Three of the top Greek banks have been downgraded by the economic agency Moody’s, after losing 70 per cent of their share price in the Athens Stock Exchange during 2008.
The banks’ relegation was announced on Wednesday, as it became clear that the attempt by the Greek government to privatise Olympic Airways, the national air carrier, had ended in a total fiasco.
Minister for Transport Kostis Chatzidakis tried to save face but only made matters worse.
He announced that the top Greek ‘venture capitalist’ Andreas Vgenopoulos was interested in purchasing Olympic Airways.
Vgenopoulos made a statement pointing out, in all seriousness, that he was willing to buy off Olympic Airways at ‘a right price’, get rid of ‘excess staff’ and then sell it back to the state ‘at a profit’!
The whole situation forced the Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis to make a statement saying that ‘the Greek government does have a plan and the will to meet the world economic crisis’.
Meanwhile, 1,200 textile workers have travelled from northern Greece to Athens to demand the government financially supports the crisis-ridden United Textile plants so they won’t lose their jobs.
Bearing black flags they marched to the Ministry for Finance where the president of the GSEE (Greek TUC) met the Minister.
The reformist leaders of the plants’ trade union have refused to occupy the plants and call for the nationalisation of United Textile under workers’ control.
The Stalinist Greek Communist Party (KKE) and the Federation of Textile Workers Trades Unions, led by KKE, are refusing to support the textile workers in yet another clear expression of their double-faced ‘now sectarian, now reformist’ policies.
Nearby, hundreds of past and present short-term contract Ministry for Culture workers held a militant rally outside the ministry building, demanding ‘full employment not sackings’.
For decades the Ministry has been employing tens of thousands of so-called ‘temporary’ workers on low wages and without proper rights.
But as the Greek government slashes public spending, thousands of short-term workers have been sacked.
Several hundred Ministry for Culture workers, who are not being paid since there are no funds allocated for their wages, have refused to quit their jobs, demanding that the Minister finds the resources.
Trade union leaders met with the general secretary of the Ministry who promised nothing except another meeting next week to ‘review the situation’.