Den stora lögnen om Greklands skuld

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Det finansiella kriget mot Greklands befolkning inleddes med en storskalig offensiv.

Året var 2010 och vårsolen värmde när José Manuel Barroso, Jean-Claude Trichet och Dominique Strauss-Khan medvetet ljög Europas och Greklands folk rakt upp i ansiktet.

Som ledare för EU-kommissionen, Europeiska centralbanken respektive Internationella Valutafonden, den så kallade Trojkan, hade de snickrat ihop det första finansiella stödpaketet på 110 miljarder euro till den grekiska staten under den socialdemokratiska regeringen Papandreous ledning.

I massmedia startade plötsligt en hetskampanj mot grekerna som anklagades för att ha levt i sus och dus, högt över sina tillgångar. Alla levde på lyxpensioner redan i femtioårsåldern, smet undan skatter och latade sig. Därför stod nu landet på ruinens brant och det solidariska Europa var tvunget att gripa in för att rädda Grekland.

Det var den bild som de tre herrarna ovan hade skapat och som media vridit runt i många groteska varv. Men det var en totalt falsk bild som hade ett enda syfte, nämligen att få den europeiska opinionen att svälja historien om Grekland som måste räddas undan sitt ansvarslösa folk.

Det verkliga syftet var ett helt annat. Privata tyska, franska, holländska och grekiska banker behövde räddas undan sina sanslöst riskfyllda lån till privata låntagare i Grekland, det vill säga privata banker, företag och välbärgade hushåll. I Trojkans institutioner spred sig oron för att de grekiska låntagarna inte skulle kunna leva upp till sina åtaganden och faran för en ny och kanske värre finanskris än den som storbanken Lehman Brothers fall orsakade kunde inte underskattas. Det var det enda syftet med ”hjälpen” till Grekland. Att den ekonomiska situationen i Grekland skulle förvärras och statsskulden explodera det visste herrarna i Trojkan.

Bevisen för hur landets skuld uppstod, hur en exploderande privat skuldsättning blev till en statlig skuld, hela folkets skuld, med hjälp av en raffinerad lögn finns framlagda i en rapport från den av det grekiska parlamentet tillsatta Sanningskommissionen som i april 2015 fick i uppdrag att etablera sanningen om hur den grekiska statsskulden skenade iväg och helt enkelt blev obetalbar.

Den första mars i år organiserade vänsterblocket i det europeiska parlamentet ett möte där Zoé Konstantopoúlou, det grekiska parlamentets president fram till oktober 2015, deltog tillsammans med Sanningskommissionens samtliga medlemmar, däribland Eric Toussaint från Belgien (kommissionens vetenskaplige samordnare) och Diego Borja (f.d. ekonomiminister i Equador).

De fakta som kommissionen presentererat i sin skriftliga rapport och presenterade muntligt inför de europeiska parlamentsledamöterna sopar golvet med den medvetet förfalskade bilden av den grekiska krisen.

Trojkans tal om en exploderande statsskuld innan 2010 är taget ur luften. Däremot stämmer det att under perioden 2000-2009 den privata skuldsättningen ökade kraftigt, från 74 % av BNP till 129 %. Privata europeiska banker kunde efter Greklands inträde i eurozonen göra stora pengar på utlåning till privata aktörer i landet eftersom den ränta som låntagarna tvingades betala låg över gällande räntor i Tyskland och Frankrike. Bankerna struntade i riskerna eftersom de kallt räknade med att Europeiska centralbanken skulle hålla dem om ryggen för att inte sätta euron i fara.

Kommissionens rapport visar att också den statliga skulden ökade men inte mer än vad som samtidigt skedde i många andra länder inom eurozonen. Den visar också att ökningen inte berodde på utgifterna för den ”lyxiga välfärd” som grekerna sades njuta av. Statens utgifter för utbildning, sjukvård och pensioner var lägre än genomsnittet i EU räknat i procent av BNP. Däremot var de militära utgifterna två gånger högre än genomsnittet i Europa också det räknat i procent av BNP. Att det var främst tyska och franska vapentillverkare som tjänade på det militära slöseriet har varken Merkel eller Hollande nämnt i anklagelserna om oansvarigt budgetslöseri.

Vad som var så omåttligt roligt förtäller inte bilden. Varoufakis har säkert en aning.

Kommissionen visar i sin rapport att det verkliga syftet med det finansiella ”stödet” till Grekland var att hindra en finanskris som hotade utifall de privata tyska och franska, bankerna kraschade.

I ett hemligstämplat protokoll från ett möte i IMF den 9 maj 2010 med 24 direktörer närvarande framgår det att 10 av direktörerna var emot att IMF skulle bidra med 30 miljarder euro till stödpaketet på 110 miljarder euro. De argumenterade för att det inte skulle förbättra chanserna att räta upp den grekiska skuldsättningen utan bara skulle hjälpa de tyska och franska bankerna. Speciellt Brasiliens direktör i IMF sa rakt ut, allt enligt protokollet som Sanningskommissionen haft tillgång till, att ”vi räddar de privata bankerna”. Även den schweiziske direktören var skarpt kritisk.

Det var först efter att de franska, tyska och holländska direktörerna utlovat att deras privata banker inte skulle sälja sina innehav av grekiska statsobligationer på andrahandsmarknaden som de tio trilskande direktörerna röstade för ”bidraget” på 30 miljarder euro.

Det var ett löfte som inte hölls. Av de 110 miljarder som ingick i detta det första stödpaketet hamnade på kort tid över 80 % av miljarderna i de privata europeiska bankernas ägo. Trojkan hade vägrat att gå med på en omstrukturering av den grekiska statsskulden vilket gav de privata bankerna tid till att göra sig av med huvuddelen av deras innehav av grekiska statsobligationer utan några större förluster tack vare att den Europeiska centralbanken köpte upp stora mängder av obligationerna till ett för bankerna fördelaktigt pris.

IMF ändrade också sina regler för långivning för att kunna ställa upp med 30 miljarder euro. Innan mötet den 9 maj gällde regeln att fonden hade rätt att ge lån till en stat enbart om det kunde hjälpa till att sanera statsskulden och göra den uthärdlig (sustainable på finansspråk).
Inför mötet presenterade IMF:s ledning en ny regel som gjorde det möjligt att ställa upp med lån trots att de 30 miljarderna uppenbarligen skulle förvärra skulden och göra den omöjlig att återbetala.

Utan omröstning gällde plötsligt en ny regel, nämligen att IMF kan låna ut pengar till en stat om det finns en risk att landets skuldproblem kan leda till en internationell finanskris. Vilket naturligtvis bevisar att lånet till Grekland handlade om de tyska och franska bankernas hälsa och inte den grekiska statens.
I diagrammet här under syns tydligt hur de europeiska bankerna från och med 2010 och det första ”stödpaketet” kunde göra sig av med i stort sett hela den riskfyllda exponeringen gentemot Grekland.

I nästa diagram ser vi vilka länders banker som lånat ut mest till Grekland. Som sagts var det mest de franska och tyska bankerna som profiterat på de höga räntorna i Grekland. Men även holländska banker hade lånat ut stora belopp utan hänsyn till riskerna. ECB fanns ju i kulisserna, med makt att omvandla de privata skulderna till hela det grekiska folkets skuld.

I ett vips hade så 110 miljarder euro lagts till den grekiska statsskulden som nu verkligen exploderade. Men inte till följd av grekernas ”slöseri” och ”lathet” utan till följd av en medveten lögnkampanj i syfte att omvandla en privat skuldsättning till en offentlig skuld som alla greker nu betalar i form av en extrem åtstramningspolitik och en humanitär och social katastrof. Resten är bara historia. Redan 2012 följde ett nytt ”stödpaket”, denna gång på 130 miljarder euro. På nytt var det pengar som inte syftade till att reda upp den ekonomiska situationen i landet, angripa krisen på arbetsmarknaden eller i sjukvården. Nej de grekiska privata bankerna skulle räddas från kollaps genom tillförsel av ”friskt” kapital.

Det fanns hopp om att Syriza och Tsipras skulle ta kamp för ett annat Europa

 När Syriza vann parlamentsvalet i januari 2015 föddes ett stort hopp bland de som i fyra år manglats av Trojkans och den grekiska regeringens åtstramningspolitik, av de som sett pensioner, sjukvård, skolor och annan offentlig service raseras av den kriminella politik som Bryssel tvingat på landet.

Hoppet skulle snabbt släckas, sa Zoe Konstantopoulou till det hundratal parlamentsledamöter och inbjudna som närvarade vid mötet. Tonen var mycket hård mot Syrizas vägval.

-Det var ett förräderi mot Zyrizas valplattform och de löften vår valseger byggde på, sa Zoe. Redan i februari stod det klart att Tsipras tillsammans med andra ledare i partiet tänkte gå med på krav som bara en månad innan var otänkbara. I det avtal som Tsipras skrev under stod det svart på vitt att Grekland förband sig att till fullo betala tillbaka hela den grekiska statsskulden. Borta var kravet på en skuldavskrivning som alla visste var enda vägen för att ha en chans att stoppa den sociala och humanitära katastrof som redan var på gång. Det var förräderiets konkreta betydelse.

Det har sagts att den nya vänsterregeringen inte hade något alternativ. Sanningskommissionens rapport visar att det är falskt. Rapporten innehåller fakta som den grekiska regeringen hade kunnat använda för att ta strid med Trojkan på ett effektivare sätt. I stället för att inbilla sig och andra att det var möjligt att föra givande förhandlingar med Bryssel hade rapporten kunnat användas som ett riktigt slagträ. I stället valde Tsipras att helt ignorera det arbete som kommissionen utfört.

