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Greece

Repression, Eviction And Dispossession In New Democracy’s Greece

The latest attack on the squatting movement in Greece is the preamble for a massive operation of housing dispossession by the right-wing government. Dimitris Indares was still in his pyjamas when the police knocked on his door in the neighborhood of Koukaki, in Athens, in the early hours of Wednesday, December 18. Not long after that, he was lying down on the floor of his home’s terrace, with a Special Operations policeman’s boot on his head.

Occupy, Resist, Produce: Inside The Self-Managed Factory Of Vio.Me.

Thessaloniki, Greece – Workers have successfully self-managed the production of environmentally-friendly cleaning products for the last six years in the occupied factory Vio.Me. There are no bosses in this factory on the east side of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city. Workers have been in full control since occupying the factory in 2013, two years after the workers had stopped receiving paychecks from the business due to the parent company having filed for bankruptcy. Unicorn Riot brings you inside the worker-run Vio.Me. facility in our three part video series.

Tsipras Has Betrayed The Greek People

The prime minister who lost his bluff with international creditors in 2015 is now striking another radical pose by giving holidays to assassins. The Greek word “syriza” means radical or from the grass roots.  That, however, does not describe the man who leads Syriza, Greece’s ruling party of the same name.  Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras mishandled the dramatic standoff with the EU and international creditors three years ago. He is now meddling with the country’s anti-terrorism laws concerning the Revolutionary Organization 17 November, a far-left group formed in 1975 that has carried out numerous assassinations.

Greek State Prosecutes 21 Environmental Defenders

This is Dimitri Lascaris, reporting for The Real News Network from the courthouse in Thessaloniki, Greece, the second largest city in the country. We are here today for the first day of a trial against 21 local residents involving charges of various criminal offenses in connection with an alleged arson at the gold mine of Eldorado Gold in Halkidiki, Greece. Eldorado Gold Corporation is a Canadian gold mining company. It has assets in Canada, Turkey, Greece, Romania, Brazil and Serbia. It’s headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, and its shares are listed on the stock exchanges of Toronto and New York. 

Italian Debt Crisis Erupts: Is This A Greek Debt Crisis Writ Large?

With no independent monetary policy and strict limits on its fiscal policy, all Italy could do in a recession or financial crisis, such as 2008-2010, was borrow money from the ECB and the Euro Commission (with help from the IMF–together the three pan-European institutions called the ‘Troika’). As it borrowed its government and private debt escalated. When the Eurozone slipped into a double digit recession in 2011-13, Italy’s crisis deepened. It borrowed still more, to pay the interest on the debt it had previously borrowed–the interest payments going to the Troika, and from the Troika to the northern Europe banks (especially Germany) from which the Troika in turn raised funds with which to lend to Italy (and other economies during the debt crises in Europe 2010-2015).

Greece At A Stand Still As Thousands Strike Against Austerity

Athens, Greece - Flags and banners fluttered above a steady stream of protesters, who chanted anti-austerity slogans as they marched through the streets of the Greek capital. On Wednesday, thousands of Greek workers, union members, migrant labourers, students, pensioners and unemployed people flooded Athen's city centre to hold a general strike against the government's ongoing austerity regime. Organised by labour unions, the 24-hour nationwide strike paralysed public transportation in much of the country, disrupted flight schedules and prevented many ships from setting sail. Subways and metros were halted, and several flights were grounded. Shops, restaurants, offices and schools were shuttered throughout the capital, and public services were paused for the day.

Athens Rally Moment Of Truth For Greeks Under Thumb Of EU-Imposed Austerity

ATHENS, GREECE (Analysis) – Hundreds of thousands of Greeks took to the streets of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, on Sunday, January 21, in a mass rally opposing a compromise on the part of the Greek government regarding the Macedonia name dispute with Greece’s northern neighbor, temporarily recognized by the United Nations as the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (FYROM). As talks between the governments of Greece and FYROM have progressed, seemingly out of the blue and after a very long period of dormancy, a significant percentage of the populace in Greece is seizing the opportunity to participate in the first large-scale street demonstrations in the country since the days leading up to July 5, 2015 referendum rejecting an austerity proposal put forth by Greece’s creditors.

