The EU destroys Syriza. Will austerity win?

The drastic terms of the EU/Syriza deal (July 13) have destroyed any remains of the Syriza leadership's project; to overturn the 'neo-con' austerity policy in Europe and the Eurozone, currently led by Germany, in favour of a policy for growth and for the protection of the living standards of the working and middle classes. 

The deal has all the hallmarks of a deliberate and pitiless revenge on the Greek nation. Greece is to have no authority over its fiscal policy, an indefinite status, which is to be swallowed by the Greek parliament and then conducted day by day, by the Troika, in Athens. The Greek government is to sell off all of the nation's assets but keep the proceeds in a separate account - to pay debts. And although every economist in the world knows it will have to happen eventually, Greece is to remain encumbered by all of its debts - apparently a specific requirement of Mrs Merkel -  with no guarantee of their reduction. 

Syriza is breaking up under the weight of this defeat. Those, like the Syriza Minister for Administration, who honestly admits that Syriza was not able to overturn the 'balance of forces' in the EU and that the Greek 'deal' is a defeat and a blackmail of Greece, also claim that the war is not over. They point to coming elections in Spain, in Ireland and in Portugal. They believe that accepting the EU's demands is not the end for Greece and that Syriza's leadership at least has survived and will carry on fighting in the right direction. 

But this estimate is false. The 'deal' will crack Syrtiza wide open, produce a new defacto National Government and drive the Greek population lower and lower. The 'deal' carries with it its own story; that the election of Syriza was obviously foolish; that supporting Syriza has just made things even worse than they were; that there was no alternative but to accept Satrap status under German capital. And the effect of the Greek 'deal' on Spain and Ireland and Portugal will be to strengthen the idea that there is no alternative and to weaken consistently anti-austerity forces both within their own movements and parties and in their larger societies. 

However Greek's new 'deal' is so shaming; so burdensome, so endless that it reveals a serious error in the thinking and in the demands on Greece made by the now re-empowered princelings of the EU. The mistake thay have made is to conflate Syriza with the Greek mass movement against austerity. Syriza did emerge as a product of the Greek anti-austerity movement but not out of it. In the movement of the squares in 2010-2012, a broad leadership emerged that certainly encouraged the then nascent leaders of Syriza to take a role, but there was no sense that Syriza blossomed out of, still less directed, the mass movement itself. On the contrary, there was more than a little resistence from some parts of Syriza in the face of the occupations and demonstrations. Today, the Solidarity (not charity) organisations across Greece that run the voluntary markets and clinics and schools and pharmacies, and which are used by 3 million Greeks, are not initiated or run by Syriza. They were and are led by the vast layer of people that arose from Greece's protest movement. Syriza was never the parliamentary wing of the Greek peoples' anti-austerity movement. 

But the EU leaders do not know that. They would not understand it anyway, given their own entitlement based notions of leadership and the lack of connection with the ordinary people who pass by in the bus. They have struck at Syriza to warn the rest of Europe of the folly of electing anti-austerity representatives. And they will likely break Syriza, whose main leaders will now need to rely on the votes of the old memorandum parties to carry the new austerity laws in the Greek parliament. Thus a new National Coalition will be born - in defence of the Euro. The mass movement however is unlikely to face the same fate. So long as there is some, credible representation at the level of the national political institutions in general and in the Greek parliament in particular, the anti austerity movement of the Greek people, the sea in which the old Syriza could swim, will move again in defence of the whole nation. 

Syriza has, up to the referendum, led the fight against austerity in Europe and against the EU leadership, since its election on January 25 this year. It would have been absurd and sectarian to stand outside or on the margins of that fight. A subordinate argument inside Syriza's leadership (and outside) meanwhile strongly argued that Greece should be prepared to repudiate all debt and to leave the eurozone. Those who argued the case for this plan B denied that the fight within the eurozone was likely to remain the main, indeed only theatre of struggle for the continuing battle with austerity, and that preparations should be made for the shift in the location of the struggle. They have lost their argument in the leadership of Syriza at the moment where the battleground has definitively shifted. It is vital that they are now a leading part in the new formation and campaign - as a leading part of the Greek mass movement against its new austerity government. 

Greece; losing a battle

As this is written the EUs finance ministers are preparing a second bout of talks before the EU heads meet this afternoon. The British Telegraph (12 July) reports that Germany will not accede to the Greek proposals - even should they be 'strengthened' by more austerity measures - as demanded by other countries. The Germans have apparently prepared a five year Greek exit plan from the Euro.

