments due to the International Monetary Fund in May and June if no
agreement is struck, they said.

“We have come to the end of the road . . . If the Europeans won’t
release bailout cash, there is no alternative [to a default],” one
government official said.

A Greek default would represent an unprecedented shock to Europe’s
16-year-old monetary union only five years after Greece received the
first of two EU-IMF bailouts that amounted to a combined €245bn.

The warning of an imminent default could be a negotiating tactic,
reflecting the government’s aim of extracting the easiest possible
conditions from Greece’s creditors, but it nevertheless underlined the
reality of fast-emptying state coffers.

Default is a prospect for which other European governments, irritated
at what they see as the unprofessional negotiating tactics and
confrontational rhetoric of the Greek government, have also begun to
make contingency plans.

In the short term, a default would almost certainly lead to the
suspension of emergency European Central Bank liquidity assistance for
the Greek financial sector, the closure of Greek banks, capital
controls and wider economic instability.

Although it would not automatically force Greece to drop out of the
eurozone, a default would make it much harder for Alexis Tsipras,
prime minister, to keep his country in the 19-nation area, a goal that
was part of the platform on which he and his leftist Syriza party won
election in January.

Germany and Greece’s other eurozone partners say they are confident
that the currency area is strong enough to ride out the consequences
of a Greek default, but some officials acknowledge it would be a
plunge into the unknown.

Greece’s finance ministry on Monday reaffirmed the government’s
commitment to striking a deal with its creditors, saying: “We are
continuing uninterruptedly the search for a mutually beneficial
solution, in accordance with our electoral mandate.”

In this spirit, Greece resumed technical negotiations with its
creditors in Athens and Brussels on Monday on the fiscal measures,
budget targets and privatisations without which the lenders say they
will not release funds needed to pay imminent debt instalments.

The government is trying to find cash to pay €2.4bn in pensions and
civil service salaries this month.

It is due to repay €203m to the IMF on May 1 and €770m on May 12.
Another €1.6bn is due in June.

The funding crisis has arisen partly because €7.2bn in bailout money
due to have been disbursed to Greece last year has been held back,
amid disagreements between Athens and its European and IMF creditors
over politically sensitive structural economic reforms.

These included an overhaul of the pension system, including cuts in
the payments received by Greek pensioners, and measures to permit mass
dismissals by private sector employers.

Although debt reduction was a central theme of Syriza’s successful
election campaign, the government changed tune after taking office and
insisted that it would meet all its obligations to the IMF.

However, Yanis Varoufakis, finance minister, made clear last week that
the government took the view that its top priority should be to meet
its domestic commitments, including an obligation to continue paying
pensions to citizens.
   ###


Greece: why something has to give
by Paul Mason
Channel 4 News, April 13
 
. . .
But after three weeks of detailed negotiations, 24 April is beginning
to look like a deadline: Nikos Theocharakis, head of fiscal policy at
the Greek finance ministry, is reported to have told Eurogroup
negotiators that Greece might run out of cash thereafter.
. . .
The depth of Syriza’s attachment to the euro was demonstrated when its
economics guru Euclid Tsakalotos addressed MPs at Westminster last
month. Faced with encouragement to leave the euro from left-wing
Labour MPs, Tsakalotos pointed out the experience of the British and
French left in the 1980s with what he called the “dead end” of
national economic solutions.

So Syriza’s leadership is wedded to the eurozone but the eurozone is
currently

[Marxism] Greece: analyzing forces opposing Syriza-led government

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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[Kevin Ovenden, visiting Greece, writes a long article sketching his
analysis of forces within and without the Syriza-led government that
threaten its ability to carry out its election mandate.  I have tried
to excerpt the main points below. dayne]

Syriza: escaping the prison of the politics of the past
by Kevin Ovenden
Counterfire, April 12, 2015


same article published at Left Flank with the title:
Greece’s government: No room left for manoeuvre?
by Kevin Ovenden, April 13, 2015



Two hostile intersecting axes are forming against the Syriza-led
government in Athens.