Det fanns klara möjligheter att till och med använda sig av EU:s eget regelverk. I regeln 472 som antogs av Europaparlamentet i maj 2013 finns det åtminstone en bra artikel bland alla dåliga, nämligen artikel 7 paragraf 9 som säger att varje medlemsstat som erhåller lån ska genomföra en revision av lånen för att undersöka hur statsskulden uppstått, om den är legitim eller inte.

Det är den enda paragrafen som aldrig använts. Inte någon gång har EU-kommissionen uppmanat låntagare med stora statsskulder som, Grekland, Portugal, Irland och Spanien att göra en revision av statsskulden. Innehållet i Sanningskommissionens rapport är explosivt eftersom den visar att huvuddelen av statsskulden är av illegitimt, olagligt eller rent av odiöst ursprung, det vill säga att det handlar om lån som inte tjänat den grekiska befolkningens eller landets ekonomiska intressen.
I stället valde Tsipras och hans regering att överge alla sina vallöften och bli ett lydigt verktyg i Trojkans händer. Det går att spekulera kring orsakerna till den absoluta kapitulationen, vilka psykologiska faktorer som spelade in, vilka farhågor som den unge premiärministern hade inför hotet att tvingas ut ur eurozonen. Oavsett det så kvarstår faktum. Tsipras har accepterat rollen som åtstramningsminister i en regering som inte längre har någon aspekt av vänster över sig. Från en valseger på ett antikapitalistiskt program till en åtstramningsministär på mindre än ett år. Sällan eller aldrig har ett svek mot hoppfulla väljare gått så snabbt.

Den sociala nedrustningen och den humanitära krisen som drabbat befolkningen sedan 2010 saknar motstycke i modern tid. Inget land i Europa har upplevt något liknande sedan den stora depressionen på trettitalet. Pratet om att det äntligen finns ljus i tunneln stämmer tyvärr inte. Efter en kort och darrande återhämtning i fjol höst sjunker på nytt landets ekonomi sedan början av året och nu kräver huliganerna i Trojkan att regeringen ska göra ännu större ingrepp i de statliga utgifterna för pensioner, undervisning och sjukvård. Annars kan det bli fråga om en ”grexit” på nytt, hotar man. Inga krav på sänkta militärutgifter däremot, naturligtvis.

-Ge upp eller lämna eurozonen var det val Merkel gav.

På mötet i Europaparlamentet hänvisade Zoe Konstantopoulou till några av de mest skrämmande fakta som visar den sociala katastrof som råder.

Bland unga kvinnor är 72 % arbetslösa och bland unga män är 60 % utan arbeten. Inom arbetskraften som helhet är nu 27 % utan arbeten. Möjligheterna till att bygga upp vad som raserats minskar på grund av utflyttning. Inte mindre än 300 000 unga forskare har flyttat utomlands för att fortsätta sina studier och framför allt för att finna jobb.

Siffran 300 000 gäller också för hur många små och medelstora företag som gått omkull sedan strypsnaran drogs åt av Bryssel med benägen hjälp av regeringarna Papandreou och Saramas och Tsipras sedan januari 2015.

Zoe talade om skolor utan böcker och ibland även utan lärare. Offentliga sjukhus saknar i vissa fall helt läkare och det går en sjuksköterska på 40 patienter. Cancerpatienter och HIV-smittade får inte den vård de behöver.

-Folk visste att pratet om slöseri var falskt. De såg nämligen aldrig till de offentliga ’överinvesteringarna’ som de påstods ha njutit av och som skulle ha rättfärdigat den offentliga skuldsättningen, sa hon.

Mötet slutade trots allt i en optimistisk ton. Zoe Konstantopoulous hoppas att en dag en ny regering skulle kunna använda Sanningskommissionens rapport om hur den grekiska statsskulden uppstod till följd av illegitim skuldsättning för att kunna säga nej till diktaten från Bryssel.

Det behövs inte sägas att det endast kan ske om en folklig mobilisering gör sig av med den regering som så grovt förrådde de som valde den.

Benny Åsman

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Grande finale! Alexis Tsipras spelar fyrhändigt både med Benjamin Netanyahu och Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi!

Alexis Tsipras och hans parti Syriza har definitivt gjort en skarp U-sväng också när det gäller utrikespolitiken. Israels Benjamin Netanyahu och Egyptens Abdul Fatah al-Sisi är Tsipras nya vänner.

Det är sällan som vår intelligens där uppe i skallen låter den ena handen motarbeta den andra. Både reflexer och mer medvetna beslut ser till att våra händer samarbetar.

Detta upplevde jag inte minst i går när jag inte för ett ögonblick kunde släppa blicken från den ryske ekvilibristen Daniil Trofonov och hans tio fingrar när dessa under Nobelkonserten i Sergej Rachmaninovs tredje pianokonsert for fram över flygelns tangenter – ibland som vingslag från fjärilar, ibland som rasande trumpinnar…

Sak samma är det med våra politiska partier och deras inrikes- respektive utrikespolitik. Förr eller senare samarbetar både reflexmässiga ställningstaganden och medvetna beslut så att politiken blir sammanhängande och konsekvent.

På hemmaplan iscensätter Syriza den av kapitalet begärda massakern på välfärden, landets mindre jordbrukare drivs i konkurs och stora nationella tillgångar som flygfält och hamnar väntar på nya utländska ägare.

I utrikespolitiken har Syrizas försvarare tidigare försökt att skylla på sin lilla koalitionspartner, nationalisterna i De Oberoende grekerna. Utrikesministern Nikos Kotzias som i somras sa att grekerna måste ”lära sig att älska Israel” kom från denna reaktionära lilla juniorpartner liksom försvarsministern Panos Kammenos som bekräftat sin kärlek till Israel genom att fortsätta de militära samövningarna med denna nykoloniala apartheidstat.

Men nu kan gycklarna som försöker försvara Syriza kasta sina teatermasker. Vänster- och högerhand i den grekiska regeringen är helt samspelta. När Tsipras i slutet av november kom till Jerusalem, för att hjärtligt och mycket jovialiskt diskutera gemensamma ekonomiska projekt (”Greker och israeler har en naturlig samhörighet” hette det på presskonferensen), passade den forne vänsterledaren på att i ett storslaget politiskt finalissimo göra det som inte ens Washington vågat, alltså att i praktiken erkänna det annekterade Jerusalem, vilket ligger på ockuperad mark, som Israels legitima huvudstad: ”Det är en stor ära att få vara i er historiska huvudstad”, utbrast han underdånigt samtidigt som han signerade Netanyahus ”Gyllene gästbok”. Väl hemma i Aten tackade Tsipras för besöket genom att låta sin regering meddela att Grekland struntar i EU:s krav på att produkter från det ockuperade Västbanken inte får märkas med ”Made in Israel”.

Lägligt nog kom också Israels nära samarbetspartner, Egyptens al-Sisi, till Aten i tisdags. ”Ert besök inleder en ny period av nära samarbete mellan våra två länder”, underströk Tsipras. ”Nära band mellan Grekland och Egypten kan bli en katalysator för regional stabilitet”, menade han vidare och syftade då främst på gemensamma militära projekt ”i kampen mot terrorismen”. Al-Sisi för sin del betonade förnöjt att Grekland på “ett uppriktigt sätt fört Egyptens röst (åsikter) vidare till våra europeiska vänner”.

Grande finale! Alexis Tsipras spelar fyrhändigt både med Benjamin Netanyahu och Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi! Inrikes- och utrikespolitik i en samspelad reaktionär symfoni.

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Trojkans hot om « grexit » var en bluff.

Bara några dagar innan det grekiska parlamentsvalet avslöjar den Europeiska Centralbankens vice ordförande i en sensationell intervju att hotet om att utesluta Grekland från eurozonen ”aldrig var på allvar”.
-Det hade inte varit lagligt, säger Vitor Constâncio till Reuters med hänvisning till att det i unionens konstitution saknas en mekanism för att tvinga en medlemsstat att lämna eller sparkas ut.
Inför valet den 5 juli var det en annan ton i skällan. Fransmannen Benoit Coeuré, direktör i ECB, sa då att ”en grexit som bara varit en teoretisk möjlighet inte längre kan uteslutas.” Och Vitor Constâncio sa själv att ECB stryper inte krediterna till de grekiska bankerna om inte Eurogruppen begär det. Kom då ihåg att den berömda ”eurogruppen” är en informell samling bestående av eurozonens finansministrar, vald av ingen och utan grund i konstitutionen.
Mycket riktigt agerade ECB som springpojke åt Eurogruppen eftersom banken stängde krediterna till de grekiska bankerna som tvingade dem att stänga, vilket också tvingade regeringen Tsipras på knä. Att nu ECB säger att hotet ”aldrig var på allvar” ställer Tsipras i svårigheter eftersom han ursäktade kapitulationen med argumentet att hans regering inte ”hade något val”. Han var tydligen för snabb att lyssna till Schäubles brösttoner.


Den franska finanstidningen La Tribune pekar i en artikel på ett par konsekvenser som följer av Vitor Constâncios uttalande.
-ECB:s trovärdighet drabbas hårt av medgivandet. Här har vi en av världens mäktigaste centralbanker som roar sig med att slänga ut hot mot den egna valutans framtid och struktur, skriver La Tribune och fortsätter:
-Institutionen i Frankfurt (ECB) lät sig alltså villigt bli ett komplement i Schäubles strategi och långivarnas politiska målsättningar.
-Än en gång så har ECB drivit en form av utpressning mot en demokratiskt vald regering i unionen. Det verkar närmast bli en metod för förvaltningen av euron. Utpressningsmetoden användes redan mot Irland 2010 och mot Cypern 2013.

