EU Leaders Have No Answers

EXTRACT: Obviously, Papandreou’s high -risk move was a desperate attempt to pre-empt mass resistance to yet more vicious attacks on the living standards of the working class by providing a fig-leaf of legitimacy to the troika-imposed austerity regime. Margaret Thatcher, quite correctly as far as communists are concerned, memorably described referendums/plebiscites as a “device of demagogues and dictators” - or, in this case, a beleaguered bourgeois politician seeing his options rapidly run out. Inevitably, and rather ironically, Tory Eurosceptics and others immediately hailed the ‘socialist’ Papandreou as a noble democrat standing up to bullying Brussels bureaucrats: setting an example for the UK to follow. In reality, of course, Papandreou is a member of the state-bureaucratic elite and has no more interest in real democracy than those of his former colleagues - both internally and externally - now railing against him.
Having said that, the response to Papandreou’s referendum gamble just as equally exposes the gaping democratic deficit that lies at the heart of the euro zone - an elite project from above that aims to advance the privileged interests of bourgeois/establishment politicians, Eurocrats, bankers, investors and the minority capitalist class as a whole. Feeling betrayed, angry euro zone leaders - especially the French and German governments - relentlessly piled on the pressure to get Papandreou to abandon his plans. Indeed, acting like control-freaks, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel resorted to essentially blackmail tactics against Papandreou - bluntly declaring that any such referendum would also be a vote on Greece’s continued membership of the EU. Therefore, there would be no further bailout money for Greece - inviting almost immediate bankruptcy for the country - until the referendum had been held and the masses had voted ‘correctly’ (ie, ‘yes’). Ditto for any fresh elections that might be held as a result of the current instability gripping Greece. Until the political configuration and programme of the new government was known, and the bailout package formally ratified by parliament, there would be no cash.
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Devonian delicacy

Referendum Gamble Plunges Euro Still Deeper Into Crisis

EXTRACT: The troika certainly wants its pound of flesh - and a lot more besides. In order for Greece to qualify for the next tranche of €8 billion in bailout loans - authorised by EU finance ministers on October 21, pending last-minute finalisation by the IMF - the Athens government has to impose on the masses a fresh round of savage cuts. Like further cuts in public-sector wages of between 20% and 30%; the scrapping of bonus and incentive schemes; the placing of some 30,000 public sector workers on 60% pay for one year pending their dismissal; the suspension of collective wage bargaining; the cutting of pensions and lump-sum retirement payments; the lowering of the tax-free income threshold from €12,000 to €5,000 a year; and on and on it goes.
If the Eurocrats were to get their way, then Greek workers would be reduced to a virtual slave class - a fate which the bourgeoisie would like to see extended to Portugal, Spain, Italy, etc. The Greek working class movement has other plans, of course - which is why Papandreou has deemed it necessary to try and pre-empt their resistance through a referendum, that favourite device of dictators and bureaucrats.
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