Together they comprise an increasingly cohered effort to destabilise
and defeat the government, to usurp the democratically expressed hope
of the Greek people to break from the iron cage of austerity.

The first axis, from without, has been evident since before the 20
February deal in which the Troika of creditors blackmailed Athens into
accepting the principle of a new austerity memorandum.
. . .
The second line of attack by the Right, and much more menacing, is
over law and order, larded with racism and strong-state rhetoric...
. . .
... there are allies on the government benches for the strong state,
law and order push. And they are not only from the illiberal ANEL. The
minister of public order, with responsibility for the police, John
Panousis is from Dimar – the modernising, essentially Blairite
breakaway from Syriza to its right.
[]
. . .
A second sinister provocation against the government and the left has
also gone without even reprimand. On the Independence Day parade on 25
March a group of special forces soldiers chanted bellicose,
anti-Turkish slogans boasting of invading Istanbul and hoisting the
Greek flag. Many observers, foreign and domestic, were shocked. Left
Syriza MP Vasiliki Katrivanou called for action against nests of
ultra-nationalists and the far right within the repressive apparatuses
of the state.

When a few years ago a similar incident occurred the soldiers
responsible – professionals, not national servicemen – were
prosecuted. This time there was not even a perfunctory investigation.
The minister of defence is Panos Kammenos. He is the leader of ANEL.
. . .
That the sights of an incipient authoritarian push are focused more
widely than upon groups on the fringes of the anarchist scene or upon
protecting the “honour” of Greece’s equivalent of Britain’s SAS
assassins became clear to all last weekend. There were violent clashes
in Skouries on the Halkidiki peninsula. There a Canadian open cast
mining operation is devastating the environment and threatening to
withdraw investment unless it is allowed to despoil further.

There has been a huge movement against the operation. Some 10,000
people demonstrated in nearby Thessalonki two weeks ago.
Unfortunately, the miners’ leaders have turned the union over to serve
the company. The police stood idly by last weekend while miners,
acting for the company not in pursuit of their interests as workers
who will have to live in the same polluted environment as everyone
else, attacked protesters.

For Panousis, it was not an example of US-style company unionism in
collaboration with the local unelected state assaulting both people
and democracy in the manner of the Pinkerton private security forces
or – the same thing – a mafia-run wharf as depicted in On the
Waterfront. He adduced the confrontation as evidence of a breakdown of
law and order. Just as conservative university managers have made a
hue and cry in Athens about the ongoing occupation of their admin
building.

Into this noxious mix were released figures last week showing a
four-fold increase in the number of people “illegally” entering
Greece. Probably 40 percent of them are refugees from Syria, whose
first European sanctuary is Greece. They are not, in fact and law,
automatically illegal even by the draconian and racist standards of
Schengen and therefore Greek asylum policy. But in a dangerous
slippage from 18 months ago when official Greece was forced by the
anti-racist movement to bestow pariah status on the fascists, Golden
Dawn representatives were invited by sections of the media to opine
about the latest statistic.

It was actually Samaras
[] who used his
parliamentary speech over the latest turn in the government’s
negotiations with the troika to focus on immigration. He has provided
a portmanteau into which may be fitted all manner of claims about
national chaos, losing control of the

[Marxism] Greece and I.M.F. Hold Talks on a Crucial Debt Payment

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Apr. 5 2015
Greece and I.M.F. Hold Talks on a Crucial Debt Payment
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.

As a crucial date approaches for Greece to make a major debt payment, 
the markets are yet again weighing the possibility that the country 
could actually default on its loans.


Such an outcome — a decision by the Greek government not to pay its 
creditors — has generally been seen as remote, even since the left-wing 
Syriza government came to power in January.


But now, after months of bitter, inconclusive negotiations over the 
austerity measures Greece would have to impose to secure desperately 
needed cash from Europe, Greek government officials are grappling with 
very limited options for handling their cash squeeze.