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G2 mellan hopp och förtvivlan i kålrotens tecken.

Toppmötet i Alefjäll gick som vanligt av stapeln i september. Inte för kallt för lite promenader. Inte för varmt för att orka diskutera och skriva. Kort sagt ideala förhållanden för ett toppmöte till vilket vi bara inbjudit oss själva. Givande prat och god mat njuter man bäst av på tum man hand.

Politiska diskussioner, korridorprat och inte minst en tur i ekan med kamraten Tomas Johansson för att testa fiskelyckan i Ljungskiles vatten stod på dagordningen. Som synes ett avslappnat program i paritet med toppmötets inflytande över världspolitiken. Vi är vad vi är –två gamlingar som likt gubbarna på balkongen i Muppet show kommenterar om allt och alla.

På väg ut till fiskevattnen.

Men ålder och självkännedom är inget hinder för att inse att under det gångna året i Europa har vi upplevt den mest dramatiska politiska händelsen sedan den portugisiska revolutionen våren 1974. Det grekiska dramat har hållit oss i ett mentalt järngrepp alltsedan vänsterpartiet Syriza vann det grekiska parlamentsvalet i januari.

Trots snart fyrtio år i Bryssel sitter spöt i handen som det ska.

Vi var entusiastiska och hoppfulla eftersom Syrizas raketfart upp till största partiet från att bara några år tidigare legat kring fyra procent i opinionen visade att den reaktionära åtstramningspolitik som Europas borgare tvingar på befolkningen i land efter land inte går obemött fram.

De traditionella partierna som de grekiska sossarna i Pasok smälte ihop till obefintlighet på kort tid efter att ännu 2009 haft egen majoritet i parlamentet. Vi ser det som bevis för att de som talar i de arbetandes namn och samtidigt driver på den nyliberala agendan i Europa inte ostraffat gör som de vill. Det finns en smärtgräns där vanliga människor, i industri, service och administration, får nog och där deras frustration helt plötsligt tar sig parlamentariska uttryck. Då kan gamla partier som regerat i decennier kastas på sophögen av väljarna på nolltid.

G2-mötet präglas varje år av intensiv aktivitet.

Syriza vid makten gav hopp men Tsipras regering visade redan i februari att viljan att nå ett avtal med Trojkan var större än beredskapen att med alla medel sätta stopp för den katastrofala åtstramningspolitiken som drivit Grekland till ruinens brant.

På nytt tändes ett starkt hopp när befolkningen med ett rungande Oxi uppmanade Tsipras och hans regering att stå upp för Oxi och vägra diktaten från Bryssel. Men hoppet följdes omedelbart av förtvivlan när Tsipras valde att tolka ett nej till Trojkans åtstramningspolitik som ett ja till nya förhandlingar i Bryssel, där det snabbt visade sig att rädslan för att ta ett steg ut i det okända var starkare än viljan att infria de vallöften som lyft fram Syriza som språkrör för majoriteten av landets arbetande.

Syrizas kapitulation inför Trojkans absoluta Nein till lättnader i den ekonomiska politiken är ett stort nederlag, för den grekiska vänstern i sin helhet eftersom den gått försvagad ur kraftmätningen med Bryssel. Det är också ett stort nederlag för den radikala vänstern i hela Europa eftersom den visade sig sakna tillräcklig kraft för att mobilisera till solidaritet med det grekiska folkets kamp för ett stopp på den nyliberala krispolitiken.

Vaktchefen ständigt på hugget innanför dörren

Ja, hopp och förtvivlan dominerar som sagt. Men det finns nyanser på skalan mellan hoppet och desperationen. I kålrotens tecken finns också vänskap och livsglädje för att inte tala om matglädje. När makrillen från utfärden med resen Johansson var uppäten, fanns det skaldjur från Ale torgs fiskhandel att njut av. Vaktchefen Freja som blivit lite rund om magen sedan fjolårets vaktpass hade inte heller i år mycket att göra. Inga attentatsmän syntes till och hon kunde ägna sig åt smaskiga rester.

Är det toppmöte måste deltagarna spisa kungligt.

Festmiddagen som avslutade det i Alefjäll världsberyktade toppmötet gick inte av för hackor samt speglade deltagarnas ålder och kultur. Den kokta läggen och senapen passade perfekt med rotmoset. Kålrotens år är slut. Vilket tecken nästa års möte kommer att hållas under vet bara de politiska gudarna. Kanske i den spanska paellans.

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Värdefull intervju med den grekiska marxisten Costas Lapavitsas

 

Här en längre intervju i Jacobin gjord av Sebastian Budgen med den grekiska marxisten Costas Lapavitsas , professor i ekonomi och ledamot av det grekiska parlamentet, där han diskuterar Syrizas månader vid makten, ledningens kapitulation, Vänsterplattformens roll, den eurokritiska europeiska vänsterns relation till den extrema högern samt svårigheter och möjligheter för det nybildade partiet/rörelse Folklig Enhet.

”För att ha en Plan B måste man förstå den klasspolitik som den monetära unionen och EU handlar om, du måste vara beredd på en akut klasskonflikt och förbereda folket för denna konflikt. En sådan plan skapar du inte på en kväll. Det är omöjligt. Dessutom krävs ett ledarskap som har lite stål i ryggraden och jag är rädd för att Syrizas ledarskap helt saknar detta.”
”… under de sista månaderna med vänsterregeringen Syriza så kunde Vänsterplattformen ha varit djärvare, modigare och mer beslutsam när det gällde att föra fram dessa alternativa idéer i det offentliga rummet. Den kunde ha varit mer beslutsam när det gällde att komma ut med dokument, fört fram synpunkter och tvingat fram en kritisk debatt om ledarskapets handlingar.”
“Vare sig franska eller andra vänsterkrafter i Europa som är mot euron eller skeptiska till den ska ha någonting att göra med sig den organiserade extremhögern och då i synnerhet den fascistiska högern”.

A rally during the leadup to July's referendum in Athens. SiV-Athens / Flickr

” It’s been an intense period since we last spoke, marked by several major events. The breakdown of negotiations, the call by Tsipras for a referendum, and then effectively the day after the referendum, a capitulation to the eurogroup. Was this sequence a surprise to you, how do you analyze what happened?

These were obviously very dense historical events, highly accelerated. I’m sure that people will keep talking about them in the future, and they will also look for more evidence, because there is an element of obscurity about them, we don’t know exactly what happened.
What I could do right now is tell you how I experienced them and how they feel at the moment.

I supported Syriza in good faith, fielded elections under its banner, and fought for the success of its radical program. The call for a referendum by Tsipras looked like a clear decision by the leadership to push the radical line to the end.

I and many others were enthused by it, and the support by the poorest part of the population was breathtaking.

So you weren’t surprised by the decision?

I was very surprised by the decision. It seemed like a very determined act that was going to take Greek politics to the point of no return. I had hoped for such a development previously but the leadership never gave me much confidence that it was going to do it.

Then Tsipras called for a referendum and it seemed that we were indeed heading for a radical break. The response by the popular strata was remarkable, and the referendum result was astounding in the face of naked scaremongering. It appeared that important events were about to take place in Greece and more generally.

Important events did take place but, of course, not in the direction I had hoped for. The complete sellout that followed was breathtaking.

It indicated that the leadership of Syriza had called for the referendum without strategic determination, it was just a tactical move.

You think they called for the referendum thinking they were not going to win it, or that they would win it and it would be used as leverage for capitulation?

They certainly did not expect to win it with a thumping majority. That I can tell you. What the precise calculation was I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter. But I can tell you they did not expect to win it quite in that way.

It was a big shock, I’m sure, to them and to others as well. The vast sellout that followed proved that the referendum was just tactics and settled the discussion about the nature and the future of Syriza.

Even so, the referendum might well prove to be a strategic act in practice because the resounding victory of “No” has given to the radical left a legitimizing basis. It is because of the “No” in the referendum that we exist as a political force.

But, given that what was accepted by Syriza the day after was worse than what was being voted on anyway, how does it make any sense from Tsipras’s perspective? Was it simply because the leadership got blindsided by the results and panicked? Or was it because they were really expecting to use the results of the referendum to negotiate some substantial improvements?

Tsipras made a huge mistake by calling for a referendum, that’s clear. But I think that you need to move into the realm of psychology to understand the decision-making by the Syriza leadership at that point.

I don’t really know why they did it. I think that rationality was abandoned by that group of people a long time ago. They live in their own world and believe in their own fictions. I can’t tell what the calculation was behind the referendum and how they meant to use it.

It’s also possible that they panicked when the result presented itself, realizing the enormous difficulties in dealing with it and turning the “No” into a “Yes”. I don’t know what calculations they made and to be honest it doesn’t really matter.

You must have thought about it though?

I think that what is important is not the petty calculations about the referendum but what the actual turnout shows about the leadership. For a long time many of us had been in two minds whether the leadership, particularly Alexis Tsipras, had some mettle in it.

Which way would Tsipras jump when the real class issues were put on the table? Until the week after the referendum, the answer was still in the balance. Tsipras had managed to keep everyone guessing, there was an element of doubt, which meant that people couldn’t decide for sure what this guy would do when the critical political and social dilemmas emerged sharply.

The week after the referendum the question was answered. Tsipras didn’t have the mettle. He didn’t have what leaders of the Left are expected to have when confronted by ruthless class interest. He sided with the ruling class.

