Greece: Social explosion, a question of months?

By Tassos Anastassiadis and Andreas Sartzekis
International Viewpoint
February 2012

“Kali phtochia chronia!” (“happy new year of poverty!”) instead of “Kali proto chronia!” (“happy new year!”): that was the ironic wish that the workers on the big daily newspaper “Eleftherotypia”, unpaid since the summer and on a rolling strike for a week, published during a message requesting support for their struggle. This humour is today indispensable, partly not to fall into despair before the situation of poverty which grows daily, and partly to maintain the flame of resistance, which in appearance has not weakened for a year and a half, but which obviously flickers from seeing a considerable, but disunited force held back by the union of the bourgeoisie and its international bodies.


Parallels between ancient Greece and current Greece are not lacking in recent times, and the “Greek tragedy” has been served up in all journalistic sauces. In the country which invented democracy to put an end to debt slavery, the European bourgeoisie imposes its reactionary approach: even if the institution of slavery is not (yet) re-established, the poverty into which the Greek people have been plunged at a growing speed greatly resembles a modern slavery. In the new situation where the government of the technocrat Loukas Papadimos has no legitimacy originating from the parliamentary elections of 2009, it is clear that the popular response, to be effective, should link economic programme and reappropriation and extension of democratic processes. Every day, 2,400 new workers are thrown into unemployment, which has officially reached 17.7% (12.4% a year ago), with 21.5 % of women affected and 35.3% of youth. 50% of the unemployed have been out of work for more than one year. 30,000 civil servants were awaiting dismissal on December 31, and the haemorrhage will continue in 2012 with the aim of dismissing 150,000 civil servants by 2015 (in a country with just over 11 million inhabitants), education and the army being alone officially “preserved”. Second tier pensions above 150 Euros should fall by 30% minimum and the wages in the public sector should continue to fall (an employee of the Agricultural Development Ministry with a seniority of between 5 and 7 years should see their wage cut from 1 600 to 1 225 Euros). All taxes have been increased (budget 2012).

Paul Tomsen — the best known personality of the troika (IMF, EU and ECB), today de facto in charge of the country’s affairs —says on the one hand that the imposition over the last six months of the fiscal burden on a part of the population which can no longer pay is an error, and on the other demands two measures: the suspension of collective agreements (to impose flexibility and the alignment of wages with productivity) and the closure of a certain number of public enterprises (which in his view have ceased to fulfil the function for which they were created). Obviously, no question of asking the people for a democratic opinion on the utility of these enterprises!

In the centre of Athens, the official figure for homelessness is 20,000. All the social indices are catastrophic and get worse at dizzying speed. For example, the suicide rate, traditionally quite low in Greece, around 2.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, more than doubled in 2011, climbing to 6! Six people out of 10 reduced their overall food intake in 2011, whereas 1 in 11 has been fed by the soup kitchens distributed by various networks (town halls, churches, NGOs and so on). According to Médecins du Monde, if the urgency of the “humanitarian crisis” was until now in Uganda, now it is in Greece. Not to forget the explosion of AIDS, above all among drug addicts: in one year a terrifying increase (around 1,500 % or a 16 fold increase), because of the destruction of all services of shelter and treatment for marginalised youth.

Thus the urgency of a democratic reappropriation of its choices by the Greek people depends of course to the state of the left forces and their proposals, which we deal with below. But it also depends on the recent developments and choices made by the parties who have formed a “national unity” government. It amounts in fact to one of the last cards of the Greek bourgeoisie facing a still growing rise of popular resistance. This is the reason for the haste with which the Socialist prime minister, Giorgos Papandreou, called in late October for the organisation of a referendum, taking (nearly) all his European partners by surprise. In fact, this question of a referendum on the measures to deal with the debt has come up at three times since the establishment of the austerity measures.

In Spring 2010, it was the radical left Syriza which during the first workers’ mobilisations (halted after the death of three bank employees during a fire due to Molotov cocktails launched by mysterious hooded figures, never identified), campaigned for a referendum for or against the measures. The response given then by the anti-capitalist left was that the referendum was taking place in the street and the objective was a rolling general strike.

This point then re-emerged in the spring of this year, when Papandreou did not miss an opportunity to publicly declare his wish for a referendum… once a maximum of austerity measures had been taken! Not one left or right force followed him on this terrain, and the workers’ movement continued its mobilisations, forcing its national union leaderships, dominated by PASOK, to organise general strikes: in the Athens demonstration of October 19, involving at least 300,000 workers and youths, the feeling emerged, all the more admirable after a year of unprecedented attacks against living standards, that basically power was in the street and that it was possible and in any event necessary to go further than this immense demonstration. Even if the day after the mobilisations were less massive, this popular force inspires fear in high places, with dissent apparent among the cadres of PASOK, in particular at the trade union level (the resignation of the leader of the Public Federation ADEDY was understood as a rejection of the policies of his party).

In this context, the announcement of a referendum on the policy of the government, the day after the demonstrations of October 28, had a dual effect: surprise at the haste of the prime minister, but also indifference before a reheated dish. Even Syriza did not applaud and continued to request, like the KKE (Communist Party), the holding of immediate parliamentary elections.

Even if the referendum was abandoned on the “diktat of Merkozy”, this question merits some comments. First, the anger of Sarkozy is to be compared with the moderate reaction of Germany: according to some sources, Papandreou discussed this “coup” with the German finance minister, the final objective being to force the leader of the Greek right, Antonis Samaras, to accept the formation of a national government and to abandon his demagogic posture of condemnation of austerity measures to better win the elections tomorrow!

A question little posed on the Greek left: even in this context, would it be necessary to take up the challenge and demand the referendum? To pose the question is to answer it: the KKE like Syriza wants parliamentary elections above all and the anti-capitalist left has no desire to lose time in discussions on Papandreou’s manoeuvre. We are not in the French situation of 2005, where a unitary framework for the left “no2 was possible. Such a framework is not unhappily in the traditions of the Greek left and to build on this opportunity would have taken a lot of time, whereas the referendum would have taken place in mid December.

What is more, the question imposed would not have been as simple as “for or against the austerity measures?” but would have concerned staying in the Euro zone and thus in the EU and one can count on the climate of fear that the Greek bourgeoisie would create through its parties, media and perhaps its provocations. The reappropriation of a democratic process does not then pass by the political coup of the referendum, but rests on a more favourable terrain, that of the resistance struggles.