This blog has long argued the Syriza's original anti-austerity stand would never be agreed within the framework of the Euro. This, for example, is from February 22;

If the saga of Greece's negotiations with the EU resolve anything, it is the mastery that Germany have over the common currency. The defence of the Euro has ceased to be (if it ever was) a vaguely internationalist token of progressive, modern brotherhood across nations, it is the core of Germany's immense economic and political power. This concrete reality is an unreformable obstacle to any individual national political leadership in Europe striking an independent economic and therefore political course away from the status quo. Sooner or later, if the Greek people want to create a new sort of society, they will have to break with the Euro and its current institutions. (Reforming the EU as a whole would have to start with a revolution in Germany.) And such a realisation played no part in Syriza's struggle and therefore weakened it.

Syriza gained a big majority in Greek parliament on July 10 for its leaders' new proposals to cut 13bn Euros from government spending. But not an overall majority of Syriza MPs. The vote was not 'whipped' by the party leadership. It was a conscience vote. And a handful of Syriza MPs abstained or voted 'no' to Syriza's austerity plans. They included two ministers. Syriza - as a party - is no longer the government. If Syriza's plans (or a sterner version of them) are accepted by the EU then Syriza will not rule in Greece. Some of Syriza, in a coalition with parties that accepted the last austerity package from the troika, will govern. The next trench of laws will be dictated by the troika and will need to be passed in the coming weeks by the Greek parliament's new majority as a token of Greece's commitment to the latest austerity.

What do Syriza's main leaders think they will get from their concessions (if accepted.)? They believe that all necessary measures have to be taken to stop the collapse of the Greek banks and the loss of capital for state wages, pensions, welfare, health, investment and trade. Despite the demonstrations, the patience of the people with the euro-ration and the resounding 'no', Syriza leaders do not believe that they have any other choice when it comes to defending the Greek people from immediate financial collapse. In their book the 'no' vote failed to do what it was supposed to do. It failed to impress the leaders of Europe. The fight against austerity has its limits. The limits are that it has to win, if it is to win at all - from inside the Eurozone.

Various commentators that want to hang on to Syriza's coat tails claim that in return for these essential concessions Syriza will 'win' the argument on long term debt relief. That is just artful. The debt question was blown open by the 'no' vote (and the US State Department influence on the IMF to publish its pre-vote report which defined the Greek debt as 'unsustainable.') In other words Greece had already won the debt argument before presenting the new austerity programme. How will the people of Greece, who have fought so long and hard, who have sacrificed so much to stay with the Syriza government think? We shall see; but whatever else they think Syriza's actions must seem like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

What is (was and remains) the alternative? Greece should repudiate all debts and print its own currency. To prevent hyper inflation the government needs to appropriate major assets, companies and personal wealth above certain limits, and base the new currency on these assets. (As Germany did successfully in the late 1920s.) Major loans should be launched from Russia and China. They will be high interest because of the repudiation, but again can be offset against possible interests in portage and transport held by both countries. This will produce convulsions in Greece and across Europe and the Eurozone in particular. Fear and greed by the world's rulers will create a major drive to stabilise the system which Greece might also exploit. In Greece itself the mass movement of the people will need to act to organise and defend and stabilise daily life and security. The Greek people, when in action, are the most politically and economically and socially conscious people in Europe and possibly in the world. They can point the way to a different future. In the course of such endeavour they would win the support of the ordinary people everywhere.

If the Syriza leaders make their austerity deal with the EU, what should the international solidarity movement do? That movement is based in supporting all those who fight for all the people against austerity, not any particular governments. The Solidarity (not charity) movement in Greece and the battle with austerity continues and must be supported more than ever, including against the new austerity measures if agreed by the EU.

The political regroupment in the Greek parliament, if the austerity deal is accepted by the EU, will, in due course, also pull together those that would combat the new austerity laws in the European and the Greek parliament. Their future, and the future of Greece, would now depend on the movement of the Greek people and their allies across the world.

A moment to savour and to learn

The Greek Solidarity Committee and the British Trades Union Congress held a victory meeting in London on Monday July 6. It was a moment to savour! There were fine speeches and contributions from many. There were also, inevitably, some passages of rhetoric that did not rise to the quality of the occasion (Dianne Abbot used the opportunity to insist on her credentials to be Labour's London Mayoral candidate for example.) In spectacular contrast, two cracking speeches from Syriza representative Marina brought the many hundreds present to their feet -  twice.