So apart from the meeting he had with the representatives of the opposition parties, one of his first acts was to replace Yanis Varoufakis as finance minister with Euclid Tsakalotos. How would you characterize both those as economists and political actors, contrasting them, leaving aside the celebrity magazine rubbish?

The act of replacing Varoufakis with Tsakalotos, in hindsight, was the first indication that the “No” of the referendum was not going to be a “No” in practice. It’s true that Varoufakis had had some trouble in conducting the negotiations and being accepted by the lenders.

But his replacement was much more than that. Tsipras was basically telling us, “I’m not going to go the way of the No”.

When I look more closely at Varoufakis and Tsakalotos, I have to say that both are disappointing, though for different reasons. Varoufakis has made hundreds of different declarations during this crisis and it’s hard to know what he truly believes in.

I’m far from the only person who thinks that. It’s hard to know what is the opinion of Yanis Varoufakis is on any particular subject. That’s widely perceived in Greece. It is, of course, true that he has had an incredibly difficult job. But it is hard to see the guiding principle in the way in which he handled the job.

Tsakalotos is made of different stuff. He has distanced himself from Varoufakis and never played the media in the same way. However, deep down, Tsakalotos is even more disappointing than Varoufakis because he has made an enormous compromise.

Unlike Varoufakis, it was always clear what Tsakalotos believed in: a kind of redistributive and transnational reformism within the European Union, that’s what he has always argued for. His tragedy is that the bailout deal he has personally signed allows for no such reformism, and he knows it.

The biggest surrender, the greatest loss of credibility, was actually made by Tsakalotos. He now finds himself in a pitiful moral position, which perfectly sums up the conservative transformation of Syriza and the abandonment of left-wing beliefs.

But, in theoretical terms, he’s more consistently a Marxist than Varoufakis, or not?

Not really. Both of them have, of course, read and understand Marx as well as being highly-trained economists. But I wouldn’t call Tsakalotos a consistent Marxist. Certainly he appreciates Marx, he understands the categories, there’s no question of that.

But his preference was always for a kind of redistributive reform of the capitalist economy within the confines of the European Union and the European Monetary Union that allowed for none of Marx’s inherent radicalism. And now he has abandoned even that vision.

It’s true what you say about Varoufakis. It’s amazing that he can speak so much, give so many interviews, and publish so much on his blog and still be so difficult to read as a person. His voting record on the agreement itself is very erratic. He abstained first — he wasn’t present for the first vote; he voted against the agreement for the second vote; and then he voted for it at the third vote. And what we’ve seen from outside Greece is that he’s blowing hot and cold about both Tsipras and Popular Unity. Now he’s launched this rather idiosyncratic idea of this “European network”. Can you offer any insight on what his game plan, if there is one, might be or does he just want to be the center of media attention?

I don’t think there is a game plan, to be honest. Yanis Varoufakis has had an incredible career, he’s become a global celebrity on the back of Syriza success. That’s finished, it’s irretrievably gone. All the main actors of this period will be judged very harshly by history because it has been a dramatic failure.

Varoufakis is now, in my reading, trying to rescue his political career, trying to find a new political role for himself in the coming period. But his stock is not high among the Greek left, and internationally there is a lack of trust in what he says. This idea of this European network, or party, will not go very far, I think.

Now, of course, one thing that did come out in the aftermath of this sequence was his “revelations” of his Plan B which he had been working on which involved a plan to hack illegally into the tax records of the Greek state using an external agency and then use this information to be able to produce a parallel payments system in the case of an exit from the euro. First of all, were you aware of this at the time, and also what you think of this “plan B” (or “plan X” as he calls it)?

Look, this is not serious. That’s not what anyone would understand as a plan to change the currency of Greece. Perhaps an idea of this kind was floated, some discussions were had, something was drafted. I never saw any of that, but I’m prepared to say that a brief outline was drafted.

Yet, there was no plan and I can prove it. Yanis Varoufakis has himself uploaded on his blog a communication by Jamie Galbraith in which Jamie mentions a phone call to me that took place well after these events were over. Now, Jamie was very closely involved with Yanis at all stages, he was one of his close confidants, he travelled to Greece very frequently.

He states explicitly — as he also told me in that single phone call — that there never was a Plan B. Their group had never formulated a Plan B. In fact he called me to check whether I had developed a plan because they knew that I had been working on these ideas on my own and quite separately from anything that official Syriza was doing.

There never was a serious Plan B by the Syriza leadership and the reason is that they were never seriously interested in having one. To have a Plan B, you have to understand the class politics of the monetary union and the European Union, you have to be prepared for acute class struggle and you have to prepare the people for conflict.

Such a plan cannot be produced in an evening. It’s impossible. Moreover, it requires a leadership that has some steel in its backbone, and I’m afraid that the Syriza leadership has none.

Would you say that one of the weaknesses of the Left Platform as well was that the struggle over a Plan B was kept as an internal party concern and it wasn’t taken outside the party, and there wasn’t much popular pedagogy about a Plan B, outside of the inner circles as it were? That allowed for a certain number of accusations to be thrown at people around the Left Platform that they were the “plot for the drachma”, that they were obsessed with the currency question at the expense of everything else (and the media added rumors about threats to arrest the governor of the national bank and take over the gold reserves and whatnot).

Do you think, retrospectively, that there was a certain kind of legitimism, that all these issues were kept within the party and not taken outside to an open national debate about these questions?

I would say two things about the Left Platform and how it handled this issue. First, it was extremely difficult to raise the question of the Plan B for a very long time. Cast your mind back to January, February, March, April, even much of May: Syriza had enormous domestic support and great international support.

It was practically impossible for a small opposition group within the party to come out openly with arguments and positions about a Plan B that contradicted the main thrust of the leadership.

Second, and possibly in hindsight, during the last couple months of the Syriza government the Left Platform could have been bolder, braver, more decisive, about pushing these alternative ideas into the public domain. It could have been more determined in coming out with documents, making points, forcing a critical debate about the actions of the leadership.

Not doing so was a mistake and we are paying the price right now because people are turning around and asking “Where were you then?” It’s not an entirely fair criticism, of course, because the Left Platform had always registered its misgivings, but there it is.

In my case, moreover, it is even stronger than that. I’ve never been a member of the Left Platform formally but I’ve been extremely close to it. Throughout this period I’ve always registered publicly my criticisms of what the Syriza government was doing, usually at some personal cost.

But perhaps I, like the rest of us, could have been even more forthcoming. The documents were there, the problems of the official line were clearer and clearer . . . in the end, we didn’t and we have to live with that.

So the current sequence consists of a left split away from Syriza to create the new organization of Popular Unity, elections being called for September, a certain amount of differentiation within the ranks of Syriza with figures such as Zoe Konstantopoulou announcing their support for Popular Unity, while other sections perhaps more formally close to the Left Platform allying themselves with the leadership of Syriza.

Finally, some talk at least of a national unity government between Syriza and the centrist parties if, as is likely, Syriza does not have an absolute majority.

The new configuration of Greek politics is very much a work in progress. It’s impossible to sum it up at this stage, it’s just begun. I can tell you that the split was forced by the Syriza leadership by calling an election when they had other options which they had aired for a bit but in the end decided the risks were too great and abandoned them. They went for an election in the hope that they would win it, isolate the left of Syriza and live happily ever after in the promised land of the new bailout.

The Left Platform worked out what was happening and acted very rapidly as soon as it became clear that the leadership would call an election. It was clear that the Left Platform could not possibly fight the election as a part of a Syriza that had signed up to the new bailout because that would have meant abandoning every principle, every programmatic statement, everything it had stood for. That forced the issue: a new political formation was created, Popular Unity.

Popular Unity is not a party and I don’t think it is going to become one. It was conceived initially — and basically remains — an anti-bailout front that accepts all individuals and bodies which want to work for a consistent anti-bailout strategy.

What makes it different to Syriza is, first, its credibility since its MPs actually said “No” in Parliament and, second, its anti-bailout program which states clearly that implementing an alternative path for Greece is impossible without exiting the monetary union.

For Popular Unity the introduction of a new national currency is a means of implementing the radical program the country needs.

Naturally, Popular Unity has turned first to the left and addressed the small parties of the extra-parliamentary left that have shared part of its approach for a long time. This fact has pluses and minuses.

The plus is that there are very many excellent people in the extra-parliamentary left which could make strong contributions to both the political practice and the program of Popular Unity. The minus is the well-known baggage of the extra-parliamentary left: factionalism, looking inwards and, in the case of Greece, “know-all-ism”, which could actually be found throughout the Greek political spectrum.

So Popular Unity is a work in progress, since it is a very task to marry all these organizations and currents within the Left. It’s a very dynamic mix and, like all dynamic mixes, it could potentially fall apart, or even explode.

At the same time, Popular Unity has managed to attract quite a few small organizations and individuals that come from the other direction of the political spectrum. It is not true that it is simply an alliance of left fragments.

We have a significant number of people — individuals mostly but also some small organizations — that do not come from the Left. They understand the importance of saying “No” to the policies of the bailout and the need for a national currency. They have been welcomed with open arms.

So including your right wing “sovereigntist” types, like ANEL?

Individuals from ANEL but, of course, not the party itself. I don’t think there’s any problem with that. This is a longstanding left-wing tradition. The Bolsheviks in Soviet Russia did the same thing after the revolution.

If the individuals have a consistent and honorable track record on the key issues and they’re serious about their commitment to the political direction of the Popular Unity, that’s fine.