An extremist government, deprived of credibility

The “referendum” episode concluded then on what was sought by Papandreou, the EU and the IMF for several months: a national unity government. Let us be clear – while the propaganda presents it as a measure of good sense, stressing the technocratic character of the prime minister, it should be designated for what it is — a dangerous extremist government. First because it is made up of dangerous fanatics of the “only road possible”, that of the markets, that the government has the prime if not the only task of “reassuring”. What of the interests of the people? Not a word during the formation of this government of so called national unity! Its leader, Papadimos, has been quite correctly presented as a key element of the policy of massaging of the Greek accounts to enter into the euro. This fanaticism would be all the stronger in that the government has no popular legitimacy: the majority vote in autumn 2009, was for a PASOK government whose (minimum!) programme included social measures.

We now have in Greece the full political dictatorship of the markets. The introduction in this government, 37 years after the fall of the military dictatorship, of adorers of that junta, incarnated in the ministers and secretaries of state (three in total) of LAOS is repugnant. LAOS could be compared to the French Front national, its leader Karatzaféris trying like Marine Le Pen to play the card of respectability, then of credibility as final card for the bourgeoisie. The extremism of this government has already been shown in the draft budget. E. Venizelos, the PASOK minister of the economy, boasts that there are no new austerity measures, but the draft budget in fact envisages 3.6 billion Euros of various supplementary taxes.

The viability of this government poses a basic question: what form of regime comes after it, knowing that the bourgeoisie has exhausted nearly all its traditional forces of power. Papadimos responds saying that there are no limits of time to his government, and says the future elections will not be held before April, which leaves time to get the murderous measures passed.

The leader of New Democracy (ND), Antonis Samaras, demanded elections on February 19 and explained without fear of ridicule that in any case this is not a national unity government (its party has six ministers and secretaries of state!). There is a crisis in the ranks of the ND, between the declared centrists and the populist line. Implosion is possible (a former “centrist” minister has been excluded). As for LAOS, to play the card of the “higher interest of the country” as its caudillo has done and thus participate directly in the austerity measures could deprive this party of the popular base it has won in the previous elections. That is verified already in an anonymous appeal from the cadres and activists of this party that it leave this government, which has already obliged the caudillo to insinuate that if the government is no longer effective, it will withdraw its ministers. The risk in case of visible disaffection for LAOS is that the recourse to the far right passes by the openly neo Nazi movements like the Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi), who have made a breakthrough in the Athens municipal elections.

As to PASOK, its survival could be at stake. It can be seen on several fronts: disputes in the leadership between Papandreou and his “internal troika”, growing disillusionment among cadres and base. In the future elections the polls give PASOK only 15-20 %. The main thing is the condemnation by the PASOK rank and file of the anti-social policy of their party, accentuated by a manifest anger at the entry of the far right into the government (which was only rejected by two deputies out of 153!). A question which is now important is that of the perspectives to offer to these thousand of former supports and hundreds of activists and cadres of PASOK. In the end it will be the ability to develop victorious struggles which will be determinant in the coming months.
 

A workers’ resistance to support at the European level

> The workers’ resistance as reflected in the national strike days called by the union leaderships linked to PASOK constitute an astonishing, not to say admirable, phenomenon. An example was the immense demonstration of October 19, which swept aside sectarianism (isolation of the KKE) and gave the massive feeling that it was possible to go further The contradiction is all the more flagrant. On the one hand, this radicalism, and on the feeling that the international bourgeois coalition is stronger, and the integration of a feeling of defeat, more evident undoubtedly in the local struggles. That highlights the importance of a European strike day called by the European unions, which could have a stimulating effect on the mobilisations in Greece.

The mobilisations by sector or enterprise are numerous and sometimes allow partial victories over the employer or the state. Numerous strikes have taken place in transport, a strike has broken out against the neoliberal university reform, and the taxis are on strike against the “opening” (to the big companies) of the profession and so on. One of the most significant struggles currently concerns the audiovisual and press sector (press, television, radio, magazines, and internet). It is a model on the one hand by the cruelty of the employers attack and on the other by the dynamic of resistance. Massive layoffs, brutal pay cuts have affected every company in the sector. Tens of thousands of workers are no longer paid or in any case not paid on time with most companies paying wages months late. The television channel “Alter” has not paid its 700 employees for a year, and the big Athens newspaper “Eleyfhterotypia” stopped paying its 840 employees this summer. This “fashion” of not paying wages extends across all sectors.

However, there is resistance to this daily violence in the workplaces. After months of working for free, the workers at “Alter” decided to occupy the head office of the television and turn it into a centre of solidarity (collecting food to organise their own survival) and being to broadcast programmes (rudimentary for the moment) which have become a centre of popularisation of the struggle of several sectors and factors. Similar projects are now being discussed by the workers at “Eleftherotypia”.

The most emblematic struggle currently is at the steel factory of Halivourgia in Aspropyrgos, in the Athenian suburbs, against redundancies and wage cuts. This struggle is led by workers linked to the pro-KKE union current PAME and is characterised not only by its combativity, but also by the very broad support it has from the near and distant population, demonstrations, broad union and political support. For example, the intervention of our comrade Yannis Felekis, historic leader of the Greek section of the Fourth International, OKDE-Spartakos, was warmly received by the strikers!
 

On the left: internationalist solutions

Obviously the developments inside a mass party like PASOK should be observed by the left. The latter should be able to offer them a framework, but without concession. It isn’t about offering former bureaucrats a chance to “redden” a little and reforge their careers, but to open as much as possible perspectives which can only be 100% left, taking account of the urgency resulting from the political impasses of the bourgeoisie. Indeed, from this viewpoint, the Greek left (to the left of PASOK), marked by its profound history, is lagging in relation to the blows borne by the workers, and in its responses in terms of alternative power. Whereas the intense mobilisations of all these months should have led to a permanent coordination of the sectors in struggle and on the road of self organisation, the rank and file unions, linked to the radical and anti-capitalist left, are still not in a position to offer an immediate extension to the general strikes of 24 or 48 hours. It is not enough to demand the rolling general strike for it to be credible. This goes back of course to the division on the ground, with the trade union structure of the KKE (PAME). But in the last instance that relates to the reformist character of the KKE and Synaspismos, the central party of the radical coalition Syriza.

