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The possibility of an anti-bailout and anti-austerity government coming to power in Greece, led by coalition led by the left-wing Syriza party and the nationalist Independent Greeks, has sent terror through the European oligarchy, that their Eurozone, the Europe for the bankers, will collapse. It was in Greece, in 2010, that the imposition of brutal austerity began, in an attempt to save the hopelessly bankrupt European banking system. After Greece, came Ireland, Portugal, the fleecing of the savings of Cypriots, and bankers' governments in Spain and Italy. The Greek elections on Jan. 25 could be the beginning of the end of this nightmare.In a sign of the panic that has struck the financial oligarchy, the City of London's mouthpiece, The Economist, under the headline, "Greek Election—The Euro's Next Crisis," warns that the Greek crisis will "unleash fresh ructions elsewhere in the Eurozone," especially France, Spain, and Italy. It nervously asks whether the Greek election will be "Europe's Lehman moment," the trigger for the blowout of the entire system.
Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times suggests ending
democracy, with his warning that the Greek elections will show that the
"Eurozone's weakest link is the voters"—i.e., an electoral
revolt against the murderous policies of the European Union.
The German Green Party's former foreign minister,
Joschka Fischer, warned that "northern Europe cannot give ground to
Syriza. . . . Any renegotiation [of the debt] would
unleash a political avalanche in the southern EU that would sweep away
austerity and reignite the eurozone crisis," according to the Daily Telegraph.
But many Greeks think otherwise. Leonidas
Chrys-anthopoulos, a member of the Political Secretariat of the United People's
Front (EPAM), a political party opposed to the euro, and the austerity of the
Troika's Memorandum of Understanding, told EIR, "What Greek
crisis? This is a European crisis," adding that Greece will now be able to
fight to regain its sovereignty and deal with the humanitarian catastrophe left
by the Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Troika of the European Union, European
Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund. Chrysanthopoulos is one of the
signatories to the resolution "The U.S., Europe Must Join the
BRICS," initiated by the LaRouche movement.
After Greece, elections will be held in Spain,
Britain, Poland, Denmark, Finland, Portugal, and Estonia, all in the EU and all
with growing anti-EU movements and pressures. In Portugal, the new head of the
Portuguese Socialist Party, Antonio Costa, is under pressure from his party,
which could very well win the election, for a renegotiation of Portugal's own
bailout; debt payments there alone constitute 5% of GDP, twice the
government deficit.
In Spain, where elections will be held in December,
the left-wing Podemos party is leading in the polls. Formed only last year, it
won more than 8% in the European Parliamentary elections,
allowing it to send five representatives to the Parliament, where it is a
sister party with Syriza. Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras has established good personal
relations with Podemos leader Pablo Igle-sias. In an effort to counter a
possible Podemas win, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has been hinting
that he may take his People's Party into a coalition with
the Socialists. Rajoy has also called for extraordinary parliamentary session in January to debate and pass his reform of the Criminal Code and anti-corruption and party-financing laws. This could lead to surprises.
What now has to come forward in Europe is not just a
challenge to the policy of austerity, but a drive to join the world economic
development thrust of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa).
Europe must abandon the eurozone and create a true credit system, by
implementing Glass-Steagall-type separation of commercial and investment
casino banking. With this new credit system, backed by the restoration of
national economic sovereignty, Europe can then reach out to the BRICS and
supply the much-needed scientific and technological aid, backed by
low-interest, long-term credit, to help these nations, while putting the
millions of unemployed Europeans back to work.
Overthrow
the Troika's Puppet Government
The Greek election is occurring 18 months early,
because the governing coalition could not elect a new
President, who must receive the support of at least 180 of the Parliament's
300 members. Well before the vote in Parliament, the
opposition parties Syriza and the Independent Greeks, announced that they
would bring down the treacherous government by voting against the government
candidate. Both the ruling New Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the
Panhellenic Socialist Party (PASOK) used every means possible to win the vote.
Allegations have been made of attempted bribery. Just
prior to the final vote on Dec. 29, the leader of the
Independent Greeks, Panos Kammenos, gave a press conference announcing that he
had presented evidence to the state prosecutor that one of his party's MPs was
approached by an agent of the New Democracy party and offered a EU3 million
bribe. The would-be briber had allegedly been a consultant with Deutsche Bank,
and had taken part in the negotiations in 2010 that threw Greece into the
deadly clutches of the Troika, including the bailout that increased Greece's
debt from EU120 billion to over EU320 billion.
While the government has demagogically accused the
opposition of just trying to grab power, the fact is that the opposition
parties are trying to save Greece from a humanitarian catastrophe caused by
four years of implementation of the Memorandum.
This is no
exaggeration. On Dec. 18, the Hellenic League
for Human Rights (HLHR) issued a damning 80-page report, documenting that the
four years of the Troika policy have been a gross violation of the very human
rights treaties that are supposedly enshrined in the various European Union
charters.
The facts speak for themselves. Between 2010 and 2014, an unpayable debt
of 120% of Gross Domestic Product increased to an
unbelievable 175% of GDP (EU316 billion). With this debt,
came the Memorandum which collapsed the economy by 25%, according to official
figures. Unemployment went from 8% to 28% by the end
of 2013, with youth unemployment over 60%. Unofficial figures
put unemployment at 4050%. Of the 1.4 million officially
registered unemployed, no more than 110,000 receive any
benefits whatsoever. The minimum wage was cut by more than 20%, pushing it well
below the poverty line. For the first time, a minimum wage has been set for
youth, which is close to 50% below the old minimum. In addition to massive
layoffs of government workers, their salaries have been cut by 25%, which has in turn
driven down wages in the private sector, where payless pay
days have become
the norm. Pensions have been cut by 25-45%.