The reason I’m asking the question is that, in France, this has taken a rather sharp form in the past few days. Jacques Sapir — a former student of Charles Bettelheim and one of the leading left economists, who is quite close to your position on the euro — followed Stefano Fassina’s [Fassina is an MP for the left of the Democratic Party in Italy and former deputy finance minister] call for the creation of what he describes as “an alliance of national liberation committees” against the euro and an end to “sectarian” refusals to create alliances with right-wing sovereigntist groups and with the National Front (who have of course cited Sapir and others in their anti-euro propaganda). What do you think about that?

Yes, I’m aware of that and I really don’t know what came over Sapir, whom I’ve known for a long time. I can only explain it as a (I hope) temporary but very major lapse of some sort. I’m truly sorry about it. It’s not a good development.

I would obviously differentiate between Stefano Fassina and Marine Le Pen. I think that the French and other European anti-euro and eurosceptic left forces should have nothing to do with the organized extreme right and certainly the fascist right.

They should build Chinese walls between them, and should refuse any kind of give-and-take with those people. The call that Sapir has made is a very bad mistake and the kind of thing that ruins one’s political standing forever.

In the case of Greece, I hasten to add, things are a bit different. First, ANEL are not fascists and in any case Popular Unity has no truck with them as a party. Second, and more to the point, the Greek fascists, Golden Dawn, are actually turning tail on the question of the euro, contrary to what the rest of the European extreme right appears to be doing.

They are certainly talking about “National Production,” I presume in corporatist form, which is what extreme rightists and fascists always do, but it is somehow going to happen in Greece without changing the national currency.

This is obviously nonsense, and it’s quite interesting to remember that they used to make a lot of noise about the euro. In any case, they are now following a different line compared to the European extreme right, which makes life a lot easier for us.

Popular Unity are the only body in Greek politics which openly and clearly says that a radical program for Greece could not be implemented without a national currency. I would like to stress that the Communist Party is also not very brave on this issue, and is actually playing some shameful politics.

Indeed, the CP is fudging the issue in quite a unique way that would have been amusing, if it was not so bad. Presumably, the question of the euro will resolve itself in the way every other major social issue will resolve itself, namely with the rise of workers’ power, perhaps after a socialist revolution.

In the meantime, apparently, exiting the EMU could be disastrous for workers, and so people should grit their teeth within the EMU and fight for socialism, which will eventually solve everything. This argument is sad not only because it is incoherent but also because the CP has very important forces that could be brought to bear in the struggles that lie ahead.

So what do you think are the prospects for Popular Unity? That all bets are off and anything could happen between now and the election, or that it has to admit it won’t be forming the next government and therefore will have to play a different role, in opposition, to whatever government is formed?

I think you would have to be living on a different planet to believe that Popular Unity could form the next government in Greece. Forming a new government on the 21st of September is not what Popular Unity is about.

What really would be a great success would be to for Popular Unity to emerge as the third largest party in Greek politics, with a significant proportion of the votes, possibly in double digits. That would indicate a strong dynamic that could lead ultimately to power. After all, it would make no sense at all for Popular Unity to aim to be a party of opposition. It should target power in the short term.

The question is whether it will achieve this aim in the forthcoming election, and the evidence is very mixed. The first week or two after its formation were generally chaotic. People were confused, asking what was going on, and what exactly is Popular Unity? This is quite natural. In politics you don’t gain visibility and name recognition just because you appear on the scene.

In addition, during those early weeks, there have been enormous organizational problems — no institutional structure, no mechanisms and procedures, nothing. That has had an impact on democratic processes within the organization, and many key decisions have had to be made on an ad hoc basis. All that has been very difficult and many mistakes have been made, I have to say.

The critical period for Popular Unity will be the last two weeks before the election. It must do two things. First, come out with a clear programmatic statement that would help it become more visible. Working people want to be able to make a choice and come to a decision on a strong basis.

Second, make well-known people its public face, and thus gain credibility among the electorate in the little time that is left. I think that it has an excellent opportunity to become a decisive force in Greek politics, but it will depend very much on its own actions, on how it delivers in practice.

One of the immediate consequences of a good result for Popular Unity would be to deprive Syriza of an absolute majority and then they will have to choose coalition partners. Most likely, they will look to their right but, depending on how the chips fall, an alliance with Popular Unity may be their only option for staying in government. What would be the red lines of such a discussion?

Let me first of all say the reason why Syriza will probably not have a majority, never mind form a government by itself, is not Popular Unity, but the complete sellout by its leadership, which is beginning to be understood by the electorate very, very widely and is being registered in the polls.

It’s not Popular Unity that is depriving Syriza of a majority but the astounding fact that a party of the Left that has promised so much has delivered practically nothing and in the end actually adopted wholesale the program of the opposition! When a party — especially of the Left — loses credibility in that way, it never really regains it.

Don’t forget that Syriza exploded in the polls out of nothing, it has never had strong social and organizational foundations. It has been said many times that it could implode just as fast, and its sellout might well indicate that this process has started. That, however, leaves a practical political problem after the election. If Syriza can’t form a government by itself, what will happen?

There are five main parties in parliament at the moment: Syriza, ANEL, New Democracy, which is the traditional party of the right, Pasok, which is the old social-democratic party, and To Potami, a new outfit that God knows what it stands for but which somehow positions itself as center-left.

All these parties have exactly the same program for the country, namely the new bailout program. You could not put a sheet of paper between them in that regard, and their only differences are about how best to implement the bailout.

It is easy to see, then, that after the election, no matter what these parties are saying now, there could be alliances among them to form government. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if a government was actually formed between Syriza and New Democracy.

For, what are the programmatic differences between them? Such a government would obviously be a political Frankenstein and it wouldn’t survive for very long because the bailout program is disastrous, but it might still come to pass. Similarly, it would surprise me even less if Syriza formed a coalition government with Pasok and To Potami.

Something like that will probably materialize, which would obviously be shameful for Syriza supporters and members, but such is such becomes the life of politics when a sellout has been made.

For Popular Unity, if the issue of alliances came to the table, it should be against any kind of alliance with a party that has adopted a pro-bailout position. Syriza is beyond the pale, because its program is now the bailout.

I have no trust at all in its leadership and, as far as I’m concerned, Syriza is finished for the Left. Of course, not its members, voters, and supporters, but its leadership is dead and buried for the Left.

An alliance between Syriza and Popular Unity would also be a political Frankenstein and I wouldn’t want to be around to witness it.

And you think that view is shared among Popular Unity leadership?

I would be very surprised if it wasn’t shared. I would be very surprised.

One of the things that has emerged out of this shakeup is a certain realignment among the European left. We mentioned the declarations by Stefano Fassina. Jean-Luc Mélenchon as well has terminated his solidarity with Tsipras and welcomed the formation of Popular Unity and is now agitating for a European-wide Plan B conference with Oskar Lafontaine. What do you think of those proposals and do they herald a realignment of the European left, with a greater clarity about the limitations of the European Union and EMU?

Yes, I think they do herald a new beginning, the reawakening of the European left from a very long slumber. I think the European left went on some kind of bad trip for several decades. It lost its bearings, it adopted lock, stock and barrel arguments that have essentially emanated from the ruling class.

It came to believe that the forms of political and other integration at the European level — the European Union, the monetary union — were somehow inherently progressive and what the Left needed to do was to improve them. It’s almost as if the Left lost all memory of its historical past, of its place in European politics, its role in the history of Europe.

During this period it has been incredibly difficult to say to people, look, these institutions have been created by the capitalist class, they are not inherently good, we have to be critical of their very existence and not merely arguing about the sub-clauses of legislation.

It has been incredibly difficult, above all, to put alternative proposals on the table that disputed the existence of these institutions from a left-wing standpoint.

The experience of Syriza has shaken these Europeanist beliefs to the core. At long last, the Left of Europe, the leading radical thinkers and politicians in Europe, have begun to see what’s going on.

I should hasten to add that Oskar Lafontaine has been fully aware of the direction taken by the monetary union long before Syriza sold the pass. Yet, it’s a very important development that others have now come to a similar conclusion. It is very hopeful.

Still, I don’t know whether we need a Europe-wide conference for a Plan B. I think more work needs to be done before that. The French left, the Spanish left, and especially the German left, need to come out with their own proposals about how to restructure the monetary system of Europe and what to do about the EU.

As socialists we don’t want simply to go back to a system of competing national currencies. Our cornerstone is internationalism, but a kind of internationalism that is not contingent either on the European Union or on the European Monetary Union.

It is of paramount importance to have contributions that reflect national specificities on these questions. We’ve had proposals from Greece, but for a Europe-wide conference for a Plan B we would need a lot more from other countries. Holding a conference before such work has been done would be jumping the gun.

Perhaps I could draw a useful parallel with the Zimmerwald Conference following the outbreak of First World War. In some ways, what we see right now is the emergence of a Greek Zimmerwald left which might be a first step in forming a Europe-wide Zimmerwald left.

Syriza was a actually a political front with organizations holding many types of beliefs, and it fought elections on the basis of achieving radical change while remaining within the EU and the EMU, and even changing those! This project has, of course, proved impossible and a split has occurred within Syriza.

Popular Unity now argues that to implement a radical program it is necessary to reintroduce a national currency and to confront directly the EU. It is in favor of European solidarity, but on a different footing. This is a kind of Zimmerwald moment for the Greek left, and it might prove the beginning of a Europe-wide Zimmerwald left.

Holding a Europe-wide congress for a Plan B might be the moment when such a left would materialize, bringing again the promise of a socialist future. Let’s prepare for it.