As for the KKE, the mystery remains: how has this party, which was drained of its youth in the 1990s, and adopted a caricatured and openly Stalinist “Marxist” discourse, continued to organise combative workers and radicalised youth? In fact, more than a theoretical response, the true objective is to know how to offer unitary perspectives of struggle to these activists. Indeed it is not always thus in the daily practices of the radical or anti-capitalist left: the extra-parliamentary left has fallen into the trap of the KKE leadership in ignoring this party. Indeed, this is a crucial issue, not only in terms of activist forces but still more in terms of political perspectives. It is flagrant that on these two terrains, the KKE leadership has no working class response to the situation. Its trade union positioning, despite the leftist accents, reflects a sentiment of defeat, which excludes any great working class battle. Hence the importance of centralisation of the struggles and the perspective of a workers’ Europe, faced with a slogan of exit from the EU which represents a nationalist reflex to the Stalinist history of this party, valuing a “good” national bourgeoisie against the monopolies! At the political level, the sole slogan advanced by the KKE is that of popular power… around the KKE. Which amounts to having as sole perspective its own electoral strengthening! Faced with this impasse common struggles at the base and the advancing of unitary slogans for victory are the sole instrument which would allow advance.

As for Syriza, the regroupment of Synaspismos with the forces of the revolutionary left, the internal relation of forces remains unchanged. To speak of Syriza is above all to speak of the reformist party Synaspismos and its leader, Alexis Tsipras. The main force to its left, the KOE, has been absent in Syriza, even if it remains officially a member. The efforts of different currents or independent members — like the veteran anti-Nazi Manolis Glezos — do not change the situations. The debates inside Synaspismos dominate the orientation of Syriza. Advancing the idea of a left government, Syriza certainly provides a perspective for disoriented PASOK voters and the polls give around 30% for forces to the left of PASOK. But this political response is hardly credible today faced with the sectarianism of the KKE but also faced with divergences — Synaspismos is favourable to the renegotiation of a part of the debt. It is both too vague (what left forces?) and too precise (Synaspismos retains the perspective of a government of the parliamentary left!) to respond to current needs. At the rank and file level Syriza activists are involved in numerous resistance struggles and this common work allows discussions between all the forces of the anti-capitalist left.

Nonetheless things advance at the rhythms of the crisis and struggles and social mobilisations. For example convergences have begun on the revolutionary left, first through the process of construction of the Anti-capitalist left, Antarsya. Its congress attracted 900 delegates, representing 3,000 members. It examined notably a new question for most of the revolutionary left forces: that of real unitary fronts of struggle, which might seem obvious but is not always so in Greece! Rapprochements could thus take place with the revolutionary forces inside Syriza, thanks to a common work on the ground as in the committees against the closure of the electricity meters of those who can’t pay their bills.

In the daily struggles links are made and political cleavages are approached from an open angle, to the point that strategic questions are now posed in a new fashion. For example, the idea of “poor Greece attacked by international capital and various imperialisms “ has gained in credibility, to the point that cleavages on the left take place inside the current around Synaspismos, traditionally tempted by the idea that the EU was “progressive” in itself! But at the same time, the fact that the crisis in Greece is only the vanguard of a crisis and a brutal capitalist policy which extends from one country to another, shows that the overall response can only come by attacking the social roots, namely capitalism, which has no frontiers. In terms of demands the possible implosion of the EU or the euro zone imply new discussions on “exit from the euro” as transitional demands or necessary implication of a situation where a single country, like Greece, tries to free itself from the yoke of capitalist finance. That requires the stressing of the necessary self-organisation of struggles, and the coordination of these struggles not only at the national level, but at the same time at the international level, with a political dynamic which can only be that which overthrows the logic of war and the poverty of capitalism.

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-Tassos Anastassiadis is a member of the leadership of OKDE-Spartakos, Greek section of the Fourth International, which is part of the coalition of the anti-capitalist Left, Antarsya.

-Andreas Sartzekis is a member of the leadership of OKDE-Spartakos, Greek section of the Fourth International, which is part of the coalition of the anti-capitalist Left, Antarsya.

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Workers in Greece battle bosses’ austerity with two general strikes

G. Dunkel
Workers World
February 12, 2012

For the big-business media like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and CNN television, the big news from Greece involves what is going to happen to Greek bonds, the euro, the European economy and the world economy. For these media and their owners, the hundreds of billions, even trillions of dollars at stake explain this emphasis.

But the true essence of the events in Greece is the heroic struggle of the Greek working class, in this small country of 11 million people, to defeat the cruel, draconian austerity being imposed by the European big banks.


This struggle is vitally important for workers and the poor throughout the world and deserves solidarity and support worldwide.

Economists predict that given the recent vicious cuts imposed by the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and accepted by the Greek government, the Greek economy — already in five years of recession — won't come out of its spiraling downturn until at least 2015.

Four right-wing cabinet ministers and two socialists resigned from the coalition regime because they refused to identify themselves with this new round of austerity. For its own ultra-nationalist reasons, the Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS), a small, near-fascist party, left the cabinet.

The coalition cabinet still managed to patch itself back together, and the Greek parliament voted Feb. 12 to accept this austerity plan.

Meanwhile, 25,000 union-organized protesters were demonstrating outside Parliament, which was protected by 3,000 police, who used tear gas against the demonstrators. On the edges of the protest, youth battled police, some throwing firebombs, and parts of Athens were on fire.

Vicious austerity cutbacks

What people now call the Troika — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — is demanding the following vicious cuts in return for a bank bailout:

• Cutting the minimum wage for private sector workers by 22 percent and for those newly hired at the minimum by 32 percent; workers at the minimum have already lost 45 percent of their 2009 wages;

• Collective bargaining agreements between the unions and companies in a particular sector of the economy are abolished;

• Cuts in supplementary pensions, soon to be followed by cuts to basic pensions;

• 15,000 public sector employees will lose their jobs this year followed by 150,000 two years after this, in an economy where unemployment is officially over 20 percent;

• Cuts in social services; those in health care will place human lives in danger;

• Stepped up tax enforcement against self-employed workers and small businesses in order to support the tax exemptions of big capital.

Since the minimum wage is the benchmark for most union/company agreements in Greece, lowering it will lower all private sector wages.

Workers fight back

In a working-class response to this latest wave of austerity, the three main unions in Greece called for a general strike on Feb. 7, which was widely followed. The strike stopped train and ferry services nationwide, while many schools and banks were closed and state hospitals worked with skeleton staff.

The steelworkers union, which had been on strike for 100 days, led a march on Parliament. There were some scattered sharp skirmishes between protesters and cops on the edges of the crowd, which drew a lot of press attention — more attention than did the tens of thousands who were protesting.

