‘IT’S the last chance – the Greek people need to know this.’
That was the threat of Eurogroup bully-boy President Jean Claude Juncker to the Greek people yesterday.
They must pay for the bosses’ and bankers’ crisis or else be thrown out of the EU and the eurozone.
This was his message following talks in Athens on Wednesday evening with the Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and his economics ministers.
The Greek bourgeoisie are being told that they have no alternative. It is either ruin or force the Greek workers and youth to accept starvation wages and mass unemployment.
Juncker’s message was that the European Commission is prepared to offer political and financial support to the three-party Greek coalition government on condition that a new colossal round of public spending cuts of some 11.7bn euros – accompanied by more slashing of wages and pensions, total privatisation and ‘flexible’ working conditions – is carried out by the Greek coalition government.
Juncker insisted on ‘structural reforms’, pointing out two priorities: the slashing of workers’ wages and massive privatisation.
He indicated that unless the Greek government carries out such a programme the European Union is not prepared to hand out to Greece a further instalment of the 130bn euros bailout Accord agreed last spring.
It is on this that Greece’s future membership of the eurozone will be decided.
Greek Prime Minister Samaras appeared more royal than a king and promised to Juncker that his government will fully implement the colossal cuts demanded by the EC and IMF and even more.
Samaras repeated his pleading for ‘a little room to breathe’, asking for a two-year postponement of loan and interest rate payments to the EC and IMF.
Juncker’s reply was that this depends on the EC-IMF-ECB troika’s report on Greece and on the willingness of EC leaders.
Following the collapse of the Spanish and Italian economies, the eurozone is split over committing further support to a ‘bottomless pit’ as the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble recently described the Greek bankrupt economy.
Some economists are insisting that Greece will need a further 20bn euros in the next two years to avoid default.
During the Samaras-Juncker two-hour meeting, the Greek Prime Minister emphasised Greece’s ‘geostrategic role’ in the Eastern Mediterranean and proudly presented to the eurozone President the results of the two-weeks’ old police pogrom against immigrant workers in Athens.
The response of the Greek workers to the desperate threats of the EU bosses will be revolution!
