Greece

Greece: a "new wave" of crisis?

The Greek government could run out of money to pay its bills in the next couple of months. Usually governments are guaranteed at least to be able to pay their bills inside their own countries — because, in the last resort, they can always print more of their national money — but the Greek government, in the eurozone, has no power to print more euros. Immediately, the result is promises by Greece's social-democratic government that it will make huge cuts in public spending to free up cash to pay the international financiers to whom Greece has debts. At present Greek prime minister George...

Greece: new struggles, more repression

At the beginning of December there were clashes between the police and protestors in Athens. The protests marked the first anniversary of the fatal police shooting of a teenager. Thanos Andritsos, member of Communist Liberation Youth, Greek movement, spoke to Ed Maltby. Q: What were the protests about? A: On 6 December 2008, a fifteen year old student ,Alexis Grigoropoulos, was killed by the police. The following days an unprecedented social upheaval arose, that shocked the world. The real causes of the revolt — unemployment and poverty, a nonexistent future for a generation, oppression and...

Greece: the revolt of the 700-euros generation

In Greece, the fires of December have burned out, the students returned home for the holidays and, for now, the streets are quiet. But the underlying grievances that propelled thousands of youth and striking workers into clashes with the state remain, so 2009 looks set to be another turbulent year. The unrest was sparked by the police shooting of a 15 year old boy, Alexis Grigoropoulos, but rapidly mushroomed into a mass movement behind the slogan “Down with this government of thieves and murderers!” I asked a relative living in Piraeus for his impressions of the major causes of the uprising...

General strike against privatisations, for better wages and pensions

Riot police fired tear gas on Tuesday 21 October to disperse demonstrators amid a nationwide general strike that brought air, rail and ferry traffic to a halt. The general strike by millions of workers also crippled urban, rail and sea transport and kept schools, banks and public offices shut. State hospitals and utilities, including the partially privatized OTE telecom company, operated on skeleton staff while journalists staged a media blackout. The GSEE private sector union federation and its public sector counterpart ADEDY organized the strike. Both unions represent about half the country...

Greece: time for a general strike

With strikes, demonstrations and direct action the Greek workers can overthrow the Tory government (Nea Dimokratia) and get the anti-working class reforms withdrawn. This is a longer version of this article than in the printed paper. The Tory government has finally managed to “win” the battle in parliament (i.e. with the slender majority of 151+1 MPs out of 300) and pass the anti-working class reforms. It could not though hide the truth about the nature of these reforms. These reforms will reduce further the workers' pensions; increase the age limit of retirement for women, especially mothers...

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