Some demonstrators burned a German flag, reflecting popular anger at the German government's role in imposing this new round of austerity. According to the website of the Greek Communist Party, there were protests and demonstrations in 62 cities around the country. (inter.kke.gr)

The E.U. finance ministers then called for “implementation before disbursement” (additional cuts), for the Greek Parliament to endorse the measures on Feb. 12, and for the Greek parties in the coalition government to sign promises to maintain this agreement even after the upcoming election.

All three Greek unions reacted by calling another general strike, this time for 48 hours on Feb. 10 and 11. The strike protested the depth and extent of the cuts being imposed, as well as the deadlines the Greek government had to meet.

PAME, the union confederation associated with the Greek Communist Party (KKE), broke the ground for the general strike by leading a large march through Athens in a driving rain storm the night of Feb 9. Ilias Stamelos, a leader of PAME, condemned the new austerity measures as barbaric and called on the working class not only to drive out the parties in government but also to overthrow the class which is in power. (inter.kke.gr)

Feb. 10 strike even stronger

The strike on Feb. 10 was even more solid than the earlier one. Two major unions – GSEE, which represents workers in the private sector, and ADEDY, representing civil servants – marched on Syntagma Square, while PAME marched to the Ministry of Labor.

PAME workers occupied that building, and others hung a big banner on the outside of the ministry, reading: “No to the new massacre of the people, Down with the government, The Troika must go, Disengagement from the EU.”

There were also large rallies in Thessaloníki, Piraeus and other major cities throughout Greece.

The next day, Feb. 12, the unions held a big demonstration in Athens' main Syntagma Square that encircled the Parliament building to try to prevent members from entering and approving the austerity plan.

Aleka Papariga, the general secretary of the Greek Communist Party, released this statement: “Even if the workers give their own flesh to pay off the debt, the savage bankruptcy will not be averted. Consequently, there is one solution: Disengagement from the EU and unilateral cancellation of the debt. This is the solution; anything else will constitute a tragedy for the workers.” (inter.kee.gr)

The two parties in the coalition government — PASOK and the New Democracy — have formally agreed to uphold this austerity plan after the upcoming elections, which could come as early as April. There is no guarantee they will win the election, according to some polls.

According to the Kathimerini newspaper, there is a sharp rise in support for left parties. Its early February polls show 12 percent supporting the Democratic Left, 12.5 percent supporting the Greek Communist Party and another 12 percent supporting the Coalition of the Radical Left. Greece's Green party might also enter parliament for the first time, Later polls showed an even bigger leftward movement.

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Greece: a new wave of fightback

Greece: a new wave of fightback
January 24 2012
Socialist Worker (UK)

Workers in Greece’s Attica region, which includes Athens, are fighting austerity. Their strike last week was in solidarity with people losing their jobs and facing unpaid and cut wages.

Rank and file workers addressed strike rallies. Their speeches were broadcast by workers occupying the Alter TV station.

Workers at Intracom, a large telecommunications and defence company, also began a rolling strike last Tuesday which is continuing.

And steel workers continue to strike.

There are increasing numbers of workers with confidence to take action.

It is politically significant.

The Greek government is in negotiations with banks over organising a “haircut” (partial write-off) on its bonds.

They say this will cut Greek debt. But it’s designed to save the banks, again.

There is now a push from below for a general strike in the first week of February.

The trade union leaders are holding back because they are negotiating with bosses over collective bargaining rights.

But the way it is developing we’ll have more strikes and a united response to the attacks.

Panos Garganas is editor of Workers Solidarity

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It’s enough! The hour of the rising has come!

Antarsya
International Viewpoint
October 2011


The government has crossed all limits. It’s not enough that the workers, the unemployed, the young people, pensioners and professionals are plunged into misery—Finance Minister Venizelos went so far as to announce in Parliament—we should also be happy to be “under control”! The PASOK government and the interests of capital that it represents, in absolute harmony with the Troika, felt extremely positive shortly before announcing their slaughter package! The humiliation is almost perfect. At the same moment as their policy becomes bankrupt, and as working families are driven into bankruptcy, the holy alliance of government, the EU, and the IMF want to make us believe that there is no other way to save the country from bankruptcy. In reality they are the ones who lead us into bankruptcy under the control, and according to the terms of, the banks and multinational companies, the EU and the Greek industrialists (SEV).


There is another path, the path of the anti-capitalist break with the ruling order, in order to impose the interests of working people: by stopping the payments to the bankers and the cancellation of debt, by withdrawing from the euro zone and leaving the EU, by the nationalization of banks, state-owned enterprises and enterprises of strategic importance under workers’ control and without compensation, through a radical redistribution of wealth, by increasing wages, pensions and public spending in order to cover social needs and to create jobs by an adequate capital tax and the redistribution of profits through the cancellation of bank debts for those without vast fortunes, and for the unemployed.
We wont pay your poll taxes!

We shall bring about your downfall

The unified mass political movement will open the way, an uprising of all workers and of the entire population is needed here and now! With unlimited strikes and a nationwide general strike, with occupations as they have already begun in the ministries, with militant demonstrations, and with the democratic coordination of the branches that started fighting and of the rank and file basic trade union units, things can move beyond the bureaucratic leaderships of GSEE (private sector) and ADEDY (public service). Through the united struggle of student occupations and unlimited strikes we can win! It is time for a popular uprising that will lead to the overthrow of the government of shame, that will unshackle the rule of EU, IMF and capital and that will seal the defeat of the black bloc of PASOK, ND and LAOS. All the forces of the Left and the movement involved in the struggles must contribute through their joint action to an unprecedented revolutionary movement.

ANTARSYA fights for the abolition of capitalist barbarism as a whole and is involved with all its forces in the current conflict.

ANTARSYA, 21 Sep 2011

-ANTARSYA is an alliance of the anti-capitalist revolutionary left in Greece. It includes OKDE-Spartakos, Greek section of the Fourth Inrternational, and SEK, Socialist Workers’ Party, member of the International Socialist Tendency.

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9th Greek general strike will last until “until the government of Papandreou has gone”

European Left
23 February 2011

The first general strike of this year is happening today with Greek protesters announcing to stay at Syntagma Square “until the government of Papandreou has gone”. However, the Prime Minister is seeing the strike with a certain distance, after meeting in Germany with Merkel’s and other EU leaders.

