Syriza ftw

Tomorrow's dispatch from Athens will be about why hope is still very much alive here, two months after Syriza took office. That's argued not out of facile optimism. There are enormous difficulties, many setbacks and continuing mistaken paths.
They don't license despair - above all from those whose solidarity elsewhere is critical - but last thing tonight here are two of the setback/mistaken path category.
1) I was in Athens shortly after the murder of Pavlos Fyssas in September 2013. The eruption of tens of thousands onto the streets forced the institutions to change how they related to the fascists.
For weeks, every newspaper - from the equivalent of Britain's Sun and Germany's Bild to the Greek versions of the Guardian and Le Monde - and every television station were almost competing with headlines and scoops which any socialist journalist would have been proud of. We were deluged with stories exposing and vilifying the Nazis of Golden Dawn.
Politicians, most of them hypocritically, fell over themselves to call for action, to support the demand for prosecution and to throw a cordon sanitaire around Golden Dawn, which the anti-fascist movement insisted on as part of a strategy of delegitimisation and crushing them.
This weekend, three weeks before the start of the trial, GD representatives have been on several news channels and in various papers quoted like normal politicians over a range of topics, from the government's handling of negotiations with the Troika to their views on the Saudi intervention in Yemen.
This is a serious setback. Reversing it means a) fighting within the institutions and to put pressure on them to stick to the policy won at the price of Pavlos's life's blood, and b) generating again the upsurge against racism and fascism which forced the change of institutional posture 18 months ago.
The mobilisation on Saturday of last week by the anti-racist and anti-fascist movement was not a one off and it ended with higher levels of organisation among those who took part than when the call was issued. A series of further actions is planned. This is a step forward.
2) There is a difference between an internationalist position opposed to all great power imperialism and a patriotic policy with a left gloss, which chooses some great power imperialists in preference to another.
Greece's foreign minister Nikos Kotzias was labelled as pro-Russian by much of the Western media when he was first appointed. Some of the coverage was a throwback to the Cold War or before.
It wasn't embracing Moscow that was the problem this weekend. It was embracing Washington. He said that Greece and the US should jointly exploit the seabed hydrocarbon and other resources under the Aegean Sea, which separates Greece from Turkey.
The two countries have unresolved maritime disputes over who controls what parts of the Aegean. Turkey, like Greece, is a NATO member and key US ally in the Middle East. Kotzias is looking to pulling Washington closer to Athens in order to get the better of Ankara. A mistaken path.
This is also of a piece with a totally baseless argument from some quarters - including the anti-German chauvinists of ANEL, junior partners in the coalition - that somehow the US and the Washington-based International Monetary Fund are more favourable to Greece's economic predicament than Berlin and the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank. It was, in fact, Germany's Angela Merkel who insisted on bringing in the fiscal stormtroopers of the IMF because she thought the Europeans wouldn't be tough enough and the IMF had legal powers to interfere in labour markets and other areas which the European Commission is not allowed to directly.
If a foreign minister of any government of the right had said that Greece should be closer to the US there would be uproar from the left.
There should be uproar now. For it is on indignation and uproar and upon the mass of people being engaged in the process for change and having the confidence to hold their leaders to account that hope depends

Yanis Varoufakis ‏@yanisvaroufakis 59m59 minutes ago
Happy April Fool's Day everyone... http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/04/01/yanis-varoufakis-greece-will-adopt-the-bitcoin-if-eurogroup-doesnt-give-us-a-deal/ …

AB.
To put it in more schematic terms, in this matter there are three terms and not only two. There are the end goals, there is the movement, and then there is the procedure by which we engage with the state. Naturally this is only possible thanks to the movement, yet at the same time in reality it is executed or realized by clearly identifiable, organized political actors.
And in Greece, Syriza is the name for the new way in which politics is organized, in terms of the relation between popular movements and the state, a relation that it has itself transformed. That’s a more abstract way of describing the situation.

