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For a European Campaign of Solidarity with Greece

International Secretariat, League for the Fifth International

1. The government of Greece, brought to power after years of popular resistance to austerity, has immediately come under attack and blackmail from the institutions of international finance capital and the European Union.

2. They want to make an example of Greece in order to terrify any other people who might think of voting to reject the slashing of living standards and social services. Supporting the demand to break the EU rulers’ stranglehold on Greece is immediately linked to breaking the hold of austerity across the whole continent.

3. Faced with the threat of an end to all financial support and expulsion from the Eurozone, which would trigger a collapse of the country’s economy, Greece needs the practical support of workers, youth and all progressive forces across the continent. Those responsible for the threats sit in the governments of the most powerful European states and on the boards of the central banks and financial centres, in Berlin, Frankfurt, Paris and the City of London. To aid Greece means striking back at them – for they are the enemies of all workers across the continent.

4. A campaign to come to the aid of Greek workers and youth should start with a Europe-wide day of mass demonstrations – supported by all the trade union federations and by their rank and file and workplace organisations if the leaders hesitate. The political parties of the left, great and small, must be urged to take part with their MPs and national leaderships. Here, too, the membership must lead from below if there is no leadership from above.

5. We need a day of militant mass demonstrations in all the major cities of the European Union as a first step – thus proving we have broken the spell of the media and politicians’ lies about the “greedy Greeks”.

6. This in turn needs to be escalated, as rapidly as possible, into a Europe wide day of action, including strike action, and direct action against the “Institutions”, as the Troika of the European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund is now called, and against governments who continue to threaten and rob Greece.

7. This needs to be linked immediately to the demand for an end to austerity in every state, including those not in the Eurozone, the ripping up of the treaties and agreements which impose balanced budgets and limits on social spending whilst preventing taxation of the bankers, CEOs and mega-corporations.

8. We need to expose the complete racket of debt repayment, showing that the money saved by cutting health and education and selling off public goods, ends up boosting the fortunes of the rich, which have risen to dizzying heights at the same time as wages have plummeted. We need to open the books of the banks and financial institutions and put a stop to their profiteering. In short, we need to make the rich pay for their crisis.

9. We urgently need a Europe-wide gathering to plan and organise such a movement, with delegates from all the above mentioned organisations, similar to those mounted by the European Social Forum and the antiwar movement in the early 2000s.

10. Can we do this? Yes we can! Indeed, we must!

• Solidarity with the working people of Greece

• An end to Austerity – in Greece and Europe-wide

• Cancel the Debt in its entirety

• Open the secrets of the national banks and the ECB to workers’ and public scrutiny and control

• Reject privatisations across the continent

• For a Socialist United States of Europe.

International Secretariat of the League for the Fifth International

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