You have spent most of your adult life in the UK, I believe. So, you must be as surprised as the rest of us to see this thing which we had all thought dead and buried a long time ago, namely the Labour left, revived in old and yet new form around Jeremy Corbyn. As we know, the British Labour left has a complicated and not very happy relationship with the European debates: first of all opposing entry into the Common Market, but on a rather nationalist basis, and then switching over with many of the unions and so on into supporting the European Union as a sort of battered shield against Thatcherism and the Conservative Party’s policies.

Now we see this new phenomenon around Corbyn, we see some journalists like Owen Jones talking about a “Lexit,” a left-wing exit from at least the monetary union for those countries involved. Is there a chance finally, do you think, of shifting the terrain of the debate in the UK to a more healthy basis around Corbyn and the Left? Corbyn himself isn’t particularly critical of the EU but there is the referendum coming up in the UK and we all thought it would be dominated by UKIP and the right wing forces. What do you think, from a sort of insider-outsider perspective?

I think Jeremy Corbyn represents a very hopeful development. First of all, his rise is a nice surprise, which is a very rare thing in politics. It’s good to see that the Left in Labour is not dead yet, there’s still life in it.

When I first came to Britain in the 1970s, the Labour left was very much alive and parts of it would not be out of place in a variety of Communist parties across continental Europe. Many of its people were very strong working-class Marxists. It then withered away and British politics became all the poorer for it, not to mention much duller.

But British society has continued to look for something fresh and new that would reject the dreary old neoliberal stuff peddled by the mass media and so on. The social radicalism that is so manifest in Britain setting it apart from other European countries is searching for political radicalism.

It is apparent that this radicalism must have an integral eurosceptic component that would be sharply distinct from UKIP and the rest.

Ed Miliband, despite his own personal predilections, never succeeded in providing an answer, although I see that some of his people are very active in the Corbyn campaign, so clearly there is some continuity.

For some reason that I don’t really understand, Jeremy Corbyn appears to have touched a sensitive spot, including among the youth. Mysterious are the ways of British politics.

Be that as it may, it represents a great opportunity, but it would result in something sustainable only if the eurosceptic terrain is appropriated by left-wing radicalism. Britain needs a set of policies that would restructure the economy and bring about a deep redistribution of income and wealth, while being critical of the very existence of the EMU and the EU.

It seems to me that only on that basis could promising and interesting things happen in British politics. Britain has a lot to offer to the rest of Europe in this regard because it has kept out of the disaster of monetary union, and the British people do not suffer from the blind Europeanism that one often finds in continental Europe. I do not wish to denigrate the baleful impact of British parochialism but, believe me, ardent Europeanism could be worse.

It’s not clear to me whether Corbyn has either sufficient leadership vision, or the mental and theoretical makeup to deliver what is necessary. But some of the people in his team are very good — top notch — and I’m sure that they could jointly deliver the jolt that British politics needs.

I would ask them to look more closely at Greece because they can learn from its experience and strengthen their case, but they would have steer well clear of Syriza, which expresses nothing progressive any more.

It’s possible to accept and agree with you entirely that the questions of the currency and monetary union are the key link in the chain in the present conjuncture without accepting necessarily that it is the only question of importance in Greek politics or European politics. And there have been a certain number of criticisms of you from the left that the focus and the way you presented your arguments for Grexit don’t clearly articulate Grexit to anything that would be associated with some kind of left, or socialist, or emancipatory program.

Of course, one response is that this is an emergency program and we can talk about these other questions later (although we know that stageism is a problem in politics). And another response would be to say that yes, Costas Lapavitsas was arguing this in a context where he was in Syriza and the key question was try to legitimate the debate around Plan B on a national level and not just talk to people on the Left, but now the lines have moved.

And I think there still is a question in some people’s minds that says, ok, we agree with Grexit, but what is the connection between Grexit and positive social change? Your argument up until now has been it’s the necessary but not sufficient condition, which is fine, but then should it not be articulated to other things, other demands, other processes, that are not deferred to some indefinite horizon?

Let me say that I don’t accept this criticism. I don’t accept any part of it, and it’s not because I’m stubborn. Much of this criticism still simply doesn’t get what is happening in Europe. Sorry to be so brutal and upfront but it’s the reality.

From the very first moment, back in 2010, when I spoke about Grexit, I said that there could be two types of exit, progressive and conservative. Exit could certainly happen in a conservative way, they could even roll the tanks out. But I have always said that this has nothing to do with the Left, whose aim must be to achieve progressive exit.

A key point in this respect is that the monetary union and the currency are a focal point of class conflict in Greece and in a lot of other European countries. Class politics is integral to the euro debate.

The Left should aim to change the currency not because it has a fetish about money, but because it appreciates that money is the pinnacle of a set of institutions representing class and, the case of the euro, national domination. To change the currency there would have to be class struggle that would alter these institutions and implement social change.

This is at core an argument about the rebirth of the Left in Europe and the re-founding of socialism for the 21st century. That has always been the project for me.

Changing the currency in Greece and altering the monetary arrangements of Europe would require so many things to be changed that it would offer the chance of profound social transformation in favour of labor and against capital.

To be more specific, to change the currency, it would be necessary to have a debt write-off. But a debt write-off is a class question par excellence as well as bringing to the fore the question of dominant and subordinate countries in Europe.

To change the currency, it would also be necessary to lift austerity. But lifting austerity means attacking finance capital and reversing financialization in a most decisive way. It also means altering the direction of fiscal policy to serve the interests of the working people by reducing unemployment. These are class issues again.

To change the currency, it would further be necessary to nationalize the banks and put them under proper public administration, while implementing a debt write-off for household and business debts. This is again a class issue.

To change the currency, not least, would require a development program for Greece that would redirect development away from the problematic path of financialization and would restrengthen agricultural and industrial production. That again is a matter of class struggle that ought to be resolved in the interests of labor.

To change the currency, finally, it would be necessary to transform the state to allow intervention in the economy in the interests of labor, while strengthening democratic rights.

More broadly, for a progressive change of the currency, it would be necessary to create a new set of relations among European powers that would move beyond the confines of the essentially diseased European Union.

Europe needs new monetary relations that are not based on competition among nations but nor do they reproduce the diseased practices of the monetary union. That would provide a fresh basis for economic and social solidarity in Europe.

Okay but there’s one thing you missed in that list of measures. It could be criticized as a statist, top down conception of what a socialist path would be. And you’ve been attacked by people in, for example, the Argentinean left who say, “We had devaluation and currency changes here which led to social and political disaster”.

Don’t you think, now you’re free from defending the Syriza perspective and are now in Popular Unity, there is more room to talk about self-organization, self-emancipation, self-activity of workers and popular classes in Greece and not just the question of the state acting in those interests? Don’t you think a more interesting dialectic could be sketched out now that you don’t have to defend the position of Syriza as a whole?

Well, I couldn’t agree with you more.

But you don’t spell it out. You seem to think it’s too obvious to mention.

Let me spell it out now, then. I personally and the people I’ve collaborated with have always argued for progressive exit to happen with explicit and active popular participation.

We need popular participation for progressive exit because we need people to be aware of what’s happening, to support it, to form collective bodies of their own, and to be active in implementing the change.

For me that is not a matter of dispute. I belong to a tradition that has always argued for socialism from below. I haven’t changed my mind on that. We could never have socialism from the top.

But, having said that, we still have an important dimension here that has to do with the nature of money. You see, money is a very peculiar phenomenon that crystallizes the spirit of capitalism in unexpected ways.

With money, you can have local and particularistic versions of it that would allow for social solidarity, transcending markets, strengthening the spirit of cohesion and community. These are very good things and elements of them could be found in “green” money, “time” money, and so on. But, with money, there is also the overarching, single entity that keeps the market together. The nexus rerum, as Marx said, the glue that also keeps the capitalist society together.

There is no replacing that function of money in a simple way, or in any way at all short of transforming capitalist society altogether. It follows that we need monetary solutions that would apply to society as a whole, and this means at the level of the state. They could never happen merely at the level of the community, or of the local.

In short, we certainly need initiatives about exiting the euro that would involve the grassroots, but they must also happen at the level of society as a whole, of the state, otherwise the problem would never be solved.

To be specific, we need a new central bank; we need a new foreign exchange policy; we need a new reserve policy. These could never be produced at the level of a community. So the Left needs to marry the two dimensions. But then this has always been a key task for socialists.

In Europe today, a continent that is being suffocated by a diseased monetary system, we have to answer it in practice, we have to hack a path through the conceptual and practical undergrowth. ”

Här länken till Folklig Enhets politiska plattform som publicerats efter intervjun.

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Striden om Syrizas inre partidemokrati och dess politiska själ hårdnar

Stathis Kouvelakis skriver nedan om hur demokratin maldes ner vid gårdagens omröstning i det grekiska parlamentet. En debatt där majoriteten tillfälligt vann tillbaka tre rebeller från riksdagsfraktionen genom att lyfta bort de tidigare accepterade nerdragna jordbruksstöden och och den höjda pensionsåldern från dagordningen. Dessutom lovade Tsipras i parlamentet att regeringen inte kommer att tillåta att den beslutade bankreformen ska leda till snabbare vräkningar av hus- eller lägenhetsägare som kommit på obestånd.