On April 9, Greece must pay 458 million euros, about $503 million, to 
the International Monetary Fund, a date and sum that in recent weeks 
have come to loom large for investors, many of whom worry how the 
markets would absorb a messy Greek default.


In a statement, the I.M.F. said that Ms. Lagarde and Mr. Varoufakis were 
having an “informal discussion on the Greek government’s reform program.”


Greece has said on numerous occasions that it has the money to pay the 
I.M.F. this week. Moreover, Mr. Varoufakis, from the moment he became 
finance minister this year, has gone out of his way to cultivate ties 
with Ms. Lagarde and has said that paying the fund was a priority for 
Greece.


Over the last month, however, the economic situation in Greece has 
worsened greatly. Deposits worth about €25 billion have been withdrawn 
from Greek banks, some of which are now on life support with the 
European Central Bank.


The government’s tax collections are also suffering as companies and 
consumers fret over the prospect that Greece might be forced to abandon 
the euro.


Now, with Europe refusing to permit Greece access to temporary lines of 
liquidity — such as letting its banks issue more short-term treasury 
notes — Greece is running out of cash. Which means that if it were to 
pay the fund €458 million this Thursday, there might not be enough left 
in the coffers to pay pensions and public sector wages the next week, 
some Greek officials say.


Mr. Varoufakis, who came to power on a platform of ending the policy of 
putting the needs of Greece’s creditors above its suffering citizens, 
was to make the case to Ms. Lagarde that his government could not meet 
all of its commitments.


“This government has made strong statements that they will meet their 
commitments,” said a person who was involved in the negotiations but was 
not authorized to speak publicly. The problem is, this person said, 
Greek officials have made commitments to their own people as well. “They 
are being pushed to the wall.”


There is some wiggle room. Even if Greece does not pay up on Thursday, 
it will not be in technical default as there is a 30-day grace period 
that could allow the government to pay its pension and wage obligations 
and strike a broader deal so that its creditors could disburse the 
needed funds.


Mr. Varoufakis is also planning to meet with officials in the United 
States Treasury on Monday in the hope that the United States, as the 
dominant voice at the I.M.F., might pressure fund officials, and Europe 
as well, to cut Greece some slack.


The United States has been quietly critical of Europe’s harsh stance 
toward Greece, warning of the consequences that a Greek default and exit 
from the euro would have on financial markets.


Not paying the I.M.F. could set off defaults in the billions of euros 
that Greece owes its European lenders.


All told, Greece owes €320 billion, with close to €20 billion in 
payments coming due in the next six months.


Since the I.M.F. was founded in 1945, developed nations have made good 
on their debts. On the other hand, there have been numerous cases in 
which countries with troubled economies, like Argentina, have ended up 
in arrears.


“Of all the possible steps the Greeks could take to manage their 
immediate cash flow crunch, default on the I.M.F. would be the most 
serious,” said Peter Doyle, an independent economist who worked for many 
years in the fund’s European department. “It would be tantamount to a 
declaration of ‘war’ by the Greeks.”


Last week, Mr. Varoufakis sent a 26-page report to Greece’s creditors, 
laying out in considerable detail the measures the country planned to 
take to improve its financial situation.


While there were many conventional proposals dealing with labor reforms 
and improved tax collection, aimed at appeasing the country’s lenders, 
the policy menu included items like adding extra pension payments

[Marxism] Greece Says They Will Meet IMF's April 9 Deadline for Payment

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Dimitri Lascaris and Leo Panitch analyze Syriza's reform proposals and
compromises and discuss roadblocks posed by maintenance of European
austerity -   April 3, 2015
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemi
d=74&jumival=13584
or 
http://tinyurl.com/mmjojgk


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[Marxism] Greece: International solidarity with the workers of VIOME

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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[see Phil Ferguson from Feb. 11
]


VIO.ME.  Occupy, Resist, Produce!
Solidarity to the struggle of the workers of the Vio.Me. factory in
Thessaloniki, Greece, for self-management!