Transports and public services are apparently almost totally interrupted, whilst the a joint rally organized by the civil servants’ union ADEDY and GSEE, representing the general confederation of trade unions, with more than 250 000 people is taking place in the center of the city. A march has started at 11 a.m. from Pedion tou Areos Park until the Parliament.




The general strike against the imposed austerity measures comes a day after the parliament had pushed through legislation an extensive liberalisation of a number of professions, including lawyers, architects, engineers and notaries, part of legislation demanded by the EU-IMF-ECB troika in exchange for the rescue plan.

With the world’s attention turned to North Africa, the Eurozone keeps analyzing the current economic recovery and the evolution of stock markets, and the lead to threats of looming inflation. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, visiting Angela Merkel in Berlin this week as part of a pre-summit tour of EU leaders, urged Merkel to consider more flexibility in dealing with the debt crisis and thanked Angela personally “thank you very much for what you have done, your support and your friendship”, he declared yesterday.



Seeming to be very calm, but watchful, before March’s summit, Merkel’s added, in a press conference, that “Ireland's bail-out terms covered a seven-year period, while Greece's was just three. It's one point that's on the table". While admitting that “Greece has started to put its house in order”, she warned that “We have been watching this with satisfaction because we know that this requires political audacity. I believe that there are still some more things for Greece to do and the more decisive that it is in following the necessary policies, the more Germany will believe that it can succeed.", she said.

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The Greek People are the Victims of an Extortion Racket

Olivier Besancenot and Pierre-François Grond
The B u l l e t Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 356

The events in Greece concern us all. The Greek people are paying for a crisis and a debt not of their making. Today it is the Greeks, tomorrow it will be others, for the same causes will produce the same effects if we allow it.

First and foremost, let us express our full and unwavering solidarity with those who must endure an unprecedented austerity plan, not to mention contempt and arrogance bordering on racism. The ongoing strikes and demonstrations are legitimate, and we support them. This is not the crisis of the Greek people; it is the crisis of the world capitalist system. The plight of the Greek people speaks volumes about the nature of capitalism today. The plan dictated by the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rides roughshod over the most elementary rules of democracy.


If this plan is implemented, it will result in the worst collapse of the economy and of peoples’ incomes in Europe since the 1930s. Equally glaring is the collusion of markets, central banks and governments to make the people foot the bill for the vagaries of the system. French President Nicolas Sarkozy still dares to talk of the need to regulate the market, while implementing measures that are more neoliberal than ever. The response to the crisis has been framed by a deadening consensus of the Right and the Left. The EU-IMF plan has been drafted by European governments of the Right and Left – and by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the IMF, an institution that has been strangling the Third World for decades and is now attacking Europe. The plan is being implemented by the Socialist government of Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, while the French side of the deal has been adopted in unison by MPs of the governing centre-right UMP and the Socialist Party (SP).

Background to the Crisis
The Greek debt crisis is the third phase of a broader global crisis that began in the United States in the summer of 2008. The speculative activities of the major western banks led the world to the brink of the abyss and plunged the economy into recession. This has led to escalating unemployment, alongside flagging incomes and purchasing power. Governments have rescued financial capitalism, resuscitated the banks, and revived capitalism by handing out hundreds of billions of Euros and dollars. This has made debts and deficits skyrocket and put more fragile states like Greece in a difficult position.

Now that the markets have digested the crisis, they are attacking government debts and speculating on the future of the weakest. What an exemplary lesson on the amorality of a system that is able, in the space of one year, to survive thanks to the largesse of states and then punish these very states by speculating aggressively against them. These speculators are now attacking Spain and lie in wait for further victims.

When French Prime Minister François Fillon announced on May 5th that painful measures were in store to “avoid a level of indebtedness such as Greece's,” he also announced an austerity plan, of which scrapping the right to retire at age 60 is only one component. In fact, the three-year freeze on public spending will entail a freeze on civil servants' wages and job cuts in the hospitals, schools and other public services that people need in order to deal with the social catastrophe created by the crisis. In contrast, the government has announced it will continue to honour the Sarkozy tax cap – which has already generously awarded a thousand or so members of the super-rich with an average refund of 376,000 Euros apiece.

Two Weights, Two Measures
The Greek measures overwhelmingly approved by EU governments are an attack on social rights. According to the rules of globalized capitalism applied by these governments, Europe is losing ground in its global competition with the United States and emerging countries. Their solution is to regain competitiveness by attacking the standard of living and social protection won in Europe through decades of mobilization by the workers movement. This means a never-ending race to the bottom. And to think that they promoted the Maastricht Treaty, the EU Constitutional Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty as the building blocks of a Europe based on social justice and social welfare! What utter nonsense, when we compare this rhetoric to the bleeding imposed on the Greeks – at 5% interest, no less! The European banks can continue to grow rich on the Greek austerity plan, although they are the ones most responsible for the global economic chaos. There is nothing humanitarian about the “assistance plan” that has been adopted by the National Assembly. By supporting the government, the SP has lined up on the side of finance and not the oppressed.

Though incapable of organizing solidarity of any kind, the European Union certainly knows how to profit from a people's misery. Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have jointly declared that they will rescue the Euro zone by strengthening “budgetary oversight” of states that fail to meet the criteria of the EU Stability Pact. Apparently, in a neoliberal Europe, governments are only allowed to contravene the Stability Pact when they are pumping public money into the banks. Humanity will just have to wait.

Yet, never has there been such an urgent need for a social, ecological and anti-capitalist Europe based on solidarity. None of the current problems can be solved within national borders. We are all Greek workers subject to the same logic. Government debt is the product of 25 years of neoliberalism and tax cuts for the rich – on corporate incomes, capital and shareholder dividends. For 25 years these taxes have been constantly lowered, and yet we are still told that they represent an unbearable burden for employers and the well-heeled. No, this crisis is not ours. In Greece, as elsewhere in Europe, we shouldn't have to pay for it.

Our Demands, Our Alternatives
That is why we demand the cancellation of the Greek debt. To reject the austerity plans, to divest the banks of the control they exercise over the economy and society, to substitute a single European public banking service in place of the European Central Bank, with a monopoly over credit, and to demand the cancellation of the debts, is to fight for a genuine European project. This would be a Europe of the peoples and the workers, where their struggles for a social and ecological Europe based on solidarity converge. If we do not initiate this break towards building a different Europe, the sovereigntist and nationalist logic – and the xenophobia that goes along with it – will get the upper hand. The race is on.