Greetings and support were sent from Caroline Lucas, the sole MP for the Greens despite their 1.2 million votes, from Sinn Fein and from Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the President of Argentina! £900 was raised in a collection for the Solidarity (not charity!) Movement in Greece. People cried with joy and then they laughed with the great feeling that for once, hopefully a 'once' that will be followed by a 'twice' and more, much more as Spain and then Ireland and then Portugal move to change their government, a great feeling that the people, the ordinary working class people of Greece had roared 'NO' to the 13 European billionaires, defended by their EU institutions, who between them could, if they wanted, pay off Greece's entire 340 billion euro debt from their collective personal wealth - as John Reece from the Peoples Assembly told the meeting.

Some of the speeches will be put up on the GSC website. They are all worth a read. But there was one speech in particular that offered a novel perspective on British politics in the light of the Greek experience. Mark Serwotka outlined his view, that the British working class now needed their own Syriza. Those in the audience who might have experienced a warm glow at the final recognition of their efforts to create their own little Syrizas were to be disappointed. Serwotka made it clear that he was not proposing that combining all the little British left political sects would produce a spectacularly greater sum of their parts. Serwotka had a different perspective entirely. His point was that Britain now had the political makings of its own anti-austerity party.

Serwotka named the left in the Labour Party - identified as those supporting the only Labour leadership candidate who opposes austerity - Jeremy Corbyn (Jeremy happily did not talk about his leadership campaign in his own speech.) Serwotka then allied this group with the SNP, the Greens and Plaid Cymry in a proposed alliance which both inside and then helping to develop the movement outside Parliament, might spearhead the battle against austerity in Britain. At once British politics would begin to solve the problem of the lack of political representation of the whole working class and, at the same time, massively increase Britain's contribution to the anti-austerity wave now rolling across Southern and Western Europe.

Major movements in the history of class struggles always have the effect of breaking up apparent barriers and logjams in the thinking and the action of those in crisis. The British labour and trade union movement is in such a crisis, faced with new and potentially deadly assaults by the Tory government and by the hollowing out of traditional social democracy. Mark Serwotka has put his finger on one key political lesson from Greece. In politics, those who politically oppose austerity should fight together.

British people are also learning another lesson - in practise - from Greece. The politics of opposition to austerity needs a base among the people. The Peoples' Assembly marches against austerity, involving hundreds of thousands, a few weeks after the apparent Tory victory in the UK General Election, are an astonishing recognition of the fact that the engine room of a political change and the possibility of a mainstream political regroupment in favour of a fightback has to be predicated on a mass movement of millions, who turn out in the public squares, who grow in strength from each other and who call those who would lead to account. 

Greece - NO, Greece - YES

On Monday evening 6 July there will be a joint public meeting in London called by the Greek Solidarity Committee and the British Trades Union Congress. Just as in another 10,000 halls and squares across Europe and the wider world, people will gather and respond to the democratic decision taken by a small country's voters about whether to accept the iron rule of the rich and powerful from their continent or whether to start down another path. Once again Greece has given us a glimpse of true democracy.

Greece's government and people have fought a bitter fight against Europe's rulers and have won some real battles. First they have completely smashed the credibility of the 'permanent loan-repayment economy' policy. The IMF leadership is now under political siege. The EU leaders in general appear unable to manage any progress for their euro-based economy. Second, the Greeks have become a centre for a network of political and social alliances across large swathes of Europe, alliances that are completely alienated from Europe's current direction. Third, Greece has won Europe's youth. Fourth, Greece has developed a momentous system of social solidarity, based entirely on human empathy and mutual aid, embracing everything from food, to empty factories, to pharmacies. None of this movement believes that 'self help' substitutes for state services, but all of it is dedicated to the prevention of human degradation and despair. To fight you must be fed - and educated and healthy and with enough pride and self respect to carry on.

If the 'no' vote wins, all these successes will be needed - and more. Much more. Capital, fleeing from true democracy, is desperately short. Syriza's first, immense priority is to recapitalise the country; from resources held by the rich in and outside Greece to whatever can be forced from the European Central Bank and / or loans from China and Russia. (Remember, it is the IMF that predicts the country needs £50 billion Euros to survive.) There needs to be a major international solidarity effort to defend Greece's essential services and standard of life. Next, the door to a new Europe has to be opened. Alongside a European debt conference Athens might host a European Future conference, with all those organisations, parties, campaigns, unions, charities, churches, movements and centres that want a different road for the European Continent than the miserable and myopic vision of the financiers and  and the hopelessly corrupt political class that rules it today.