International solidarity with the workers of VIOME in front of the
imminent threat of liquidation of the company

The workers of VIOME in Thessaloniki, Greece, have stood up against
unemployment and poverty by carrying through a long struggle to
self-manage the occupied factory in very adverse conditions. For two
years now, they have been producing and selling ecological cleaning
products at the occupied premises, ensuring a modest income for their
families. They have been working on terms of equality, taking
decisions collectively through the general assembly. At the same time
they have received a big wave of solidarity from Greece and abroad,
converting their struggle into an emblematic struggle for human
dignity in crisis-stricken Greece.

The ex-owners of the factory, the Fillipou family, have never stopped
trying to obstruct the process, posing legal hurdles in every step
along the way. Four years ago they abandoned the factory, keeping all
the benefits to themselves and leaving millions in unpaid wages to the
workers, condemning their families to poverty and misery. Today they
appear again, conspiring with the state-appointed bankruptcy
administrators and the judicial system in order to liquidate the
company.

While the ex-owners were convicted to 123 months in jail at first
instance for the millions owed to the workers, the court of appeals
reduced this sentence to a 43 months suspended sentence, thus in
effect absolving the ex-owners from having to ever pay back the
workers.

At the same time, on March 23 there is a new trial to evaluate the
administrator’s request to liquidate the machinery and the premises.
If the court rules in favour, big financial and real estate interests
will have the opportunity to gain a foothold in the VIOME premises.

The workers of VIOME and the national and international solidarity
movement are determined to resist a possible sell off by any means
available. On Friday, March 20 we are carrying out a protest at
Thessaloniki’s city centre, including a farmers market and the direct
sale of the VIOME products to the public. On Monday, March 23 we
gather in front of the court house, to protest against the intention
of the administrators and the judges to liquidate and sell off the
company and its premises, to condemn the workers and their families to
unemployment and misery in order to serve the interests of the
powerful.

Furthermore we declare that, regardless of the ruling of the court, we
are determined to stand our ground and defend the VIOME factory, a
workplace that was kept alive thanks the determination of the workers
and the solidarity of the wider community. We refuse to surrender it
to the judicial powers, which have repeatedly denied justice to the
workers and the underprivileged.

Our destiny is now in our own hands, we manage our work and our lives
ourselves. We will not permit anyone to destroy what we have built
with so much effort. We declare to the judges, the police, the
administrators, the ex-owners and any prospective buyers:

VIOME IS NOT FOR SALE!
VIOME WILL REMAIN IN THE HANDS OF THE WORKERS!


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Re: [Marxism] Greece Looks to Russia as Deal With Europe Stumbles

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece opposes EU's sanctions on Russia, Tsipras tells Tass

Kathimerini, Athens [from Bloomberg], March 31

Greece opposes European Union sanctions imposed against Russia over
the conflict in Ukraine, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said,
denouncing the approach as “senseless” and calling for a negotiated
solution.

Greece has suffered from a Russian food import ban that President
Vladimir Putin imposed in response to the sanctions, Tsipras said in
an interview with state-run Russian news service Tass published on
Tuesday. After his government was sworn in two months ago, Tsipras
said that he told EU leaders that they couldn’t assume he would
support the penalties.

“We disagree with sanctions,” Tsipras told Tass. “I see it as a road
to nowhere.”
. . .
After a Syriza-led government assumed power in Greece in late January,
Tsipras said he called EU President Donald Tusk and Federica
Mogherini, the 28-nation bloc’s foreign-policy chief, to tell them
that they had to seek the new cabinet’s position before making
decisions.

“The new European security architecture must include Russia,” Tsipras
said. “Greece, as an EU member state, can be a link, a bridge between
the West and Russia.”

The need for a unanimous EU vote to renew the trade restrictions gives
skeptics like Greece leverage over the UK, Poland and the Baltic
states, the leading advocates for maintaining the pressure on Russia.
At a March meeting in Brussels, EU leaders made a pledge to extend
sanctions until the end of the year while leaving open the possibility
that the trade and investment curbs might not be renewed when they
expire in July.
. . .
“Spring” has replaced “winter” in Greek-Russian relations, Tsipras told Tass.