Antigone Limberaki, parlamentsledamot från det borgerliga partiet To Potami (med anspråk på att vara ett mittenparti), sa i en kommentar att ”Tsipras inte längre har en tredjedel av sin politiska gruppering (i riksdagen) som sina sambos och att han samtidigt har mer än halva centralkommittén emot sig när det gäller den nya åtstramningen. Allting beror nu på hur han hanterar problemen i sitt parti. Det står klart att han bränner broar till den andra sidan och ser sig som att ha slagit in på en enkelriktad väg vilken leder ner till en linje med mer moderation

I bloggen återger också det redan berömda talet  den 11 juli från parlamentets talman, Zoe Konstantopoulo, där hun tog avstånd från Tsipras kapitulation:

GREECE UNDER THE MEMORANDUM: A BRUTAL SUPPRESSION OF DEMOCRACY

Just to give an idea of what parliamentary procedures in Greece after the capitulation of the government to the Troïka, let’s talk about todays’ parliamentary debate and how it was prepared. So, yesterday , at four in the afternoon, Syriza MPs, as well as the rest I suppose, received an email with an attachment. The opened it and saw that it was a nearly one thousand pages long file (!) which contains a single bill with just two articles: the new Civil Procedure Code (about 800 pages long) and the EU directive for Greece’s accession to the European banking system. The first opens the way for the acceleration of the repossession of primary residence by banks, but also other articles in favor of banks in cases of legally disputed loan. The second allows a Cyprus style bail in of the banks, that is a haircut of deposits in case of bank failures. Both are included in the infamous agreement signed by Tsipars on July 13. and the Greek government had committed itself to vote these measures within days after the agreement.
What this means is that Greek MPS have about 24 hours to get an overview of this bill,which includes hundred of other aspects, which practically means that they will have to vote on it by this evening without being able to read even superficially its content.

From this three conclusions can be drawn rather effortlessly:
– the Memoranda abolish not only the substance but also the formal procedure of (bourgeois-parliamentary) democracy.
-If only as a protest against this complete suppression of representative institutions and of any notion of popular sovereignty, the only possible option is ”no.”
– We should not laught at the Pasok or New Democracy MPs who, during the two previous governments, confessed like the Pasok former minister Michael Chryssochoidis, that they did not read the memorandum they voted in 2010. Over 220 MPs are preparing to do the same today, and the majority of them (here lies the unique originality) represent a party which calls itself a party of the ”radical left”.

However, this ridiculing of democracy has sparked reactions far beyond the ranks of the Syriza’s Left Platform. Greek Parliament President Zoe Konstantopoulou spoke out against the changes in the Code of Civil Procedure that the Greek Parliament will vote on later in the evening.“The vote is a [parliamentary] diversion because it is introduced as an intervention by the institutions under the threat of bankruptcy and is set as a prior action. Basic citizen rights for standing a fair trial are being violated,” she said during a speech in the Greek Parliament on Wednesday.
Konstantopoulou confirmed that she cannot vote for these prior actions in parliament. She voted against the first set of prior actions last week as well.
The Greek Parliament President also highlighted the opposition of the Justice Minister and other government MPs to the legislation.

Aside from her parliament speech, Konstantopoulou also penned a letter addressed to the President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, asking them to inform their European counterparts of her letter. In the letter, Konstantopoulou argued that the fact that the legislation was demanded by the institutions as a prior action to initiate bailout negotiations is a clear sign of disregard toward parliamentary procedures, popular rule and democracy in Greece. She also noted that these changes were suggested to the previous Greek administration and in a nationwide lawyers’ vote, 93% of Greek lawyers had voted against adopting them.“This violent attack against democracy cannot happen in the context of the European Union. And it definitely cannot happen silently,” the letter concluded.

Meanwhile, in the discussion in Parliament, the MPs of Syriza’s Left Platform made it clear that they will vote no, despite threatening statements issued by senior figures of the government according to which continuous ”no” votes are not compatible with a ”common path”. In a statement issued yesterday Alexis Tsipras strongly attacks all those who inside Syriza reject the line, defends the ”There was no alternative” argument and talks vaguely of restarting party procedeures from September onwards (!). This amounts to a refusal to convene the central committee of the party as asked by a joined statement signed by a majority of its members, who also reject the agreement.

Nedan återger vi också det redan berömda talet  den 11 juli från parlamentets talman, Zoe Konstantopoulo, där hun tog avstånd från Tsipras kapitulation:

The speech delivered early in the morning of July 11 by Zoe Konstantopoulou, president of the Greek parliament, on the question of the government’s proposal to the creditor institutions:

Ladies and gentlemen,

At times like these we must act and speak with binding sincerity and political boldness. We must assume the responsibility that falls to each and every one of us.

We must defend, according to the dictates of our consciences, those things that are sacred, timeless, and non-negotiable, the laws and rights of the people and of society. We must guard the legacy of those who gave their lives and their freedom so that we may live as free people today. We must preserve the inheritance of the young and of future generations, of human civilization. [We must preserve], furthermore, the inalienable values that define and animate our personal and our collective existences.

How each person chooses and decides to act may differ, and no one has the right to trivialize decisions that arise from an existential process and trial, to berate them, or to exploit them for for political consumption.

Each and every one of us are are judged and shall be judged by our positions and our decisions, by our Yes and by our No, by our actions and omissions, by our commitments and our responses, by our dedication and selflessness.

For five months the Government, with the Left as its mainstream and with anti-memorandum forces at its core, has been waging an unequal battle within a regime of suffocation and blackmail: Inside a Europe that has betrayed its founding principles, the welfare of its peoples and societies. Inside a Europe that uses the common currency, the euro, not as a means of achieving social welfare, but as a lever and tool for the coercion and humiliation of unruly peoples and leaders. Inside a Europe that is transforming into a nightmarish prison for its peoples, although it was built to be their common and hospitable home.

The Greek people entrusted this Government with the great cause of releasing them from the shackles of the Memorandum, from the vise of surveillance and supervision imposed on society under the pretext of debt.

This debt furthermore is illegal, unfair, odious and unsustainable, as demonstrated in the preliminary findings of the Truth Commission on Public Debt, and as the creditors already knew in 2010. This debt was not incurred as a cyclical phenomenon. It was created by the previous governments through corruption in procurement, bribes, misleading terms, corporate stipulations, and astronomical interest rates, all to the benefit of foreign banks and companies.

The Troika, together with the previous Greek governments, converted this fraudulent debt from private to public, saving the French and German and also the Greek private banks, and in the process condemned the Greek people to conditions of humanitarian crisis and employed the commercial organs of media misinformation to terrorize and deceive the citizenry.

This debt was neither created nor increased by the people or by the current Government. For five years it has been used as a tool to enslave the people, by forces operating within Europe under the rules of economic totalitarianism, in the absence of moral stature or historic right.

To this day Germany has not yet paid its debts to the small Greece of the wartime resistance, which history has identified for its heroism. These debts exceed the value of the present Greek public debt. According to the committee of the General Accounting Office set up by the previous government, these past debts would today reach a level of 340 billion euros, with conservative calculations. The alleged current debt of Greece is estimated at 325 billion euros.

After the Second World War, Germany enjoyed the greatest remission of debt [in history], so as to allow it to get back on track. This was done with the generous partnership of Greece. Yet now Germany has fomented the perpetrators of corporate corruption, those (including Siemens) who dealt with the previous Greek governments and their parties, and has given them protection from the Greek system of justice.

And yet Germany is behaving as if history and the Greek people owe a debt to her, as if she expects to receive a historic payback for her own atrocities. Germany is promoting and enforcing a policy that constitutes a crime, not only against the Greek people, but a crime against humanity. This is a criminal concept, a widespread and systematic attack on a population with the aim and calculation to bring about its total or partial extermination. And, unfortunately, governments and institutions that are required to live up to their history and their responsibility have aligned themselves behind this attack.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The artificial and deliberate creation of conditions of humanitarian disaster so as to keep the people and the government in conditions of suffocation and under the threat of a chaotic bankruptcy constitutes a direct violation of all international human rights protection treaties, including the Charter of the United Nations, the European treaties, and even the statutes of the International Criminal Court. Blackmail is not legal. And those who create conditions that eliminate freedom of the will may not speak of ”options.” The lenders are blackmailing the government. They are acting fraudulently, since they have known since 2010 that this debt is unsustainable. They are acting consciously, since their statements anticipate the need for humanitarian aid in Greece. Humanitarian assistance for what? For an unexpected and inadvertent natural disaster? Is it an unpredictable earthquake, flooding, a fire?

No.

Humanitarian aid [would be required] because of their conscious and calculated choice to deprive the people of the means of survival, closing the tap of liquidity in retaliation for the democratic choice of the government and the parliament to call a referendum and to turn to the people to decide their own future. The Greek people honored the Government that entrusted them, and the parliament that allowed them the right to take their lives and fates in their own hands. With bravery and pride they announced

NO to blackmail

NO to ultimatums

NO to the Memoranda of servitude

NO to the repayment of a debt they did not create and that is not attributable to them

NO to new measures of impoverishment and exhaustion

The lenders have stubbornly insisted on transforming this NO into a YES, and they have found allies who gleefully collaborate with them in the same Greek parties who are responsible for the Memoranda, in those who benefited from them, in those who created this debt and loaded it on the backs of the people.

This NO of the people transcends all of us and compels us to defend their right to fight for their lives. To wrestle. Not to live a half life or a life on our knees. To be proud of what we bequeath to the next generations and to humanity.

Today the Government is being blackmailed to consent to conditions that do not represent it, that do not come from it, that it is struggling to reverse and prevent. The prime minister spoke with honesty, bravery, boldness and selflessness. He is the youngest of all Greek prime ministers and he has fought as much as any of his predecessors for the democratic and social rights of the people and of the younger generations. He represented and represents our generation, and he gives us hope. I honor him and will always honor him for this stand and this choice.