If the 'yes' vote wins Syriza will need to go into opposition (or it will destroy itself and the gains that has already made.) Syriza will no doubt face a tsunami of abuse from the current EU standard bearers who will be seeking to prove to Europe's millions that there is no point in entering the fight for a better life. But Syriza and its supporters will need to concentrate on something quite different. They will need to build (and in some cases rebuild) a leadership for the whole country - a task not yet achieved. But in a much more desperate context, scarred again by a rise of Golden Dawn, by continued corruption in the state and its armed forces, by the initial despair of its previous supporters. A momentous task from a toxic starting point.

But we, and the rest of the European continent, and millions across the world, are no longer blind and we are not neutral.

Greece's horror story.

When the TV pictures from Greece bounce round the world we see ordinary people grappling with their futures. They are rational and intense as they try to work through the meaning of the choice they will have to make on July 5. Often we see parents with children referring to their lives and their children's prospects. They talk about the fear they have that, as parents, they may be placed in a situation where they will have to build their children's lives starting from a great leap backwards, without help, outside of Europe's 'advanced civilisation' and on their own. None of the world's or of Europe's great and powerful institutions seem to be lined up with them. These massive machines of wealth and power are not there for them. On the contrary, the European institutions appear to be trying to ruin Greek democracy and to maintain, for the foreseeable future, Greek poverty. Imagine, for a second, how brave you will have to be on July 5 to defend your own, your family's and your country's integrity.

And what of the other side of this 'argument?' Most of the main EU lead actors simply repeat their lines, shaking sad heads or remonstrating with the absent Greeks as though they did not understand the real world. (The point of course is that they want to change it.) Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, has a particular shtick. She 'demands' that the Syriza leadership
'Act as adults.'
Leave it to us grown ups eh? In fact Christine Lagarde has only one merit. She replaced Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the sleazy would-be French President, just found 'innocent' in a second court action involving the legality of his sexual predilections.

Christine Lagarde has consistently headed up neo-liberal cause in Europe. No talk of debt relief (the heart of the matter with Greece) yes to permanent austerity and an infinitely 'flexible' Greek labour force. This is, presumably, being 'grown up.'  Lagarde's economics and her Greek policy have never been credible, even at a personal level. This is what she said about taxes and austerity.
'Asked if she is essentially saying to the Greeks and others in Europe that they have had a nice time and it is now payback time, she responds: "That's right." ' (Guardian 25 May 2012.)

As an official of an international institution, her salary of $467,940 (£298,675) a year plus $83,760 additional allowance a year is not subject to any taxes. This is of course already a higher salary than that of the French President, the German chancellor or the British PM - all of whom do pay taxes. Lagarde is also under renewed police interrogation for her role in the award of 420 million euros 'compensation' to Bernard Taple, a well known French crook with a prison record, from the time she was Sarkozy's Finance Minister. And finally ...
'The International Monetary Fund has electrified the referendum debate in Greece after it conceded that the crisis-ridden country needs up to €60bn (£42bn) of extra funds over the next three years and large-scale debt relief to create “a breathing space” and stabilise the economy.... The IMF revealed a deep split with Europe as it warned that Greece’s debts were “unsustainable”. According to the IMF, Greece should have a 20-year grace period before making any debt repayments and final payments should not take place until 2055. It would need €10bn to get through the next few months and a further €50bn after that.' (Guardian on-line 2July.)


It is likely that whatever trials yet face the Greek population, the Greeks have managed to split the debt question in Europe wide open - and Madame Lagarde's future now looks pretty bleak.

Podemos on Greece - plus the polls.

July 1

"In view of the situation in Greece, and following the breakdown in the negotiations by the Eurogroup, Podemos wishes to communicate the following:

1.- Last Monday, the Greek government presented a proposal to the Eurogroup which included important concessions and was unanimously welcomed by the lenders as being reasonable and viable. In the following days, however, the international creditors led by the IMF did not accept the Greek government’s proposal to tax the wealthiest sectors of society, restructure the debt and launch an investment plan to revive the economy. Instead, they demanded to raise VAT on basic services and food and required further cuts on pensions and wages. In their effort to demonstrate that there is no alternative to austerity, the creditors only seem to accept the money of the poor, and insist on imposing the same logic and measures that led the country into a humanitarian disaster. The Greek economy is asphyxiated. To keep strangling it is the precise opposite of what must be done.

2.- Facing such blackmail and extortion, the Greek government has reacted to the ultimatum in an exemplary manner: by calling on the people to decide their own future in a democratic and sovereign way. Unlike the Spanish governments of 2011 and 2012, the Greek government has refused to violate the popular mandate derived from the January election. All the attempts at coercing, intimidating and influencing this vote by unelected powers, especially by the European Central Bank -which is willing to suffocate the Greek financial system to influence the outcome of the referendum-, constitute a flagrant and unacceptable violation of the democratic principle. We say that Europe without democracy is not Europe: all democrats should join their voices in denouncing these intolerable interferences and pressures. Democracy is incompatible with letting unelected powers govern and decide for us. It is democracy what is at stake.