The Syriza government is about to publish its promised draft bill on citizenship rights for the children of immigrants. That is a central demand of the anti-racist movement, which has grown dramatically in Greece over the last few years.
Saturday saw some hundreds of people on a lively demonstration in the rundown, largely migrant area centred on western Sofokleus street just south of Omonoia square. It was organised by an anarchist collective which has done good work raising the issue. The march was led by migrant workers - mainly Bangladeshis and East Africans, Eritrean, Sudanese and Somali.
As ever, the devil will be in the detail of the bill, which will be out for public consultation (rather like a British Green Paper).
The then Pasok government in 2010 passed the Ragousis Law on citizenship. It had its limitations, but was the only piece of progressive legislation passed under George Papandreou's premiership. Not a great testament, and not even a shadow of what his father Andreas managed in the social arena in the early 1980s.
In late 2012 the Council of State, the highest relevant Greek court, struck down the law as unconstitutional. By then Antonis Samaras was in power and he did not even wait for the detail of the court ruling - as is the legal procedure - before suspending the law. A replacement was never brought in.
The legal grounds for striking down the law included that it 1) did not provide sufficient a proof that successful applicants for citizenship had shown a connection and loyalty to the Greek state. So the court said there had to be individual tests for that rather than a blanket granting of citizenship on account of time spent legally in the country, and 2) that only Greek nationals, as opposed to those granted citizenship, were allowed to stand in local government elections (another one of the Ragousis reforms).
It seems that in aiming to meet those objections the new bill will be weaker than the old Pasok law. It is a high hurdle to ask for migrants to have lived in Greece legally for five years before the birth of their child, who would be able to apply for citizenship upon enrolment at school. That would mean one of the child's parents must have been legally resident for 11 years.
The anti-racist movement is awaiting publication of the draft bill. Both New Democracy and ANEL opposed the previous legislation. Two years ago 85 New Democracy MPs tried to introduce a law restricting serving in the armed forces to those who are Greek by "genos", that is "ethnically Greek", "blood Greek"…
In proposing that strict criterion it marked a shift back to the widespread pre-WWII preference given to "bloodline", jus sanguinis (law by ancestry) as opposed to jus soli (law by place of birth), in determining citizenship rights.
The then Hellenic Armed Forces General Chief of Staff Michalis Kostarakos tweeted his support for the move - blatant political interference by someone who is constitutionally supposed not to enter the political field.
We should expect opposition to the new bill to become a rallying cry for the right. The anti-racist and migrants rights movements are, of course, mindful of that. They are supportive of the government against the right and of any moves which will improve the desperate position of migrants and immigrants in Greece.
But they are independent of the government and will be pushing hard for the great victory of 25 January to deliver radical change. Mobilisations and a politically focused movement of migrants and non-migrants will be central to carrying that through and breaking the right's attempt to build up a backlash.
The fighting slogan of the movement has been "Amnesty and legalisation now!"

The Greek government has given Financial Relations Minister Euclid Tsakalotos the lead in negotiating with international creditors. The Syriza-led coalition says the team headed by Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has failed to produce results.
The Athens government announced the decision on Monday.
Tsakalotos will represent Greece at the next Eurogroup meeting of finance ministers on May 11, a landmark date for Greece as the government has to persuade the Troika of lenders –the EU, ECB and IMF to release new funds. It is hoped the economics professor will take a more active face-to-face role in negotiations with Greek creditors.

Read moreGermany’s Bundestag okays Greece’s bailout extension

Greece’s economic team headed by Varoufakis has been trying to find a compromise with the troika for about 3 months, since Syriza won the general election at the end of January. So far the economicplans presented have been criticized for a lack of detail.
Reacting to the news a senior European Union official told the Guardian it was‘impossible’ to deal with Varoufakis. “It had got to the point where eyes roll,” he said.
“People had got sick and tired of being lectured about austerity and the effects of the crisis. Any sympathy for Greece was eroded by his failure to draft concrete proposals,” the EU official said.
READ MORE: Greece isn’t preparing default - Tsipras dispels rumor

By sidelining Varoufakis from negotiations with European creditors, Syriza is calming down its anti-austerity stance, James Meadway, senior economist at New Economic Foundation, told RT.
“What this reshuffle suggests, when you have Euclid Tsakalotos taking more of a role in the negotiations – he’s very pro-European, very pro-euro – it suggests the Greek government is inching away from its hard-line austerity position,” he said.
Greece needs to get about €7.2 billion from Europe to pay outstanding debt. Should Athens fail to get the money, the country could default in May. This could force the country to leave the euro, which could then create a domino effect across Europe.

Šuvar i varivo wrote:
Varufakis je naveo da kada se jedan iz grupe ustremio na njega, njegova žena ga je zagrila, tako da je potencijalni napadač morao prvo nju da udari da bi došao do ministra finansija.

SYRIZA's Left Platform makes gains but proposal voted down
Monday, May 25, 2015 (21:54) 



Dissent within SYRIZA over the prospect of a compromise with creditors bringing more austerity measures surfaced over the weekend with the party’s radical Left Platform proposing that Greece stop paying its creditors if they continue with “blackmailing tactics,” and seek an “alternative plan.”

The Left Platform’s proposal was voted down on Sunday by SYRIZA’s central committee – by 95 votes to 75. But the fact that the radical faction led by Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis garnered significant support signalled that many SYRIZA cadres and MPs favor an uncompromising stance. Still, some members of the Left Platform were said to be concerned about the repercussions of an overly militant stance.

Lafazanis said the government should start preparing Greeks for an “alternative solution” to avert more austerity measures or privatizations. He claimed that a Greek exit from the eurozone could be managed. “Who says an exit from the euro and return to the national currency would be catastrophic?”

Costas Lapavitsas, an MP and an economist, said a return to the drachma could be the first step towards economic recovery. Euro MP Dimitris Papadimoulis underlined the need to avoid “a catastrophic rupture,” claiming that a default would hit the middle and lower classes harder.