In the 1990s, neoliberal governments of the Right and Left imposed harsh economic convergence criteria in order to pave the way for the single currency. The time has now come to secure social convergence criteria: a European minimum wage; the right of European workers and their organizations to veto layoffs; and social and democratic rights levelled upwards to match those of the best national legislation within EU member countries. Such a project must be taken up by a new political force that reaches beyond national borders – a European anti-capitalist Left that is built step by step. The entire radical Left has to carefully study the lessons of the Greek crisis.

In each country, the radical Left is torn between independence from Social Democracy and participation in government alongside the neoliberal Left. We all want to defeat the Right in Europe, as in France; and that means building up the basis for an alternative to the routine return to government in 2012 imagined by the French SP. The SP has christened this election plan “Gauche Solidaire.” Is it surprising that in the Greek crisis this “Left Solidarity” has gone to speculators and no one else? •

Olivier Besancenot and Pierre-François Grond are members of the executive committee of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) in France. The essay appeared in Le Monde, May 14, 2010

Translation from French: Richard Fidler and Nathan Rao.

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Greek workers are right — make the big banks pay!

Tony Iltis

Green Left Weekly #837

The conventional wisdom is that the world has largely survived the great financial crisis. Journalists and economists talk about recovery, while politicians claim to have averted catastrophe.

However, the bailouts of banks and financial stimulus packages that governments used to “solve” the crisis merely turned banks’ debt into public debt. The problem has simply been shifted to the public sphere and potential catastrophe merely delayed.

The United States, Britain and the “eurozone” (the European countries with the Euro as their common currency) have collectively given the banks more than US$14 trillion since the crisis struck in 2008.

The resulting “sovereign debt crisis” (governments going deeper into debt) raises the question: who will pay for this debt?

For the pro-corporate politicians and experts, whose outlook dominates the corporate media, the answer is obvious: public debt must be paid by cuts to public spending.

Social infrastructure, welfare and public sector wages must be cut, while handouts to business and expenditure on the police and military are exempted as “necessary expenditure”.

However in Greece, an alternative answer has been given by millions of striking workers and hundreds of thousands of protesters in the streets. The Greek people see no reason why they should pay for a crisis they didn’t cause, to save the profits of the big banks and financial speculators.

International financial institutions have singled out Greece as a test case in the sovereign debt crisis.

The government of the social democratic PASOK party agreed to a €45 billion “rescue package” from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB), which comes with the requisite harsh austerity measures.

Through the general strikes and militant mass protests against the “rescue package”, workers in Greece have responded that those responsible for the debt should pay. Workers and the public should not pay back money they never borrowed in the first place.

Contrary to media claims, high public debt is not the result of unproductive, over-paid workers or bludgers living off welfare.

At the core of the global financial crisis (of which the sovereign debt crisis is a continuation) is, in fact, the fall in real wages that has occurred throughout the developed world since the 1970s.

A lower wage bill benefits capitalists in the short term, but for profits to be realised workers have to be able to buy things. The result was a debt-fuelled economy — with consumption levels maintained through access to cheap credit.

The multi-trillion-dollar bailout of banks was justified with the claim that the finance industry drives the productive economy, but another key cause of the crisis was that banks found investment in production considerably less profitable than speculating on debt.

Deregulation of the financial system (in line with neoliberal ideology) meant banks could combine and repackage mortgage, credit card and commercial debts, and sell them as “financial products” or “derivatives”.

Debts could be insured against default, and more complicated “derivatives” allowed bankers to bet on which debts would be honoured.

This casino economy collapsed with the “sub-prime mortgage” crisis in the US. Falling wages, skyrocketing house prices and high-interest mortgages granted regardless of likely ability for repayment led to large numbers of US households defaulting on their mortgages.

Suddenly, the market was gripped with a panic that billions of dollars worth of “derivatives” could prove worthless.

The banks were bailed out, but those made homeless by mortgage foreclosures were not. US banks are reporting rising profits again, but a further 7.8 million US householders are facing foreclosure, the March 17 US Socialist Worker said.

On April 29, 15,000 people marched through Wall Street chanting, “You got bailed out, we got sold out!”. The protest, organised by the AFL-CIO trade union federation and a coalition of community organisations, demanded “a tax on Wall Street profits, better regulation of the big banks, help for struggling homeowners and a jobs program for the unemployed”, the May 5 SW said.

The Obama administration has responded with some timid proposals to regulate the finance industry (fiercely opposed by the Republicans) and the prosecution of bankers who engaged in blatantly fraudulent practices.

However, the first case to be prosecuted, involving a hedge fund manager and several bankers from the huge, and deeply unpopular, Goldman Sachs bank, threatens to open a can of worms. This is because blatantly fraudulent practices were the basis of the casino economy.

One of the charges levelled by European Union politicians against Greece is that it hid the true size of its debt since entering the eurozone in 2001.

Ironically, Goldman Sachs helped it achieve this by turning its debt into tradable “derivatives”. Public debt is as good to the casino economy as household or commercial debt.

Moreover, Italy, France and Germany did the same.

By turning Greece’s debt into “derivatives”, Goldman Sachs was able to bet on Greece defaulting in the same way it and other banks had bet on sub-prime mortgage holders defaulting.

Speculation drove a “loss of market confidence” in Greece. Ratings agencies — whose endorsement of dubious banking products helped bring about the 2008 crisis — declared Greece a risk for investors.

Despite its sovereign debt being of comparable size to Britain’s, this “no confidence” vote meant Greece was only able to borrow at above market interest rates.

The PASOK government has insisted it has no alternative to accepting the IMF-ECB “rescue”.

The austerity measures include wage freezes, de facto wage cuts, a 23% goods and services tax rise, increasing the age of retirement and prohibition of early retirement, a €3 billion cut to health and education expenditure and public investment, removing unfair dismissal safeguards for workers, a new minimum wage for youth and the long-term unemployed, and privatisation of state-owned sectors such as transport and energy.

On May 5, with the entire country shut down by a general strike, half–a-million people marched through Athens. Heavy-handed policing led to rioting — which was not reported in Greece because media workers were on strike too.

On May 6, the government passed the austerity package through parliament. The strikes and protests have not abated.

Ordinary people in Greece have decided that, as they did not enjoy the bankers’ winnings in the casino economy, they should not pay for the losses.

Antonis Davenellos, a member of the Greek socialist group International Workers Left, wrote in the May 5 SW: “Tens of thousands of workers thundered, ‘Today and tomorrow, and for as long its needed, we are all strikers’.

