IMF and Eurobandits out of Greece - Greece out of the Eurozone

IMF and Eurobandits out of Greece - Greece out of the Eurozone
Communist Organisation of Greece (KOE)


Published:
May 5th 2010
The KOE proposes the exit from the Euro zone, the renegotiation of the
foreign debt and a plan of productive and economic reconstruction in
favour of the working people.

A. The developments

The EU finds itself in the heart of the crisis, wounded as never
before. The diverging strategies and the explosion of the
contradictions within the EU and the Eurozone (European Monetary
Union) may lead the course of the “European integration adventure” to
unanticipated consequences. While the integration formally advances,
in reality it sheers off. The hegemonic role of German imperialism and
the insolvable interconnection of the EU institutions with the most
parasitic and rapacious financial capital reveal today more and more
clearly the real nature of the EU: an absolutely anti-democratic, anti-
social, aggressive, barbaric and cynical imperialist construction.

The EU is internationally in the vanguard of the application of the
harshest neoliberal policies against the working masses. The EU
prostitutes the concept of independence and of popular sovereignty.
The EU rapidly deviates from any degree of democratic legality that it
was until recently claiming to have from the electorate. The EU offers
whole countries as sacrifice to the altar of the markets. The EU tries
to impose anti-labour experimentations to the whole continent.

A.1. The confession of the Greek bankruptcy

What falls apart today is not only the policy of the two main
bourgeois parties, the right-wing “Nea Dimokratia” and the social-
liberal “Pasok”, but the whole course of the Greek bourgeoisie during
the last three decades. The de-construction of the production, the
economic disintegration, the social regression, the regimes of
tutelage and of economic occupation are not at all “mistakes” of the
last years, nor were they provoked by the global capitalist crisis.

The actual impasse is a bankruptcy pre-announced by thirty years of
transformation of the country into an exemplary model of modern
compradorism, suffocatingly tied to the imperialist centers. A model
that declared war against the production, because in that way it could
obtain easy profits for the ruling class. The actual impasse is a
bankruptcy pre-announced by the imposition of the infernal debt
machine and of the dependence, by imposing to the people an increasing
financial tribute paid during decades to the international capital
markets. The neoliberal amok of the public wealth banditry, of selling-
out the national property, of profits’ privatization and of losses’
nationalization: this is the policy that brought the country in the
actual situation. The regime of tutelage by the IMF, the European
Central Bank and the markets is a natural conclusion of the dependence
by imperialism.

The problem of Greece is not fiscal. It is a problem of productive
destruction and de-composition, which today results to a fiscal and
debt loop. We are facing an absolute coincidence of the Greek economy
with compradorism (the tertiary sector actually represents 80% of the
GDP), which is fully depended by the banking expansion (building
construction) and/or by the international economy (tourism). And of
course we are also facing an impressive collapse of the balance of
payments. The development of Greece during the previous period must
not be examined through the percentage of the GDP increase, but
through its qualitative features: an insecure, ramshackle, self-mined
development that increased enormously the class and social
divergences.

Today’s outcome is absolutely related to the course of Greece in
Europe, and more specifically to its entrance in the Eurozone. The
productive disintegration in the name of the free market, the huge
increase of the disparity between center and periphery, the increasing
deficits in the balance of payments, the fiscal asphyxiation, the
neoliberal strait-jacket of the Stability Pact and the permanent and
non-negotiable choice of the Greek political personnel to continuously
put all the burden on the society: all these policies led to the
creation of this model, which is actually collapsing.

The loop roped around Greece’s throat was to be expected: despite the
books’ manipulations, the numbers did not and do not come out. The
deficit of 30 billion euros and the interest payments of around 15
billion euros yearly (with the sinking funds transferred from one year
to another through an extremely usurious refinancing) cannot be faced
off, especially in conditions of international financial crisis and of
increasingly onerous new lending.

The unconditional surrender of Greece to the IMF is imminent and
underway, despite the government’s assurances to the contrary. But
even with this “mechanism of support” the collapse just takes a short
new lease of life. And of course the regime of international tutelage
and control becomes complete and official. The bourgeois parliamentary
democracy now reveals fully its fake character, as the decisions are
adopted elsewhere. The most nightmarish scenarios of the post-election
period are confirmed daily, one after the other, while the society
sinks in an unprecedented asphyxia. And the worse is still to come.

At the same time, the developments in the field of economy and of
society are provoking broader repercussions. The new episodes of the
Aegean Sea’s surrender to NATO’s control are showing that the increase
of the foreign control and dependence by the imperialists will bring
along broader pressures and dangerous tensions in our region.

A.2. Bankruptcy of the government and of the whole political system

The government’s management, apart its more general responsibility for
the actual situation, has also gone bankrupt as far as its recent
conducts are concerned. After each “big success” of the Pasok
government, as it was greeted by the mainstream Media, the lending
becomes even more unbearable and its possibilities become rapidly
exhausted. The “support mechanism” is completely insufficient and
unable to fill the fiscal and lending holes under the present
conditions of productive collapse. Even by the measures of a pro-
market, pro-capital, anti-people government, the government of
Papandreou is a complete failure, despite the impressive and full
support it receives by the mainstream Media. That is to say, we
actually have a government composed by simple employees of the
European Commission, the ECB and the IMF, which is totally incapable
to line the slightest policy that could win or save anything. However,
this is a secondary aspect.

