THE Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) and Independent Greeks party (ANEL) coalition government, has confirmed that it is to implement a privatisation programme.
This includes the port of Piraeus, all the regional airports and the horse racing properties and betting.
Responding to criticism from the port of Piraeus dockworkers and the seafarers’ union, which have stated that they will take action against privatisation, Stathakis said that the government is to set up a ‘joint state-private investors company’ for the Piraeus port.
Early on Thursday, the Federation of Seafarers’ Union (PENEN) condemned the proposal by the Greek Finance Minister Yianis Varoufakis for increased taxation on ships’ crews.
PENEN states that Varoufakis’ proposal ‘means that the government is declaring war on seafarers’.
PENEN points out that instead of carrying out its pledges to tax the ship-owners, SYRIZA is attacking seafarers. But once again PENEN leaders refuse to organise and call action.
Minister Stathakis also said that there will ‘soon’ be an agreement reached with the EC-IMF-ECB troika of creditors on ‘reforms’ that will lead to the release of funds from the ECB to Greece.
Stathakis also confirmed that department stores and shops will also remain open for four Sundays a year. The Greek Federation of Shop Workers Union has called a national strike for this Sunday demanding no Sunday opening at all.
On Wednesday morning, over 1,000 old age pensioners took part in a rally and march in Athens demanding a pension rise; a march was also held in Thessaloniki. The vast majority of Greek old age pensioners receive less than 500 euros (about £400) monthly pension.
Students at the University of Thessaloniki have occupied the administrative building demanding proper facilities. At the University of Crete, students won the right to free meals for 250 poor students.
In Athens, the main administrative building of the University remains occupied since Monday with students demanding the release of relatives of two brothers convicted for placing bombs at banks’ ATMs.
Riot police stationed outside the building have arrested eight young people. About 100 Athens University professors gathered in front of the administrative building on Thursday morning calling for an end to occupation. But students held a rally at the same time to prevent a riot police attack.
In a Greek theoretical journal, Yiannis Milios, an Athens Polytechnic professor and Central Committee member of SYRIZA, launched an open attack on the SYRIZA government.
In his lengthy article, Milios, until recently the head of SYRIZA’s Economy Section, states that ‘in its first two months the government of the Left and its allies looks like being transformed into a populist manager of the domination of capital in its neo-liberal form’.
Milios reflects the feelings not just of intellectuals but also of workers and youth who see that the SYRIZA-ANEL government is carrying out the dictats of the EC-IMF-ECB troika and is betraying every single SYRIZA election promise.
There is a major conflict now developing between SYRIZA and the working class and students, just two months after the SYRIZA general elction victory.
But still the trade union leaders have yet to call a strike or even a march against privatisations and to demand the implementation of the SYRIZA election programme.
The Athens daily Kathimerini, the voice of big business, bankers and ship-owners, demanded in an editorial the cleansing of the government and SYRIZA of ‘left wing’ voices.