Large Russian companies will take part in a tender to explore for
offshore oil and natural gas, Greek Energy Minister Panagiotis
Lafazanis told reporters on Tuesday, adding that his country supports
Russia’s plan for a new pipeline through Turkey and would welcome its
extension to Greek territory. The government in Athens is hopeful that
Russia will lift its ban on Greek agricultural products, according to
Lafazanis.

Tsipras said he sees energy and tourism as the main areas for
cooperation with Russia. He didn’t address his country’s bailout
options, according to quotes made available by Tass. [Bloomberg]



On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 9:19 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism
 wrote:
>
> NY Times, Mar. 31 2015
> Greece Looks to Russia as Deal With Europe Stumbles
> By LIZ ALDERMAN
>
> ATHENS — With the prospect of a default looming in Greece, Prime Minister
> Alexis Tsipras is preparing to meet next week with President Vladimir V.
> Putin of Russia as a European deal to give more aid to Athens falters.
>
> The timing has raised questions of whether the visit is an ordinary
> component of the new Greek government’s multipronged foreign policy, or a
> pivot toward Russia for financial aid in the event that Greece’s talks with
> European officials collapse.
  . . .

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[Marxism] Greece Looks to Russia as Deal With Europe Stumbles

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Mar. 31 2015
Greece Looks to Russia as Deal With Europe Stumbles
By LIZ ALDERMAN

ATHENS — With the prospect of a default looming in Greece, Prime 
Minister Alexis Tsipras is preparing to meet next week with President 
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as a European deal to give more aid to 
Athens falters.


The timing has raised questions of whether the visit is an ordinary 
component of the new Greek government’s multipronged foreign policy, or 
a pivot toward Russia for financial aid in the event that Greece’s talks 
with European officials collapse.


Negotiations between the struggling Greek government and its creditors 
stumbled anew on Monday after European leaders said that a reform plan 
submitted over the weekend to unlock a fresh lifeline of 7.2 billion 
euros, or about $7.8 billion, fell short. Greece has warned that it may 
run out of money soon after Mr. Tsipras meets with Mr. Putin on April 8.


Mr. Tsipras, who came to power in January, originally planned to travel 
to Moscow in May. But he accelerated the meeting with Mr. Putin a couple 
of weeks ago as Greece came to loggerheads with Germany and other 
European countries over the terms for releasing the money. Without it, 
Greece could go bankrupt or possibly exit the 19-nation eurozone, an 
event that, if it happened, could increase instability in the region.


Mr. Tsipras’s visit to Moscow is being billed by Athens as a routine 
meeting to strengthen the relationship between the countries, which have 
longstanding political and religious ties. But some Greek officials have 
suggested that Athens might be tempted to assess whether Russia, which 
is itself squaring off with Europe over the conflict in Ukraine, could 
be willing to ride in as a white knight if Europe steps back.


“This is an attempt to ratchet up the pressure on the rest of the 
eurozone to make concessions to Greece,” said Simon Tilford, the deputy 
director of the Center for European Reform in London.


If so, he added, it is a gamble that could backfire. “Flirting with 
Russia is guaranteed to antagonize the rest of the eurozone,” Mr. 
Tilford said. “It will make it harder for those in Germany who were 
arguing for a more conciliatory line toward Greece to keep it.”


Relations between the new Greek government and other European countries 
have been strained almost since Mr. Tsipras took office. He has vowed to 
do away with the harsh austerity terms attached to Greece’s €240 billion 
international bailout. The government struck a deal on Feb. 20 with 
European officials to extend the bailout and unlock a further €7.2 
billion in aid for Athens, provided Mr. Tsipras’s government made the 
required structural reforms.


But creditors said the plans that Greece has submitted so far were 
inadequate, including a new proposal put forward over the weekend.