The basic element is that this government is completely and
consciously aligned with the demands of the imperialist powers. This
is a government fully and doubly subordinated to the interests of the
big imperialist centers in both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. And it is
totally committed to the failed model of the last decades’
“development”, which led to the actual collapse. This government must
be fought against, must be the target of the huge popular majority,
which is threatened today with annihilation. We must work in order to
make the conditions ripe for throwing out this government, through the
elaboration of a progressive, popular, left way out.

Moreover, what is also revealed today is the bankruptcy of the whole
political system: the bankruptcy of policies, fake visions, once upon
a time famous politicians, bourgeois parties and governments. It is
the bankruptcy of all those forces referring to the notions of “center-
left” or “center-right”, which converged in “national aims and
visions” that inevitably led to today’s impasse. But, also, it is the
bankruptcy of a Left that either supposedly contested the “old dogmas”
or mechanically reproduced slogans, thus loosing the possibility to
confront the enemy, to express the people, to take political
initiatives – and was in that way led to its subordination to the
“modern” bourgeois dogmas, or, in the best case, to the inability to
oppose them in a convincing way.

B. For another Greece in another Europe

Today we must open a central debate about the course that Greece must
follow. This is a struggle directly related to the identity and the
perspective of the country. This is a big confrontation between a
system that belies and crushes itself, crushing along with it the
society as well, and the need to overcome this system. Even if today
this need is still not realized by a majority, the issue of the
country’s and of the people’s global course is objectively on the
table. Thus, we support:

- The immediate overthrowing of the tutelage and international control
regimes, of the economic asphyxia and of the social demolition, and
first of all the overthrowing of the IMF-ECB yoke.

- A course of reconstruction having as central points the exit from
the Eurozone, the renegotiation of the foreign debt, and a series of
measures protecting the public interest.

- A middle-term plan of productive and economic reconstruction in
favour of the working people.

- The coordination and cooperation of peoples, movements and fronts
aiming at a democratic and progressive change in Europe.

B.1. The IMF, out of Greece

The “support mechanism” of the Eurozone, in which the IMF will have a
prominent role with still unknown parameters, will prove to be the
worse of all the previous “solutions”. The country and the working
people are condemned in a protracted asphyxia, with successive
measures that will accompany each installment of the “aid”. The
measures adopted until today allow the activation of the mechanism,
but the financial markets and our “saviors” are considering them
absolutely insufficient for the execution of the plan. The implication
of the IMF means that the governmental power is now formally
transferred outside Greece, and that the actual Greek political
personnel will be either considered as expendable or it will serve
exclusively as spokesman of the real governors. The actual government
is fully responsible for this development and must account for
shredding apart the last remnants of bourgeois democracy, for leading
the country from bad to worse, for putting the working people in front
of the firing squad.

B.2. Exit from the Eurozone

The entrance of Greece in the European Monetary Union and the adoption
of euro have been greeted with huge celebrations. The “powerful
Greece” which “is now protected against any international economic and
financial tempests” and will be able “to serve the public debt under
the most favorable conditions” because it has the “protective shield
of euro” (and many more such dithyrambic affirmations) have today been
demolished. The “protection” offered by the euro has become a pile of
breakages and flinders, as we live the biggest postwar economic wobble
and social regression.

The entrance in the Eurozone proves more and more, day by day, to be a
plumb. It may have not provoked the actual economic impasse; however
the EMU has increased it dramatically, and deprived the country of
critical tools for its defense. Basic rules of the EMU, such as the
interdiction for a member state to trade bonds directly with the
European Central Bank, the interdiction of solidarity with member
states, the non-existence of mechanisms of ultimate support, and last
but not least the Stability Pact itself, have sent the country in
front of the firing squad of the financial markets.

The only positive aspects of the euro (the low interest rates and the
strong currency) triggered a nominal development; but at the same time
these aspects covered the distorted, undermined, insecure and (over
all) unequal character of this development. Furthermore, they hushed
the collapse, only to end up as a boomerang through the over-debting
and the over-lending. The euro excluded the devaluation of the
national currency, but accelerated the devaluation of the labor force
value, the depreciation of the salaries, the degradation of the living
standards and of the labor relations.

The exit of Greece from the Eurozone, the recovery of the monetary and
fiscal policy, the recovery of the ability to draft and execute
national budgets, are a precondition for any effort aiming at a
productive, social and economic reconstruction that will be led by
radically different priorities. Such an effort presupposes (but also
creates) new correlations of power. It won’t be an easy path, but it
will be the only one that will not end in a new crushing of the
society – on the contrary, such a path will lead into a social
palliation.

B.3. Renegotiation of the debt

The actual economic and social asphyxiation is owed to productive and
economic impasses piled up during three decades. The debt amortization
under the present fiscal situation becomes mathematically impossible.
Even if the interest rates decrease (a development that seems not at
all likely), and/or if the new lending by the “support mechanism” has
interest rates slightly lower than those of the market, the
obligations of the next five years are extremely onerous.

The renegotiation of the debt can save huge resources, which until now
are bulging each week the portfolios of the international financial
capital. Such a renegotiation is the most effective shield against the
bankruptcy (which in reality has already happened, despite the fact
that it has not been announced, in order to secure the continuous
death toll offered by the public funds to the financial markets). Such
a renegotiation of the debt must be accompanied by the nationalization
of the banking sector, the drastic control over the capitals’ traffic
and, above all, by a long-term plan of productive reconstruction.

Extracts from the communiqué of the Leading Committee, 16 April 2010