Massive cuts in the health-care system have increased
the death rate.
"Unlike finances, human rights and fundamental
freedoms cannot benefit from international bailouts," Konstantinos
Tsitselikis, HLHR President told the press conference where the report was
released. "Economic and fiscal policies have blatantly disregarded their
devastating social impacts and authorities have failed to provide the needed
social support."
Who Could
Lead Greece?
The next government of Greece could very well be ruled
by Syriza, led by the 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras, if it manages to win a
majority or form a coalition with other anti-Memorandum parties. Both Syriza
and the Independent Greeks are committed to overthrowing the Memorandum and
implementing emergency measures to deal with unemployment and the financial
ruin.
Following the failure of the government to win a majority
for its Presidential candidate, Tsipras declared, "The government of Mr.
Antonis Samaras, which has plundered the society for two and a half years . . .
is a thing of the past. With the will of our people, the austerity memoranda
will also be a thing of the past in a few days. The future has already begun.
Be optimistic and happy."
Kammenos said that the government that "delivered
the country's national sovereignty, . . . [that] governed via
e-mails and with orders by the Troika, is now leaving. . . . We need to apply
the Constitution and form a national unity government that will not execute commands
of foreigners, but those of the Greek people. . . . We call for national unity
of all forces in the country."
Tsipras has called for a European debt conference
modeled after the 1953 German Debt Conference held in London,
which approved a moratorium on Germany's pre-war foreign debt, thus allowing
it to more effectively benefit from the Marshall Plan. The resulting German
"economic miracle" helped lift Western Europe out of the postwar
economic depression. Such a conference now would deal not only with the Greek
debt, but that of other nations as well.
While supporting
the debt conference proposals,
LPACTV
Kammenos's party has drafted legislation on offering
debt relief to homeowners and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Under
the Troika policy, both will be forced into bankruptcy, with homeowners thrown
onto the streets and SMEs closing their doors and throwing their employees on
the unemployment lines.
Both Syriza and the Independent Greeks support a
Glass-Steagall-type two-tier banking system. Last year, Kammenos visited
Washington where he held meetings with American Congressmen and lobbied for
Glass-Steagall and policies that would help Greece overcome the Troika
policies.
The future of Greece depends on Europe fully engaging
with the BRICS. Here again, both parties are well placed. Both oppose the
anti-Russian policy of the EU and have denounced the "Nazi coup" in
Ukraine.
In respect to the BRICS, Kammenos has been the most
outspoken. He is one of the signatories of the above-mentioned resolution
demanding that the U.S. and Europe work with the BRICS. Leaders of other Greek
parties are signatories as well, including Theodore Katsanevas, founder and
chairman of the Drachmi Greek Democratic Movement Five Stars, and Leonidas
Chrysanthopoulos of EPAM.
Kammenos spoke before the Schiller Institute conference
on "The New Silk Road and China's Lunar Program," held in Frankfurt,
Germany, last October. In a speech entitled "Greece and The Silk Road
Economic Belt," he counterposed the current "Europe of the Bank
ers" to a
Europe of sovereign nations-states, as promoted by the late French President
Charles de Gaulle and his Greek collaborator, former Prime Minister and former
President Konstantinos Karamanlis, who helped establish the Greek Republic
after the overthrow of the military junta in 1975.
Kammenos declared, "The future of Greece could be
better if a strategic orientation were taken to establish links with some of
the most dynamic economies of the world, and to find new sources of economic
support. One of these countries, besides Russia, is China."
Kammenos then showed how Greece, through its port in
Piraeus, facilitates Chinese exports to Europe, the Middle East, and North
Africa. China, through its concession to manage and develop the container port
in Piraeus, has already made considerable investments, in an arrangement first
negotiated by Kammenos himself while a minister in a previous government.
China
Reaches Out
It is significant that only a few weeks ago, on Dec. 16-17, Chinese Prime
Minister Li Keqiang was in Belgrade for the third summit of China and the 16 countries of
Central and Eastern Europe, in which Greece was a participant. Li spoke
specifically of developing the transportation corridor from Piraeus north
through the Balkans, including from Serbia to Hungary and then on to Central
and Western Europe.
At the center of China's proposals is a commitment to
help develop the region's transport and power infrastructure, including
railways and power stations, and other industrial projects.
While the European Union is offering nothing for
economic development, Li made concrete commitments to the development of the
region, including a $10 billion Special
Purpose Loan for infrastructure projects, as well as a $3 billion investment
fund and the establishment of a Renminbi (RMB) Cooperation Fund to help the
countries of Central and Eastern Europe to raise RMB securities in China, as an
alternative to the so-called international markets.
The battle lines in Europe cannot be clearer: Either
it abandons the confrontation against Russia, China, and the BRICS, and abolishes
the Europe of the bankers that can only lead to war, or it looks toward a far
better future, through cooperation with the BRICS.
http://www.larouchepub.com/special_report/2012/spec_rpt_program_medit.pdf
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