EU Imposes Anti-Union Law On Greece

Under instructions from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the Greek government pushed through the most anti-union legislation in Europe on Monday 15 January. The move was demanded, along with other draconian measures, as a condition of the latest tranche of what is called Greece’s bailout but which in reality is bailing out the European financial institutions which recklessly encouraged Greek borrowing. The key concession required from the Syriza government was that industrial action would now require a yes vote from more than half of the total number of union members in a workplace, regardless of the actual turnout. This is even worse than the provisions in the Trade Union Act which came into law in the UK in March 2016.

FairCoop: An Alternative System Outside Of Capitalism

Athens, Greece – Tools born from the internet, applied across autonomous networks and movements seeking alternatives to capitalism, are providing the infrastructure of alternative societies. In the last of our specials on community currencies and alternative economies, we showcase FairCoop, a self-organized and self-managed global cooperative created through the internet outside the domain of the nation-state. During a conference on alternatives to capitalism inside of the self-organized and squatted Embros Theater in Athens, Greece in the summer of 2017, a Catalan speaker (who remained anonymous for safety purposes) gave a presentation on FairCoop, which informed much of this reporting.

Education To Deportation; Refugees Face Growing Crisis In Greece

By Maria Paradia for Occupy - At last count, one-third of the 60,000 refugees currently stranded in Greece are school-age children. Trapped in the country due to the E.U.'s inability to address the escalating humanitarian crisis, the children's educational prospects are shrinking by the day. Now, since summer school programs for refugee children failed last summer due to budget constraints and lack of specialized staff, individual teachers have begun taking it upon themselves to teach Syrian children elementary Greek. However, a lack of government-appointed translators has made the volunteers' work all the harder, forcing them to improvise or pantomime their way through classes while relying on older students to help get the message across. Despite their attempts, little progress has been made toward integrating the refugee children with Greek students. If anything, it appears the process is being actively discouraged by a Greek educational system that separates Syrian students' class schedules from locals, exacerbating the rift. According to Aura, a child psychologist working in the Softex refugee camp in Thessaloniki, "Being present at school during totally different hours makes it impossible to make contact and friends with local children. The longer they are excluded, the harder it gets to seek out contact because of the feelings of shame – not knowing the language, living in a camp – which of course has an impact on the self-esteem of the child."

Greece: Alternative Economies & Community Currencies Pt. 3

By Niko Georgiades for Unicorn Riot - Athens, Greece – Tools born from the internet, applied across autonomous networks and movements seeking alternatives to capitalism, are providing the infrastructure of alternative societies. In the last of our specials on community currencies and alternative economies, we showcase FairCoop, a self-organized and self-managed global cooperative created through the internet outside the domain of the nation-state. During a conference on alternatives to capitalism inside of the self-organized and squatted Embros Theater in Athens, Greece in the summer of 2017, a Catalan speaker (who remained anonymous for safety purposes) gave a presentation on FairCoop, which informed much of this reporting. Alternative economies are typically separate economic structures operating outside of the traditional economy and based on the common principles of a community. FairCoop is a function of an alternative economy and was built out of the necessity to provide an “alternative system outside of capitalism” and merge many autonomous movements and networks together to form a society based on each community’s values. FairCoop was created a few years after a nearly half a billion euro banking system expropriation action from 2006-2008, generally attributed to Enric Duran.

