MAY DAY marches throughout the EU were full of explosive class tensions reflecting the battle that workers are waging to defend their living standards and rights against the European Union (EU).
More than 10,000 demonstrators in Athens took to the streets and another 3,500 rallied in Thessaloniki, the country’s second largest city, as part of a nationwide 24-hour strike against ever more austerity at the hands of the EU.
‘The Bailout government and the creditors have been squeezing the people and workers for seven years,’ said civil servants’ union Adedy. As a result of the strike, businesses halted, ferries and trains were suspended, and state services were shut down. Nearly seven years of austerity have culminated in a spike in poverty levels in Greece and in the highest unemployment rate – 23 per cent – in the EU.
The Syriza government has slashed its spending, frozen hiring, and cut incomes to keep receiving the rescue loans to repay ‘Greece’s debt’! However just one day after May Day, on May 2nd, the austerity axe was wielded yet again. A deal was reached on a package of bailout-mandated reforms.
Greece now needs to legislate the new measures – which include an 18 per cent pensions cut and opening up the energy market to EU big business competition – before Eurozone finance ministers approve the disbursement of loans. As well as the pensions cut, Athens has promised to cut the tax-free threshold in 2020 to produce savings worth two per cent of gross domestic product, and also agreed to sell coal-fired plants and coal mines equal to about 40 per cent of its dominant power utility Public Power Corp’s capacity. Greece needs the funds urgently to repay 7.5 billion euros in debt maturing in July!
Germany, whose banks are one of the main lenders, said the deal was a step forward but noted that the work is not yet complete. European Union lenders have ruled out ‘forgiving’ the debt and refused to discuss such things as cutting repayment rates until after a full reform-for-cash austerity deal is cut. Austerity is never-ending. Meanwhile in Paris, the French trade unions were on the march on May Day.
Among the rallies was a massive one in central Paris. A large number of riot police were deployed to control the rally which was held a week before the decisive second round of France’s presidential election. Ex-Socialist Party economy minister Emmanuel Macron, who has now founded his own party and is warning of a ‘Frexit’, and the neo-fascist Marine Le Pen won the first round of voting in the presidential election on April 23. Macron finished first on 24 per cent, ahead of Le Pen with 21.3 per cent.
They will now have to contend in the runoff, scheduled for May 7th. The Paris May Day marches erupted with working class anger and saw fierce clashes with the riot police. One police officer was engulfed in flames as demonstrators tore down walls and threw bricks at the advancing riot police to defend themselves.
The demonstrators were condemned by Le Pen who warned: ‘This is the sort of mess … that I no longer want to see on our streets.’ Workers are very angry that they have no proper representative to stand for them against Le Pen in the final round of the election, and regard Macron as another Hollande and the EU – in a very poor disguise.
Two unions, the CFDT and Unsa, have called for their members to back Macron on Sunday. Three other unions, including the biggest, the Communist Party CGT, have called for a demonstration against Le Pen’s vision of French identity, but have stopped short of backing Macron who they say is the European Union candidate. Meanwhile in Berlin and Turin, there were May Day clashes between police and demonstrators demanding better rights for workers.
The working class throughout Europe is on the march. All the more reason for the UK workers to bring down the Tories on June 8th, and to refuse to be dragged down the ‘Greek Austerity Road’ by insisting that the UK quit the EU at once and campaign to replace it, alongside the workers of Europe, with a Socialist United States of Europe!