In an address to Parliament on Monday night, Mr. Tsipras said that 
Greece’s list of “short-term measures” to creditors included curbing 
fuel and tobacco smuggling, checks on bank transfers and fighting sales 
tax fraud.


“It’s time for the ‘haves’ to start paying and for the looting of the 
middle class and salaried workers to stop,” he said.


In the negotiations with the creditors, he said, “We are seeking an 
honorable compromise with our partners, but do not expect an 
unconditional surrender.”


Mr. Tsipras noted that a new law making it easier to pay back taxes 
raised €100 million in a week, but he reiterated that Greece’s debt 
needs to be restructured for Athens to be able to repay it.


With tax revenues falling quickly, Greece will be hard pressed to pay 
€450 million owed to the International Monetary Fund on April 9, the day 
after Mr. Tsipras’s visit to Moscow.


Most top Greek government officials have rejected suggestions in recent 
weeks that they might turn to Russia for aid. But others have courted 
the idea publicly, including Panos Kammenos, Greece’s defense minister. 
Greece could seek financial help from Russia, China or the United States 
as a “Plan B” if Germany “remains rigid and wants to blow Europe apart,” 
he declared last month.


Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said that Moscow would 
consider a Greek request for aid if one is made — an offer that the 
Russian ambassador to Greece repeated in an interview with Greek 
newspaper Kathimerini over the weekend.


On Monday, the Greek energy minister, Panagiotis Lafazanis, traveled to 
Moscow to meet with his Russian counterpart and the chief executive of 
the Russian energy giant Gazprom. As he prepared to leave for Moscow, 
Mr. Lafazanis lashed out at the European Union and Germany for 
“tightening the noo

Re: [Marxism] Greece, Syriza and the Golden Dawn fascists

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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No tolerance for Golden Dawn
by Thanasis Kourkoulas
Socialist Worker, March 26, 2015


Leaders of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn have been released from prison
this week at the end of the maximum 18-month detention before
trial--leaving them free in the weeks before the long-awaited trial of
dozens of party leaders on charges of running a criminal organization.
In this article for Workers' Left, the newspaper of the Greek
socialist group Internationalist Workers Left, Thanasis Kourkoulas
explains the background to the trial, the impact on the new government
led by SYRIZA and the prospects for the struggle to defeat the
fascists.


On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 1:07 PM, Dayne Goodwin  wrote:
> Greece: Truth, responsibility & honesty with ourselves
> by Kevin Ovenden
> Left Flank
> March 28, 2015
> 
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[Marxism] Greece, Syriza and the Golden Dawn fascists

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece: Truth, responsibility & honesty with ourselves
by Kevin Ovenden
Left Flank
March 28, 2015

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[Marxism] Greece to Eurozone: reform proposals and a warning

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Greece submits reform proposals to eurozone creditors – with a warning
by Helena Smith in Athens
The Guardian, UK
Friday 27 March 2015

Greece submitted a long-awaited list of structural reforms to its
creditors on Friday as its leftist-led government warned it would stop
meeting debt obligations if negotiations failed and aid was not
forthcoming.

As officials from the EU, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) prepared to pore over Athens’s
latest proposals, the country’s international economic affairs
minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, raised the stakes, saying while Greece
wanted an agreement it was prepared to go its own way “in the event of
a bad scenario”.

He told the Guardian: “We are working in the spirit of compromise, we
want a solution, but if things don’t go well you have to bear the bad
scenario in mind as well. That is the nature of negotiations.”

The government, dominated by the anti-austerity Syriza party, had
assembled a package of 18 reforms in the hope of unlocking £7.2bn in
financial assistance.

The desire was for a positive outcome, Tsakalotos said, but Athens’s
new administration was not willing to abandon its anti-austerity
philosophy. Two months after assuming office, the government’s
priority remained to alleviate the plight of those worst affected by
Greece’s catastrophic five-year-long crisis, he said.

The British-trained economist said: “Our top priority remains payment
of salaries and pensions. If they demand a 30% cut in pensions, for
example, they do not want a compromise.”

