The following is an interview on the Greek crisis with Constantinos Avramidis – a Greek resident in Ireland, member of the Workers Solidarity Movement and of the Post Workers Union.
1. Can you give us some background of the economic crisis in Greece?
First of all, you have to start with the last government though they’re not responsible of the whole thing. There was a lot of money getting lost, scandals, black holes… not that they were the first government to resort to this corruption, remember that a Socialist government put us in the Eurozone by manipulating the economy and the real state of it. As usual, no one has been properly convicted or prosecuted, but last year there were lots of arrests. The main issue were the forest fires, because they had been using that scorched land for development and it was a big scandal since it was not happening for natural causes. And then you had young Alex who was killed by the police and the collapse of the world banks and their impact on the Greek economy, all adding to social discontent. But no one was really talking of the domestic economy: the people in government were fixing the figures, they were hiding information, and things were actually far worse than they told the public.
Conservatives and Socialists alike knew the situation was quite bad, but then the country was into elections in October. The Socialists knew the country was in a very bad condition and that they could not afford to pay pensions and wages, so we were basically bankrupt. The IMF and the World Bank were willing to give money, for a price, you know. The newly elected Socialists got elected promising economic reform away from Neoliberalism, they promised public and social spending, etc. The people fell into the trap. They gave a 100 day programme for all this to happen. They promised to attack corruption, but nothing of this they promised ever happened, because there was no money! And they did not admit it even though they it knew before hand, but it was all about electoral promises. So they turned to the EU to ask for a loan. The EU headed by France and Germany were not willing to just give them a loan, so they said they would get the money from the IMF. Now, Greece was the first country to get money from the IMF being within the EU, so that has consequences for all of the Union.
2. How bad were the conditions imposed for the loan?
The IMF after giving the first amount of money, what they were asking was for a number of reforms such as reducing public service spending, and to reduce the pensions. So they slashed bonuses and salaries, so 30% of the average income is gone for workers. Pensions were also reduced up to 30%; so people who had been given credit for houses, cars, and other things, are starting to lose them.
The second condition is that they have to reduce significantly salaries on the private sector workers, who were already screwed as they were. So the result is that for the first time in 36 years we have a general strike, where 300,000 were marching in Athens alone. This month we will have another general strike, actually tomorrow, so in two months we will have two general strikes, something that has never happened before in recent times. Now you see housewives coming onto the streets with pits and pans, common people that can’t make a living, is not just the left coming out to the streets.
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/16658Interesting that the IMF is demanding reduction of wages for the PRIVATE SECTOR WORKERS!