Greece’s Governing Syriza Party Divided Over Debt Terms

Faction of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s left-wing party says it favors default and a eurozone exit over swallowing measures creditors are demanding


By Stelios Bouras
May 25, 2015 9:08 p.m. ET

ATHENS—As financial pressure mounts on Greece to sign a deal with its foreign lenders, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is facing what may be his biggest problem yet: the struggle within the ruling Syriza party over whether to swallow creditors’ tough terms or default.

Dissent is spreading within left-wing Syriza against the economic policies Greece is likely to have to enact in return for fresh bailout funding from other eurozone governments and the International Monetary Fund. The Syriza-led coalition government holds only a thin majority of 12 seats in Greece’s 300-seat Parliament, so a rebellion against a deal could easily cost Mr. Tsipras his governing majority. Greece’s lenders are particularly worried about vocal threats by Syriza’s Left Platform, a hard-line leftist faction within the party, to reject any deal that crosses ideological “red lines” by cutting pensions or workers’ rights.

Mr. Tsipras’s difficulty in selling a painful compromise to Syriza’s hard left, as well as to other parts of his ideologically diverse party, has become the largest obstacle to a deal. European officials and analysts—and privately even Greek government officials—say they don’t know whether the roughly 30 lawmakers who make up Left Platform will vote as defiantly as they talk if creditors’ terms are put before the Athens Parliament. Greece needs to agree on a list of economic policies with lenders in time to avoid defaulting on a series of loan repayments to the IMF in mid-June.

Although the government probably has enough cash to repay a €300 million ($329 million) loan due June 5, it almost certainly can’t meet three further payments totaling about €1.25 billion on June 12, 16 and 19, European officials say. Greece needs a deal as soon as possible so it can service its IMF debts, government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis told reporters on Monday. “To the extent that we are in a position to pay our obligations, we will pay our obligations,” he said, adding: “It’s the government’s responsibility to be in a position to pay its obligations.”

The European Central Bank has told eurozone governments it would allow Greek banks to buy more short-term Greek government debt if an economic-overhaul agreement between Athens and creditors is imminent. That would allow Greece to survive until July, when further debts fall due and fresh bailout loans will be needed.

Lenders, led by the IMF and Germany, are insisting that Greece enact further budget austerity, cut the cost of its pension system, step up privatizations and make corporate layoffs easier, among other measures. The creditors’ hard-line has exasperated Syriza leaders, who won election in January on a promise to end such painful retrenchment, which many Greeks believe have deepened rather than cured their country’s economic crisis in the past five years.

When Syriza’s Central Committee debated the state of debt negotiations this weekend, the Left Platform submitted a motion calling for the government to default on the IMF loans rather than compromise its principles. The proposal was narrowly rejected, with 95 people voting against and 75 in favor. The Left Platform’s leader, Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, told the meeting default was preferable to surrender, even if it meant Greece tumbling out of the euro. “Who says that an exit from the euro and a return to the national currency is a catastrophe?” Mr. Lafazanis said at the meeting.

The Central Committee agreed on a text saying any deal with creditors must involve no pension cuts, a small budget surplus before interest, increased public investment and a restructuring of Greece’s debt—terms that lenders are unlikely to accept. The text isn’t binding on Mr. Tsipras’s government but indicates how hard it will be to sell a deal to Syriza.

The weekend’s debate came after other recent challenges to Mr. Tsipras from Syriza’s hard-liners, including a call last week by five members of Syriza’s highest leadership body, the Politburo, to leave the euro rather than give in to creditors. Many analysts say Mr. Lafazanis and the Left Platform might back down and follow Mr. Tsipras in the end, because strong party discipline is also part of the group’s ideology. Even hard-liners don’t want to be accused of bringing down a left-led government.

But the rest of Syriza’s diverse ranks, which range from center-left moderates to Maoists, also include potential rebels. “The biggest threat may not end up being Mr. Lafazanis, but other parliamentary members who lack party discipline, who are newly elected and are completely unpredictable,” said Dimitris Keridis, an associate professor of international politics at Panteion University in Athens.

Parliamentarian Ioanna Gaitani, a self-described Trotskyite in the Left Platform, said Greece can survive a debt default and lenders aren’t respecting Syriza’s mandate. “When faced with the pseudo-dilemma of ‘euro or national currency,’ the answer is a unilateral write-off of most of the debt, the taxation of large wealth, and the implementation of Syriza’s program,” she said. “For the Left, the needs of the people are above profits and debts.”

Greek bank deposits hit lowest in a decade, as recession confirmed - live updates

Worried Greeks pulled €5.6bn out of their accounts last month, as the country’s banks continue to bleed.
Official data just released shows that Greek bank deposits fell to €139.4bn in April, down from €145bn in March.
That’s the lowest level since 2004, as fears of a default, capital controls or even a full-blown Grexit continue to alarm depositors.

More gloom for Greece -- statistics body ELSAT has just confirmed that the country is back in recession.
Updated GDP data showed that the Greek economy shrank by 0.2% in the first three months of 2015, in line with the initial estimate earlier this month.