GREECE’S Syriza government delayed yesterday’s 300m euros (£216m) debt repayment to the IMF, saying that it will pay over to the Troika (the EC, the European Central Bank and the IMF) at the end of June all four instalments due, combined into a single payment of 1.54 bn euros. However, the total that Greece actually needs to pay in terms of bills is 6.7bn euros. The rest – 5.2bn euros – is short-term treasury bills.
The announcement of the postponement of Friday’s payment created immediate havoc on the Greek stockmarket with the interest rate on the two-year bonds that have been issued by Greece rising to 24%. The Athens stocks index was immediately down by 4.8 per cent, while bank stocks were down by 9.6 per cent.
The Greek Economy Minister George Stathakis said Greece could not accept the new austerity measures proposed by international creditors to unlock the final 7.2bn euro tranche of the country’s bailout. But he said the government would do anything it could to stay in the eurozone while getting a ‘better deal’ for Greece.
In fact, for June Greece owes 6.74 billion euros, for July 5.95 billion euros, and for August 4.38bn euros! Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s prime minister is facing growing opposition from within his left party to the conditions put forward by creditors for a continuation of the country’s bailout.
He has already agreed to the privatisation of whole chunks of the Greek economy, including the Port of Piraeus and the rail industry, and is now being told that there must be pension cuts, mass sackings in the civil service, wage cuts, new anti-union laws and a VAT rise on electricity.
Tsipras was yesterday due to address the Greek parliament on the ‘progress’ that has been made in his talks with the Troika. He will be under attack from the right wing, who are demanding that the proposals of the Troika be accepted, as well as from the left wing of the groups that make up Syriza, who are accusing him of betraying the pledge that he made to the Greek people, that there would be no austerity measures.
Tsipras said on Thursday that an agreement with Greece’s international creditors was ‘in sight’, but there were ‘points that no-one would consider as a base for discussion’ – citing cuts to pensions and a raise in sales tax for electricity. This was after meeting the head of the eurozone’s finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels.
Underlining a deep sense of anger towards the offer, Deputy Social Security Minister Dimitris Stratoulis, who is close to the far-left faction of the ruling Syriza party, denounced the measures. ‘If the creditors do not back down from this package of blackmail, the government will have to seek alternative solutions, elections,’ he told Antenna TV. However, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Thursday he saw ‘no reason whatsoever’ for Greece to go to snap elections.
The Syriza left government is now in a desperate, unresolvable crisis, reflecting the crisis of Greek capitalism. Whether it calls a general election or not, it will not be able to convince the Greek workers and small farmers that they must put up with a continuation of the massive austerity that they voted Syriza in to end.
There is only one way forward for the Greek workers and small farmers. This is to overthrow bankrupt Greek capitalism through a socialist revolution of the working class, supported by the rural poor. The bosses and bankers must be expropriated and the call must go out to the working class of Europe to overthrow the EU, abolish the Troika, the ECB, and the IMF and replace them with a Socialist United States of Europe.
To carry out this task a new revolutionary leadership must be built, with the section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the Revolutionary Marxist League as its foundation. A failure to take this course will see the right wing strengthen as the numbers of ruined people grow rapidly, and a new regime of Colonels begin to emerge.
• Forward with the Greek Socialist revolution!
• Forward to a Socialist United States of Europe!