“This fury explains the incredible resilience of the demonstrators, who flooded the centre of Athens despite the unprecedented rain of tear gas fired against them by the police ...

“The chants of the revolutionary left were taken up by the overwhelming majority of the demonstrators — for example, ‘Robbers, robbers, capitalists: Your profits cost human lives’.

“Moreover, the social base of social democracy itself — the thousands and thousands of workers who had voted for PASOK — was there ... angrily attacking a government in which they had illusions only a few months before.

“Now they chanted ... ‘Self-illusions are over — either with the capitalists or with the workers’.”

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Greece: ‘We won't pay for their crisis’

Stuart Munckton
Green Left Weekly #836

The proposed “bail-out” of the Greek economy by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Union (EU) has set off a huge struggle with worldwide implications.

On May 5, as Greek parliament debated the IMF-EU package, half a million people took over the streets of Athens as part of a nation-wide general strike. It was Greece’s largest demonstration in 30 years.

Police brutally attacked the protests, firing tear gas that “transformed Athens into a huge gas chamber”, as a May 5 statement by the Communist Organisation of Greece put it. Predictably, some anarchist youth fought back with molotov cocktails, providing the pretext for further assaults on the crowd.


Outside the office of Marfin Bank in Athens, a molotov cocktail thrown by an unknown person set the building alight. Three bank workers died in the blaze.

The Greek PASOK government tried to exploit the deaths to diffuse the protests, but the anger was too great.

The bank workers’ union released a statement that, while condemning the burning of the bank, placed the blame for the deaths at the feet of the government, police and bank managers (who not only had failed to provide basic fire safety for the building, but threatened workers who wished to go home with the sack). The union called bank workers out on strike.

Protesters marched again in huge numbers on May 6, as the Greek parliament voted to adopt the austerity package. It is clear the union movement will continue to resist its implementation, and further strikes and confrontations are inevitable.

Behind the footage of street fighting and interviews with nervous financial analysts lies a struggle around the key question: who will pay for the global economic crisis — working people or the bankers and capitalists who caused it?

Rarely mentioned in the media is the role of Goldman Sachs in recent years in helping the Greek government (behind the backs of the Greek people now being punished) to hide its real national debt levels by using the sort of dodgy financial practices that helped set off the 2008 financial meltdown.

Also, while Greece’s fiscal deficit is well over EU limits, so are other European nations. Greece’s deficit is a similar percentage of GDP (about 11%) as the US’s. Like so much of the international financial system, the “Greek crisis” has little connection to the real world, but has been manufactured at the gambling tables of high finance.

A May 6 British Morning Star editorial explained: “The latest episode in the Greek crisis was precipitated by yet another capitalist edifice, the ratings agency structure that downgraded Greek debt to junk status — those same ratings agencies that gave AAA ratings to billions of dollars of residential mortgage-backed securities which precipitated the near collapse of the world economy.”

In other words, financial institutions, with a bad track record, declare they are not confident the Greek economy is not in crisis and this lack of confidence causes a crisis in the Greek economy.

You begin to understand why the Greek workers are so unwilling to “take one for the team” when that is how the game is played.

The more powerful European nations are seeking to shift the burden for the crisis onto the weaker ones — starting with Greece.

If the austerity measures are successfully implemented in Greece, workers in other European countries (such as Portugal and Spain) will be the next to have the gun put to their temple.

Understanding this, there have been protests and statements of solidarity with the Greek people fighting the austerity measures by left-wing groups across Europe.

Below, is a slightly abridged May 5 statement by the Committee of the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM) international. It has been translated by Christine Pignolle and is reprinted from Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal.

* * *

Support to the Greek people’s resistance to the dictatorship of creditors!

The new austerity plan, released on May 2 is a disaster for the Greek population: for workers in the private as well as public sector, retired people, or the unemployed. It involves:
• Freezing of wages and retirement pensions in the public sector for five years;
• Suppression of the equivalent of two months of wages for civil servants;
• The main goods and services tax rate to rise to 23%;
• Taxes on fuel, spirits and tobacco have been raised by 10% for the second time within a month;
• Early retirements are prohibited for those under 60;
• The legal age for women’s retirement will be raised from 60 to 65 by 2013;
• The legal age for men’s retirement will depend on life expectancy;
• Forty full years at work (up from 37) will be required to be entitled to a full retirement pension;
• The government will reduce its operating expenditures by €1.5 billion (which means less money for education and health care);
• Public investments will also be reduced by €1.5 billion;
• A new minimum salary for youth and long-term unemployed is set up (the equivalent of the “CPE” rejected by the people of France).

Some measures the financial markets will benefit from include:
• Transport, energy and some services will be opened to privatisation;
• The financial sector will benefit from a fund set up with the help of the EU and the IMF;
• Flexibility of work will be increased;
• Layoffs will become easier;
• The Greek economy is now controlled by the IMF.

Since Greece is part of the euro zone, it can neither devalue its currency nor play on interest rates. Its debt cannot be restructured either since European financial institutions hold two-thirds of it.

These same banks will further borrow from the European Central Bank (ECB) at a 1% rate in order to make loans to governments. Euro zone countries will lend on an individual basis to Greece at a rate of 5%.

Rich countries and banks will thus make money off the Greek people. This will increase the public debt of the Greek state so that it can pay back its speculating creditors!

The Greek crisis is an illustration of the danger represented by the IMF, EU and financial markets.

Rightly disparaged for its disastrous structural adjustment programs, the IMF resurfaces in the euro zone after wrecking the economy of several Eastern European countries in the past two years. It uses the same methods as before, adapted to the same partners: financial markets and transnational corporations.

The EU and ECB do not serve the peoples of Europe, but banks and financial institutions. After precipitating the Greek crisis via rating agencies paid by major US banks, the financial markets try to make even larger profits from their speculative strategies.

The PASOK government, the European Union and the IMF provide them with a golden opportunity.

Behind the financial industry we find manufacturing, trading and services transnational companies.

This financial industry is part of a greater whole. This unbridled speculation that chokes deprived populations has only been possible for two major reasons: successive deregulation of financial markets since the 1980s and the choice made by the management of large companies to “invest” their profits in speculation instead of production and employment.

Over 25 years, wage earners’ respective share of gross domestic product in developed countries has diminished by an average of about 10%. This trend is the main cause of the economic and financial crisis we experience today.

