ReINFORM – The crisis must be paid by those who created it

On Wednesday, February 11th, the negotiations between the Greek government and the Eurogroup began. The Greek government entered the negotiations by asserting a part of Greek people’s demands who protested on the streets for years. They essentially ask for what goes without saying: the handling of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Greece. Such a handling can only be achieved by stopping the disastrous policies of the last 4 years.

However, even these minimal demands made by the Greek side seems to be not easily accepted by the rest of the EU governments. They insist that the current government honor the promises of the previous government and comply with the memoranda. EU leaders, even though some of them come
from socialdemocratic parties, try to apply the toughest neoliberal measures people have ever seen not only to Greece but to the whole of Europe. At the same time, they try to convince us that those measures are successful.

Yet the only thing those measures brought to Greece was the disaster of its economy and the penury of the people’s majority: unemployment rose to 25% and 3 million people have no access to medical insurance. The only achievement of those measures -and essentially what they only soughtwas
rescuing European banks from bankruptcy as well as rescuing the profiteers who rise to wealth through the Greek debt.

The experiment that the EU, the IMF and the ECB applied to Greece in cooperation with the corrupted Greek governments will go down in history as the most cruel and inhumane one within the European Union. Analogous measures (pay cuts, abolishment of the social state and abolishment of
work rights) are applied to all European countries as they are in the Netherlands too by Rutte’s cabinet. In every case, the outcome is the increase of unemployment and poverty, while multiplying the profits of big companies and the incomes of the richest 1% of the population.

EU’s attitude towards the Greek people proves its real face. The European Union operates as a brutal executioner of the Greek people and overtly defends the interests of the Greek and the European elite which benefits from the crisis on the Greek people’s shoulders.

The Greek people have already lost a lot and will not draw back. The European Union must accept the Greek people’s decision to reverse the policies towards Greece. The Greek government has no right to withdraw from the Greek people’s decision. The people’s right to live in decency, to democracy and to access to health, education and social care is not negotiable. Greece’s public debt was not created by the people and must not be paid by the people. The more the Greek people are forced to pay that debt the more every policy change will essentially remain impossible. That is why we demand its erasure!

We ask for the support of the Dutch people as well as that of the rest peoples of Europe. Every victory of the Greek people’s demands against the Eurogroup will also be a victory of European people against the policy of cuts and the abolishment of the social state and work rights.

We do not compromise, we do not retreat.

The crisis must be paid by those who created it.

ReINFORM