And at the same time, I consider it my binding responsibility, as president of the parliament, not to close my eyes or to pretend that I do not understand blackmail. I cannot make it easy. I could never vote for and legalize the content of this agreement.

I think the same is true and would apply to the Prime Minister, who is today blackmailed with a weapon threatening the survival of his people. I believe the same applies to the Government and to the parliamentary groups who support it.

I shall undertake my binding responsibility to history by stating ”present,” as a ”presence” in today’s debate and vote. I believe that in this way I make myself more useful to the people, to the Government and to the prime minister, to future generations and to the European societies, by recording the actual conditions under which the Greek parliament has been asked to make decisions. And by rejecting blackmail, by invoking Article 1-1-4 of Article 120 of the Constitution.

The Greek people are the second to suffer this form of warfare in the Eurozone, preceded by Cyprus in March 2013. This attempt to impose measures rejected by the people in a referendum, using the blackmail of closed banks and the threat of bankruptcy, constitutes a violent overthrow of the Greek constitution and deprives the parliament of the authority granted to it by the constitution.

Everyone has the right and obligation to resist. No resistance in history was easy. But we undertook the popular vote, and we trust the people on the difficult matters. It is to the difficult matters that we must respond. And we must not fear.

Translated by Nicholas Evangelos Levis

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Tyskland rider på euron

Varför inte kräva att Tyskland lämnar euron och återgår till D-marken? Låter kanske helt absurt, men varför inte? Den nya tyska marken skulle omedelbart stiga starkt i värde i förhållande till euron. Enligt IMF skulle en ny mark stiga med minst 18 % i förhållande till euron. De övriga länderna i EU kommer omedelbart att stärka sin konkurrenskraft i förhållande till den tyska exportmaskinen som hittills vunnit allt på de övriga EU-ländernas underskott i handeln med Tyskland. Är det ett skämt? Ja kanske det. Men varför är det normalt att Schauble kan kränga idén om en tillfällig ”grexit” men inte med ett ord ifrågasätta de tyska handelsöverskotten med alla andra länder i EU? Jo, det anses som helt naturligt eftersom EU inte är en solidarisk Union utan ett Imperium med ett centrum (Tyskland, Holland, Luxemburg, Finland) och en periferi med ett kuvat protektorat (Grekland) och framtida protektorat (Portugal, Spanien, Italien).

När Grekland sägs ha konsumerat över sina tillgångar finns det en sanning i det. Men det är en ”sanning” som gäller också alla andra euro-länder, inte minst Frankrike. Som bekant så innebär ett exportöverskott alltid ett motsvarande importöverskott på annat håll. När Tyskland övergav D-marken och antog euron innebar det en automatisk devalvering som gav den tyska industrin extra stimulans. (Se diagram ovan) Alla andra länders underskott finansierades med emissioner av statsobligationer som i fallet Grekland till stor del köptes upp av tyska och franska banker. På grund av landets svaga ekonomi kunde Grekland inte ge ut obligationer utan att locka med mycket högre räntor än starka industristater i norr. Sakta byggdes statsskulden upp för att sedan rusa i höjden med ”hjälp” av Trojkan.

Tysklands handelsbalans i miljoner euro 2011

Att Tyskland med sitt enorma exportöverskott gentemot resten av euro-zonen är den verkligt skyldige för den svåra obalansen inom euro-zonen talar Schauble tyst om. Det ger mer röster att sparka på de fattigaste av alla inom zonen. Höjda löner och bättre arbetsförhållanden inom de prekära branscherna i Tyskland skulle snabbt minska exportöverskottet och obalansen i utbytet inom EU.

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Trojkan bäddar för fascismen.

Om regeringen Tsipras (i allians med andra partier) lyckas driva igenom det senaste åtstramningspaketet kommer trettitalsdepressionen i USA att framstå som ”mild” och kortvarig. Redan nu har depressionen i Grekland pågått längre än i USA och allt, absolut allt, pekar mot att BNP kommer att fortsätta i sin bana utför. De kriminella finanshuliganerna i Trojkan lägger grunden för en eventuell seger för fascisterna i Gyllene gryning vid nästa val om inte den samlade vänstern i Grekland (och Europa) lyckas slå tillbaka den vansinniga krispolitik som dikterats i den europeiska elitens glaspalats.

 

 

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Sveket i Aten

Inte oväntat, men mer än trist, mycket, mycket  ledsamt.

”I nationens intresse” sviker Syrizas majoritetsledning både sitt eget program, sin valplattform i vintras samt folkets ursinne mot trojkans svältpolitik i folkomröstningen. Bristen på solidaritet i övriga Europa – främst från alla de socialdemokrater som definitivt har ”flaggat ut” från varje form av kämpande arbetarrörelse – är grundorsaken.

Det är också uppenbart att Syrizas sittande ledning inte tänkt längre än så här. Bristen på alternativ strategi är skriande.Vi får se hur den interna vänsteroppositionen och andra mer stridbara grupper agerar framöver. Men Greklands kris är definitivt inte löst. Vi lär dessutom få ett nytt bevingat ord, ”att göra en Tsipras”, dvs att över en natt göra en kovändning i politiken. Han och majoriteten av partiets riksdagsfraktion skadar, förlöjligar, inte bara det egna partiet, utan också den grekiska vänstern i stort. Ja, tveklöst socialistiska och folkliga rörelser i hela Europa. Nedan en länk till det politiska alternativ som Vänsterplattformen i Syriza förde fram vid debatten i Syrizas riksdagsgrupp:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-euro-debt-default-grexit/

”Från det absurda till det tragiska”!  Här en länk till en artikel där från Syrizas vänster dömer ut riksdagsmajoritetens svek. Ser i en intervju att Tsipras tänker ”ta itu” med rebellerna i de egna leden när han kommer tillbaka från Bryssel. Vi får hoppas att det snarast blir en majoritet på en demokratisk kongress som ”tar itu” med sin egen riksdagsfraktion!

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-syriza-greece-euro-debt/

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Hoppets och skammens Europa

Alxis Tsipras beslut att genomföra en folkomröstning den femte juli har tänt en strimma av ljus och hopp i det europeiska mörkret. Efter fyra månaders förhandlingar, i ett försök att uppnå en ”hedersam kompromiss”, som Syrizas färgstarke ledare uttryckte sig, stod det klart att det aldrig varit en fråga om förhandlingar utan bara diktat från de nyliberala talibanerna i Bryssel, eller ”Trojkan” som de också kallas.

Trojkans sista bud var inget annat än en grov förolämpning. Förslaget var i stort sett identiskt med om inte värre än den plan som regeringen Samaras accepterade strax innan valet i januari. Fem års katastrofal åtstramningspolitik som lett till en depression som inte ligger trettiotalets efter ska förlängas som om inget hänt. De groteskt felaktiga prognoser som IMF presenterade 2010 för att bevisa åtstramningspolitikens korrekthet borde ha lett Europas politiska ledare till en omvärdering av den förda politiken.

Med eftergift på eftergift visade Tsipras regering sin vilja att nå fram till ett avtal. Enligt många inom Syriza var det alltför många eftergifter. Men det bidde inte en tumme. Samma gamla slitna vante kastades ner på bordet framför Tsipras.
-Passar den eller passar den inte. Det är bara att välja, sa IMF/ECB och Kommissionen unisont.

Trojkans provokativa arrogans träder fram i en liten detalj. I Tsipras förslag den 26 juni fanns en punkt att skatten för företagsvinster skulle ökas från 27 % till 29 %. Teknokraterna i Bryssel tog fram rödpennan, strök över och skrev ner 28 %. Resten av Tsipras förslag behandlades med samma totala förakt för finess. Rad efter rad ströks över med rött och de gamla vanliga förslagen präntades i rött. Det oförskämda agerandet kanske blir avgörande i söndagens folkomröstning. Rapporter från Grekland vittnar om människor som chockats av händelsen som ingen kan undgå att se som en öppen förolämpning av regeringen och befolkningen.

Men ändå är den verkliga förolämpningen mot Syriza, befolkningen och hela Grekland det faktum att talibanerna i Bryssel anser sig ha rätt att diktera den grekiska regeringens politiska val för hur ekonomin ska komma på fötter.

Ytligt sett fanns det inga stora skillnader mellan Tsipras och Trojkan i prognoserna för de nödvändiga budgetöverskotten de kommande åren. Men en närmare titt på de två förslagen visar att de sociala prioriteringarna var totalt motsatta.

Regeringens förslag la tonvikten vid ökade inkomster genom att öka skatten på företagens vinster, genom en punktskatt på 12 % på alla företagsvinster över 500 000 euro och en del andra stärkta inkomster för staten. Åttio procent av det planerade budgetöverskottet skulle täckas av dessa ökade inkomster som skulle tas ifrån de med god ekonomi. Bara 20% av budgetöverskottet skulle uppnås via minskade statliga utgifter.

Till ingens förvåning svarade IMF att det kommer inte på frågan att öka beskattningen av företagen eftersom det skulle öka arbetslösheten, svarade Christine Lagarde vars expertis på prognoser vi redan sett. IMF krävde att budgetöverskott skull uppnås med den motsatta kvoten, 20 % ökade inkomster via beskattning och 80 % via minskade utgifter framför via sänkta pensioner över hela linjen.

Här ligger i ett nötskal skillnaden mellan mörkrets Europa och det hoppets Europa som Syrizas valseger i januari öppnade dörren till. Nu på söndag kan den dörren öppnas på vid gavel. Oavsett vilka svårigheter som väntar det grekiska folket är det bättre att leva på ett demokratiskt hopp än att falla ned på knä inför guldkalven i Bryssel.

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