Greece: Alternative Economies & Community Currencies Pt. 1

By Niko Georgiades for Unicorn Riot - Athens, Greece – While capitalism and consumerism dominate the culture of the United States of America and the Western world, community currencies are creating a buzz elsewhere. The radical need for alternative economies and community currencies is becoming more commonplace among societies across the globalized world dealing with the crisis of mass poverty and inequality. In part one of our three part series shining a light on some of these alternatives, we look at the Athens Integral Cooperative. In the summer of 2017, the self-organized squat of Embros Theater hosted a speaking engagement discussing community currencies and alternative economies. After the discussion, we interviewed Theodore from the Athens Integral Cooperative (AIC) inside a social center in Exarcheia (Athens, Greece) about the parallel economy they are creating. Theodore gave a run down of what AIC is, the importance of it, as well as its struggles and how it modeled itself after Catalan Integral Cooperative (see our special on the Catalan Integral Cooperative). “We are building a substantial, alternative, and autonomous economy.”

Greece Could Leave The EU: Why The Grexit Option Deserves Consideration

By Michael Nevradakis for Mint Press News - With the Greek psyche itself the victim of a relentless shaming campaign, the idea of Greece “going it alone” begins to seem outlandish and quixotic. It is not. But it is as much tied to a revival of spirit and self-esteem as to the nuts and bolts of economic transformation. Eight years into the deepest economic depression that an industrialized country has ever experienced, we are now being told that Greece is a “success story.” Having accepted the “bitter medicine” prescribed by the “troika”—the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund—the storyline today is that Greece is on the road to recovery, firmly within the European Union and the eurozone. This narrative was recently echoed by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in his annual speech at the Thessaloniki Trade Fair, Greece’s equivalent to the State of the Union address. In this speech, Tsipras triumphantly declared that talk of “Grexit”—or a Greek departure from the eurozone and the EU—has been replaced by that of “Grinvest.” Within such a context, there is seemingly no room for discussions about whether it is in Greece’s best interest, even after so many years of implementing the troika’s austerity diktats, to consider a departure from the eurozone and the EU. Indeed, the narrative is that the people of Greece overwhelmingly have never supported the prospect of “Grexit.”

Battle To Oppose Water Privatization Returns Greece To Frontlines Of E.U. Crisis

By Maria Paradia for Occupy - In late September 2016, the Syriza administration laid the groundwork to begin Greece's water privatization, achieving a majority of 152 parliamentary votes and enacting series of new measures to transfer the state-run water companies of Athens (EYDAP) and Thessaloniki (EYATH) into a privatization superfund. The duration of the government's participation in the superfund was set at 99 years, with lenders promising the Greek government a bailout of barely 2.8 billion euros – far lower than the projected 50 billion euros estimated earlier in the year. While Greece was forced to privatize its water sources, however, other countries like Germany were undergoing the opposite: a phase of de-privatization. In Berlin, after 12 years of poor management and exorbitant price hikes, the local government several years ago reclaimed its water resources. This turn of events caused a series of similar de-privatization initiatives across the country, revealing that the projected economic outcomes via privatization weren't viable in the long term. In fact, the re-established state-run services were proven to be far more efficient, better organized and capable of providing higher-quality services than their privatized counterparts.

How Greece Became A Guinea Pig For A Cashless And Controlled Society

By Michael Nevradakis for MintPress News - 21 Jun 2017 – Day by day, we’re moving towards a brave new world where every transaction is tracked, every purchase is recorded, the habits and preferences of everyone noted and analyzed. What I am describing is the “cashless society,” where plastic and electronic money are king, while banknotes and coins are abolished. “Progress” is, after all, deemed to be a great thing. In a recent discussion, I observed on an online message board regarding gentrification in my former neighborhood of residence in Queens, New York, the closure of yet another longtime local business was met by one user with a virtual shrug: “Who needs stores when you have Amazon?” This last quote is, of course, indicative of the brick-and-mortar store, at least in its familiar form. In December 2016, Amazon launched a checkout-free convenience store in Seattle—largely free of employees, but also free of cash transactions, as purchases are automatically charged to one’s Amazon account. “Progress” is therefore cast as the abolition of currency, and the elimination of even more jobs, all in the name of technological progress and the “convenience” of saving a few minutes of waiting at the checkout counter.
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