Greece: Nine years since the July 5 referendum

By xristianiki.gr

On the occasion of the completion of nine years since:

1. the July 5, 2015 referendum regarding the two first memoranda and the treaties imposed on the people of Greece by the “Troika” (the European Union, the European Central Bank and the Internationl Monetary Fund)

and

1. The 3^rd  Memorandum signed a few days later

combined with today’s growing insecurity of the peoples within the context of the European Union, the Christian Socialist Movement of Christian Democracy issued the following announcement:

1. Nine years have passed since the Referendum of July 5, 2015. When the People voted NO against the Memoranda. A vote that took place under the excessive extortion mechanism of the Lenders who were seeking to crush the People’s will through intimidating systemic propaganda, foreclosed banks and blatantly false opinion polls! Despite all this the People solemnly refuted by voting NO with a percentage of 62%. By this vote the Memoranda were not ratified by popular vote approval despite their subsequent imposition. That is why this NO that the Greek people said then, remains a valuable legacy for future struggles.
2. Note that on July 13, 2015, immediately after the “agreement” imposed on Greece for a 3rd Memorandum by the “partners”/Lenders, Slovak Finance Minister Peter Kazimir stated on his Twitter account: «#Greece’s compromise we reached this morning is tough for Athens because it’s the results of their “Greek Spring” #»
3. Peter Kazimir as a Slovak had been also a citizen of former Czechoslovakia. Consequently, the expression he used in his twitter account post refers directly to the “Prague Spring” of 1968!

During those events the military complex of the Warsaw Pact invaded  Czechoslovakia to discipline the government of Aleksandar Dubcek, who attempted improvements through reforms deviating from the “orthodoxy” of «real socialism»” that dominated Eastern Europe at the time. So when mr. Kazimir posted the term “Greek spring”, he admited that a similar type of repression took place in order to return Greece to the “straight path” of the neoliberal doctrine of austerity related to a “real Europeanism” rephrasing  «real socialism».

We should not forget that after the repression of the “Prague Spring”, in a speech in Poland in September 1968, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev formulated, the Brezhnev Doctrine of limited sovereignty of the countries of «real socialism»:

“When forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the development of some socialist country towards capitalism, it becomes not only a problem of the country concerned, but a common problem and concern of all socialist countries.”

In addition, on February 25, 2015, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the “European Commission”, stated about the electoral program of the newly elected Greek government of SYRIZA-ANEL:

“The electoral result of a country cannot change the Treaties and the agreements that have been made. If in every electoral process we had to question the procedures and the rules, we would kill Europe.”

As in Czechoslovakia in 1968, also the situation in Greece in 2015, became a “common problem and source of concern”.

5. Despite the demostration of force and supression , the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was the beginning of the end for “real socialism”. It was the direct cause for the mutliple divisions of the communist movements around the world. The true face of “real socialism” was revealed as a militarized and dictatorial regime, with puppet governments of the big Kremlin bosses. Thus leading to the decline and fall of “real socialism” twenty years later.
6. The European Union has been discredited in a similar way due to its behavior towards Greece in July 2015. The unprecedented and excessive measures at the expense of the Greek people showcased the true nature of the European Union as a mechanism supporting solely the interests of the international financial oligarchy and banking capital , despising and abolishing the will of the People.
7. In retrospect, one by one of the politicians who were protagonists of that period admit that Greece had been unjustly mistreated. It is a common secret now, that the Memoranda, apart from being abhorrent, heinous and illegal, were also patently ineffective and devastated the country. Obviously the incompetent accountants who imposed them, and their commissioners who implemented them, have very serious interests in outsmarting public opinion presenting their wretched choices as successful.
8. Subsequent developments confirm that Greece was not an exception. Already, the extreme insecurity caused by the neoliberal policy of Brussels, affects the other peoples of the EU member states. Especially those who had built a solid welfare state after World War II. The consequences of the gradually imposed neoliberal policy, combined with the globalization it serves, can no longer be hidden or disguised. The growing insecurity within the people is expressed politically by the growing social unrest and the huge upheavals of the political system which are recorded in the election results. The neo-liberal policy, with it’s basic tools of fiscal austerity, the privatization of public infrastructure for the benefit of a parasitic profit capital gradually disintegrates the welfare state and impoverishes the standard of living of the middle and popular classes. By redistributing wealth to the benefit of the fewer and fewer it impoverishes more and more of the many.
9. The discrediting of the systemic political forces that support the implementation of neoliberalism is at such an extent that large masses of the popular classes resort to political parties until now marginalized because they have a far-right discourse or origin or adopt a rhetoric of hatred towards diverse fellow human beings.
10. Especially with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, restrictions were imposed on the policies of governments, in favor of the promiscuity of the markets. And it has become prohibitive to implement any program to restore the welfare state. Consequently, no pre-election promise in this direction has any basis, without simultaneously questioning the so-called “European Treaties”.

Athens, July 12, 2024. From the Press Office.

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