Protest in Greece

"Landep News"

Protest in Greece

Protests in Athens got violent on Thursday as clashes break out between rival groups of protestors, at the same time blocking the rally of tens of thousands of union members who protested against the vote in the parliament by which new austerity programs were approved.
Police stood by while hundreds of young people with black clads hurled stones and petrol bombs at the communist-affiliated PAME protestors, a labour group which favors well organized and peaceful demonstrations. At least six were injured and had to receive aid from the volunteer first aid workers in the field.
About 60,000 people protested peacefully in Athens, until these incidents that happened in front of a luxury hotel in Syntagma Square. The clashes on Thursday followed the clashes on Wednesday, when, at the start of the 48-general-strike, youths clashed with the police while protesting against the wage cuts and tax raises imposed to Greece by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
The bill passed a first vote on Wednesday night and is expected to be voted in detail by Thursday evening. While people protest, the prime minister Georgios Papandreou is preparing to go to Brussels, where a meeting is to be held by the nations that contribute to the bailout package, which will decide the decisions to be made in order to save Greece from default.
In the meantime, the Greek ministers advocate the passing of the bill on the austerity package as a great moment in history, as a test of credibility for their country, although the measures have been proving their lack of efficiency for the last two years.
Many members of the opposition, and economists have been telling the Greek government over and over that cutting wages and raising taxes is the worst thing a government can do in the times of crisis.
A member of the PASOK party said that he would vote for the last time this kind of measures, saying that he had struggles with his conscience over this. Another said that enough is enough, the country is despairing and the country is collapsing.
The government seems to have 154 votes in the 300-seat parliament in order to pass the law that would convince the western leaders to continue their support for Greece, but the laws are creating a very negative attitude of the people, which think that the government is placing the whole weight of the crisis on the shoulders of the poor, and that the measure is only deepening the country’s crisis.
On Wednesday, the labor unions were able to bring in the streets of Athens 100,000 people in the most significant protest in the last two years since Greece went into recession.

Protest in Greece

The EU-IMF troika is expected to approve the bailout package for Greece but the international leaders wanted to press the government to do more in the field of cutting spending.
The level of the protests were lower on Thursday because many workers returned to work for lack of money but there were some protesters who said they would continue to protest until the government fell. Shops re-opened on Thursday, but schools, ministries and other public buildings were shut and the transport was severely restricted.
Even with the people protesting in the streets the Papandreou government is not ready to step down, in spite of what has been speculated that the protests on Wednesday and the fact that the country is practically immobilized by the public debts that reached 165 of the domestic gross product would determine snap election before 2013, when election are programmed.
By the bill that is about to be passed on Thursday, the public sector workers will lose some 20 percent of their wages, bringing total income losses since the crises started to 40 percent.
Education minister said that on the meeting on Sunday depends the future of Greece, whether it can pay salaries and pensions, fuel and pharmaceutics, or it may continue to be a member of the European Union.
There were many who said that in order for the economic default to be avoided for the entire eurozone it would be best if Greece exited eurozone and returned to the national currency.
The grim perspective of losing the eurozone made a Polish statesman to say that if the eurozone collapses Europe will become a war zone in no more than 10 years.
Helping Greece is a move that would help Europe in the end, but it is not sure for how long. There are reports that even Germany is preparing to leave the eurozone end that national currency has already begin to be printed.

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