“Wij staan zij aan zij met het Griekse volk.” Dat zegt de Spaanse politieke partij Podemos in een Engelstalige mededeling, die wij hieronder integraal overnemen.
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 defense 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.
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