3- With their intransigence, the creditors have demonstrated that they have no interest at all in solving the Greek debt crisis; their aim is rather to subject and overthrow a democratically elected government so as to prove that there is no alternative to the politics of austerity. Their blindness is such that they are willing to put at risk the integrity and the stability of the financial system and the European project itself, exposing them to speculative attacks whose price will ultimately be paid also by the citizens of other countries. We will say it once and again: they will be the ones to blame, they will be responsible for the consequences of this disaster.

4- Syriza did not create the tremendous economic crisis that affects Greece. It was the governments of New Democracy and PASOK, the friends of our PP and PSOE, who falsified data and accounts, surrendered the sovereignty of the country to the Troika, and handed Syriza an economic and social catastrophe that is necessary and urgent to reverse.

5.- Many international actors have already distanced themselves from the dogmatism of the creditors. Hundreds of thousands of people across the world have expressed their solidarity with the Greek people in their defence of the democratic principle. We demand that the Spanish Government and the European institutions respect the sovereignty and dignity of the Greek people, and that they consequently guarantee that the referendum takes place in conditions of freedom and complete normality. The democratic will and the fundamental rights of the Greek people, which have been systematically attacked during the long years of austerity, must be respected.

There are two contradictory fields in Europe: austerity and democracy, the government of the people or the government of the market and its unelected powers. We stand firm on the side of democracy. We stand firm with the Greek people."

Opinion polls in Greece; A poll taken between 28 and 30 June by a Greek Daily newspaper gave 54% as no and 33% yes. After the banks had closed, the same newspaper stated that the proportions had shifted to 46% no and 37% yes. On 30 June a 1000 person telephone poll, done for BNP Paribas Bank, gave 47% for yes and 43% as no. The most comprehensive and representative poll so far was the ProRata poll on 1 July which stated that 86% of Greek voters will vote; 50% will vote no and 38% yes. This poll also broke down support for the 'no' voters showing that 'no' was ahead for entrepreneurs, self employed, public and private sector workers and pensioners, 'housewives' and unemployed (62%.)

Greece; hope versus fear

Rumours of rumours. The British Financial times has just dug up a letter from Tsipras (30 June) to the Troika offering concessions. Of course we already knew that the Greek government had made a last offer on June 30. They told us. Who has decided to make their letter today's news? Angela Merkel and the Troika. Why? because they think it will undermine confidence in Tsipras among voters in the referendum on Sunday to show he was making concessions.

The European Central Bank has already turned on the screws to shake the Greek public. Barely an hour goes by without another European political pipsqueak adding their (feather) weight to the endorsement of the rectitude of Europe's worthy bankers and their assorted political apologists. The Italian Finance Minister trooped on to BBC radio (Today, BBC 4) to repeat the agreed mantra, completely dodging the frustrated interveiwer's point -
'But surely everybody knows there has to be Greek debt relief.'
These people no longer engage even in the elementary economic realities, accepted now by the rest of the world, Greece will never pay the debts. Money that they never had. Greek people will permanently labour in decades of austerity, to meet the impossible goal of repayment. That is the EU offer. And Greeks are to suffer - so the rest of us learn who sets the rules.

Rich, privileged people, mainly from rich privileged families, whose greatest day to day fear is whether they will get the seat thay want in a restaurant, have an existential fear. How long are the rest of us going to put up with it? The Syriza speaker at a quickly arranged rally in London's Trafalger Square, June 30, told the hundreds there that she had spoken to her mother in Greece about which we she would vote in the referendum. Her mother had said
'I'm going to vote fuck off!'

That is the essence of Sunday's vote. A 'no' vote may mean much bigger concessions from the Troika, including on the debt question; it may mean that the EU leaders, with a scared look over their shoulders at the bond markets, decide Greece is out of the Euro - perhaps out of the EU - or a range of possibilities in between. In the latter case it will certainly be a tough couple of years to recreate a country and a currency that can build the sort of society that Greek people want. But what is the alernative? A 'yes' vote will mean the endless prospect of austerity, chained to an unbreakable weight of debt and a country ruled by Euro-bankers.

The real question is now a question of will; of hope over fear; of whether somebody in Europe can at last tell them to fuck off; of whether we can all join in.

The screws are tightening, but the last poll shows 57% say they are voting no.