The reform-for-cash deal, the latest twist in Greece’s battle to keep
bankruptcy at bay, did not – and would not – include any recessionary
measures, a government official said, adding it was hoped the
proposals would bolster state coffers with €3bn (£2.2bn) in badly
needed revenues.

“The actions proposed though the reforms list foresee revenues of €3bn
for 2015, which under no circumstances will come from wage or pension
cuts,” Tsakalotos said. “The list does not include recessionary
measures.”

Lenders have insisted that recessionary measures are unavoidable if
the economy of Europe’s most indebted state is to be put on a
sustainable path.

The 18 proposals – three times as many as put forward and dismissed by
prime minister Alexis Tsipras’s government last month – foresaw GDP
growth of 1.4% this year. The package also endorsed finance minister
Yanis Varoufakis’s argument that the primary surplus demanded of
Greece would have to be reduced. As such, the primary surplus was
estimated to hit 1.5% in 2015 – half that in the country’s existing
bailout programme.

With the country shut out of international capital markets, economists
and officials have warned Athens could run out of money by 9 April,
when it must pay €450m to the IMF.

“The government is not going to continue servicing public debt with
its own funds if lenders do not immediately proceed with the
disbursement of funds which have been put on hold since 2014,” said
government aides. “The country has not taken receipt of an aid
instalment from the EU or IMF since August 2014 even though it has
habitually fulfilled its obligations.”

Following a precipitous decline in tax revenues, the Tsipras
administration has been scrambling to raise funds, sequestering the
cash reserves of state entities, raiding pension funds and postponing
payments for supplies.

As negotiations between Athens and lender organisations enter a
particularly fractious phase, Varoufakis responded to speculation of
his imminent sacking from the government as “amusing”.

“Every time the negotiations heat up, some new rumour of my
resignation, demise, etc. springs up. Somewhat amusing …” he tweeted.

A government insider said the flamboyant finance minister’s enforced
departure from office would be tantamount to “a self-inflicted wound”.
“If he goes, it will be only when things have calmed down,” he said.

A euro working group is expected to respond to the Greek reform
proposals on Monday.



Greece’s German Allies Aghast as Tsipras Fails to Assure
by Birgit Jennen and Patrick Donahue
Bloomberg Business
March 27, 2015
. . .
“What’s coming out of Greece is moving completely in the wrong
direction,” Joachim Poss, a Social Democratic lawmaker who is the
party’s deputy parliamentary spokesman on finance policy, said in an
interview. “The situation is really worrying -- we’re stunned watching
the developments.”

Tsipras’s difficulty in persuading even more measured German policy
makers he’s on the right track risks entre

[Marxism] Greece: A. Markopoulos of Syriza on gov't & international affairs (Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal)

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Interview: Greece's new 'government of the whole people'


Antonis Markopoulos interviewed by Chris Spannos on March 18
[Antonis Markopoulos is a member of the coordinating secretariat of
the foreign policy and defence department of SYRIZA.]

March 21, 2015 -- TeleSUR English, posted at Links International
Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Since the Greek political party
SYRIZA, the Coalition of the Radical Left, formed a government with
the rightist Independent Greeks party on January 25, 2015, it has
faced many challenges.

Mainstream media immediately reported on how this change in government
impacted markets. The new government, however, has attempted to
highlight the plight of the Greek people. It says that austerity
measures first imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
European Central Bank (ECB) in 2010 have left the country facing a
“humanitarian crisis”. Since then, just over five years ago, the Greek
economy has shrunk 25 per cent, wages have dropped similarly and youth
unemployment has risen 60 per cent. Protests, general strikes and
riots have rocked the country during that period.

In addition, Greece has seen a rise in nationalism and neo-Nazism as
anti-immigrant sentiments have risen. Now, just over two months since
coming to power, the new government is aspiring to tackle these
problems and uphold its promises of change.