Successive Greek governments, like others in the developed world, also bear a heavy part of responsibility in the increasing public debts. Tax policies favourable to the rich and corporations have significantly reduced budget revenues and increased public deficits, leading states to gather more debt.

Those who organised the crisis are spared while the people must pay the bill.

In the PASOK-EU-IMF austerity plan imposed on the Greek people, there is no measure whatsoever to counter corporate tax evasion. The so-called solutions set forward by PASOK, the EU and the IMF push Greece towards an ever-deeper crisis.

A minimal recession has already been predicted for 2010. Small craftspeople and traders as well as small companies will be faced with bankruptcy. Unemployment will explode, and the purchasing power of lower-and middle-classes will plummet.

Inequalities will increase and basic human rights (access to water, energy, health care, education) are under threat for the more deprived portion of the population.

The Greek people’s anger is ours too. CADTM fully supports all protests against the austerity plan.

Alternative solutions are possible!

• The repayment of Greece’s public debt must be immediately suspended and a public audit must be organised to determine whether it is legitimate.
• Cancellation measures must be taken and the financial return on the debt must be taxed at the maximum income tax rate.
• Tax measures must be taken immediately to restore tax justice and fight tax evasion.

Almost all Greek corporations declare their benefits in countries with a more favourable tax system (such as Cyprus) or hide them in tax havens. The Orthodox Church still benefits from exorbitant tax cuts on its movable and immovable property.

There is money in Greece, but not where the austerity plan wants to find it!

CADTM declares its solidarity with the Greek people. Solidarity demonstrations are needed throughout Europe. Greece is under attack today, but tomorrow it will be Portugal, Ireland or Spain, and the day after maybe all the euro zone will be affected — including its “richer” countries.

We rejoice at the first protests that have occurred outside Greek embassies. We must go further!

The whole European social movement must stand next to the Greek people! European populations can only win from a common protest!

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European Anti-Capitalist Left Statement in Solidarity with Greek Struggle

Statement on the European crisis

40 anticapitalist groups plan European solidarity with Greek struggle
From International Viewpoint


1. The global economic crisis continues. Massive amounts of money have been injected into the financial system – $14 trillion in bailouts in the United States, Britain, and the eurozone, $1.4 trillion new bank loans in China last year – in an effort to restabilize the world economy. But it remains an open question whether or not these efforts will be enough to produce a sustainable recovery. Growth remains very sluggish in the advanced economies, while unemployment continues to rise. There are fears that a new financial bubble centred this time on China is developing. The protracted character of the crisis – which is the most severe since the Great Depression – reflects its roots in the very nature of capitalism as a system.

2. After a harsh wave of job cuts, in Europe the focus on the crisis is now on the public sector and social welfare system. The very financial markets that have been rescued thanks to the bailouts are now up in arms about the increase in government borrowing this has involved. They are demanding massive cuts in public expenditure. This amounts to a class attempt to shift the costs of the crisis from those who precipitated it – above all, the banks – to working people – not just those employed in the public sector but also all those who consume public services. The demands for austerity and public sector ‘reform’ are the clearest sign that neoliberalism, intellectually discredited by the crisis, nevertheless continues to dominate policy-making.

3. Greece is currently in the eye of the storm. It is one of several European economies that are particularly vulnerable, partly because of a buildup of debt during the boom, partly because they find it hard to compete with Germany, the giant of the eurozone. Under pressure from the financial markets, the European Commission, and the German government, the government of George Papandreou has torn up its election promises and announced cuts amounting to four per cent of national income.

4. Fortunately Greece has a magnificent history of social resistance running back to the 1970s. Following on from the youth revolt of December 2008, the Greek workers’ movement has responded to the government’s cuts packages with a wave of strikes and demonstrations. We also welcome the example of the Iceland referendum in which people rejected debt refunding imposed by the banks.

5. Greek workers need the solidarity of socialists, trade unionists, and anti-capitalists everywhere. Greece is simply the first European country to have been targeted by the financial markets, but they have plenty of others in their sights, first of all, Spain and Portugal.

6. We need a programme of measures that can lift the economy out of crisis on the basis of giving priority to people’s needs rather than profits and imposing democratic control over the market We need to stand for an anti capitalist answer: our life, our health, our jobs before profits.

- All cuts in domestic public expenditure to be halted or reversed: stop pensions ‘reform’; health and education are not for sale;

- A guaranteed right to work and a programme of public investment in green jobs – public transport, renewable energy industries, and adapting private and public buildings to reduce carbon dioxide emissions;

- For a public banking service and financial system under public control!

- No scapegoating of immigrants and refugees: legalize them!

- No to military expenditure: Withdrawal of Western troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, drastic cuts in military spending, and the dissolution of NATO

7. We resolve to organize European solidarity activities again cuts and capitalist attacks. A victory for Greek workers will strengthen resistance to the cuts elsewhere.

Greece : Aristeri Anasynthesi, Aristeri Antikapitalistiki Syspirosi, Organosi Kommuniston Diethniston Elladas-Spartakos, Sosialistiko Ergatiko Komma, Synaspismos Rizospastikis Aristeras (Syriza) ;

Portugal : Bloco de Esquerda ;

Austria : Linkswende ;

Belgium : Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire - Socialistische arbeiderspartij ;

Britain : Socialist Resistance, Socialist Workers Party ;

Croatia : Radnička borba ;

Czech Republic : Socialistická Solidarita ;

Cyprus : Ergatiki Dimokratia, Yeni Kibris Partisi ;

Denmark : Socialistisk Arbejderparti ;

Euskadi : Gogoa ;

France : Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste ;

Germany : Internationale Sozialistische Linke, Marx21, Revolutionär Sozialistischen Bund ;

Italy : Sinistra Critica ;

Ireland : People Before Profit Alliance, Socialist Workers Party ;

Netherlands : Internationale Socialisten, Grenzeloos ;

Poland : Polska Partia Pracy, Pracownicza Demokracja ;

Russia : Vpered ;

Scotland : Scottish Socialist Party ;

Serbia : marks21 ;

Spanish State : En lucha/En lluita, Izquierda Anticapitalista, Partido Obrero Revolucionario ;

Sweden : Socialistiska Partiet, Internationella Socialister ;

Switzerland : Gauche anticapitaliste, Mouvement pour le socialisme /Bewegung für Sozialismus, solidaritéS ;

Turkey : Devrimci Sosyalist İşçi Partisi, Özgürlük ve Dayanışma Partisi.

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