Chris Spannos, host of teleSUR English's Imaginary Lines, interviewed
Antonis Markopoulos, member of the coordinating secretariat of the
foreign policy and defence department of SYRIZA, on what their plans
are to address some of these issues. Below is an advance transcript of
the forthcoming video interview. The Interview was conducted March 18
at SYRIZA's party headquarters in Athens, Greece.


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[Marxism] Greece/Syriza: Time Isn’t on Our Side by Stathis Kouvelakis

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Time Isn’t on Our Side
For Syriza, there is an alternative to “strategic retreat.”

by Stathis Kouvelakis
Jacobin magazine, March 23


. . .
An Alternate Strategy

The plan — or rather, the range of strategies — currently being
considered by the Europeans can be summed up as follows: either
trigger in the short term the collapse of the Syriza government, or,
and this appears to be the prevailing option, drag it into a new
strategic retreat in April, which will prepare the ground for a final
capitulation in June.

This approach seems to have been demonstrated by the Eurogroup’s
decisions in earlier this month when, in a particularly tense
atmosphere and with express procedures, the Greek side was forced to
accept two important demands of the Eurogroup. Firstly, a very strict
confirmation of “the commitments of no unilateral actions and no
rolling-back on measures previously agreed needed to be respected at
all times.” Secondly, the return to Athens of the “technical” teams of
the troika.

Beyond the symbolism, this move has a highly practical significance:
it is on the basis of the collected data — which is expected to
confirm the negative trends of public revenues, budgetary targets, and
of the economy in general — that these teams will draft proposals for
a new package of austerity measures. This package will eventually be
presented by the lenders as the terms of a new “bailout”, to be
“negotiated,” in reality imposed to the Greek government in the
summer, when Greece has to deal with more than €10 billion in debt
repayments.

It is by now absolutely clear that remaining stuck in this deadly trap
can only lead to the utter rout of the Syriza government and,
moreover, to a collapse of the political and social forces that
constitute its base, with direct and devastating consequences at the
European and international levels. In that respect, the relative
decline in support for Podemos in recent polls should already raise
some concerns, even if it has also domestic causes.

An escape from the current deadlock, however, has some prerequisites.
The first is a break with the climate of complacency — in other words,
breaking with the idea that, with appropriate media spin, every
meeting with the European officials can be presented as a success and
that the signed agreements can be tweaked at will.

The sincerity and sober assessment required by the situation were best
conveyed by Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis, who stressed before
parliament this month that “the country is at war, a social and a
class war with the lenders” and that in this war “we will not go like
cheerful scouts willing to continue the policies of the memorandum.”
This is the kind of language that international supporters of Syriza
need to hear, and not the language of facile optimism that creates
illusions and causes confusion that tomorrow may prove costly.

In order for this battle to be won — and it should be emphasized that
despite the setbacks and the losses, the outcome of the battle remains
undecided — there needs to be proper preparation. Unfortunately, the
February retreat turned out to be necessary inasmuch as it had to be
proven, in real terms, that even with the most sincere intentions, the
insistence on the strategy of staying within the euro whatever the
cost can only lead to defeat.

There is, of course, a range of unilateral measures that are necessary
weapons in this battle and which logically come before the option of a
Grexit. These include two measures that are longstanding components of
Syriza’s program: capital controls, which also require strict public
control of the banking system, and defaulting on debt payments.

It should be clear, however, that these moves would bring about a
dynamic that would breach fundamental constraints of the monetary
union and would inevitably lead to the exit from it. In any case, the
ECB’s relentless blackmail with its provision of liquidity places onto
the agenda every day the issue of regaining sovereignty over monetary
policy.

From this point of view, the most reasonable proposal is a negotiated
exit from the euro, which would be combined with a writing-off of the
major part of the debt, and would free both sides from the negative
effects of a forced Grexit and from the endless preoccupation with an
unsustainable Greek debt.

It is true that, given Syriza’s mandate on the issue of the euro, such
a proposal would need to be validated by popular consultation. The
possibility of a referendum in the case of an impasse in negotiations
is currently under discussion by the government, as demonstra