We are all Greeks! We are all Europeans!
Call for action of
the European citizens for Greece and Europe. June, 9th 2012 - June, 27 th 2012
 |
We want Greece to stay in the Eurozone.
As citizens of Europe active in progressive politics
and social movements, we reject the choice to give up on democracy and people's involvement in
the decisions concerning them in order to "reassure markets". We express solidarity with those who, in Greece as in many other
countries, look to the future in anguish and feel helpless in the face of a
crisis apparently impossible to overcome. We do feel however that it is
possible to go the way of European cohesion and solidarity and, at the same
time, find a feasible path out of the crisis, not only for Greece but for the
whole EU.
It is an illusion to think that “Grexit” would save
the euro and the EU – the same goes for the draconian and indiscriminate cuts
to public spending, in which investments, social expenditure and wasteful
mismanagement are put on the same level, with devastating effects on the lives
of millions of Europeans and on their prospects for the future.
Fear for the future must be replaced by cohesion and
transnational democracy. The Greek people are the first victims of bad
governance, the corruption of many politicians and economic actors, and the
lack of a real European government. But to remedy this dramatic negative spiral
the EU must play quite a different part than the one so far played by the
Merkozy duo, the IMF and the Commission. The EU must decide whether to sabotage
itself and go back to the bad old days of all against all, or to relaunch the
project of a federal Union. The first requirement would be a European
democratic government accountable to Parliament, endowed with a budget adequate
to its ambitions, and thus in a position to emit Eurobonds.
The first and crucial test is what will be done for
and with Greece in the run-up to the elections of the 17th June. It is also up to the EU and the member
states to strike a positive note, now.
At stake is now the fate of the Memorandum signed by
the Greek government, the EU and the IMF. We are certain that simply imposing
the Memorandum as it is and within the foreseen deadline is unacceptable and
counterproductive.
We call therefore on the European institutions in the
first place to:
1. Reopen the discussion on the most socially detrimental parts of the
Memorandum itself;
2. Review of the deadlines to implement necessary reforms, which however
cannot continue to demolish the social state and at the same time leave the
military expenditure or the privileges of the Church untouched, or fail to
distribute its costs evenly;
3. Launch a plan of economic and financial aid for Greece now, not for the
usual mammoth projects of big infrastructures which are bound to failure, but
for a Green New Deal focussed on
reducing the dependence on fossil fuels and on the ecological reconversion of
Greece, as well as on a tough fight against corruption and an effective use of
European funds. No less needed are European guarantees so as to freeze all the
armament programmes, and a strong support on the part of the EU to obtain
detailed information about Greek deposits in Switzerland and in other
countries.
But “saving” Greece is not enough. The whole European
project is today at risk, strangled by all-market ideology, the selfishness of
national governments, and the illusion that trust can be regained by pulling
down the social state and putting up borders again. This prescription, which is
being imposed not only on Greece, but also on many other countries in Southern
and Eastern Europe, will not work.
In order to resolve the crisis we need to take two
parallel actions.
The first is to overcome the repressive logic of the
Fiscal Compact and pre-empt it by launching a new range of measures on the
initiative of the European Parliament and the European Commission in order to
re-orient European resources towards a European plan of socially and
ecologically sustainable development – these measures must be financed
through the Financial Transaction Tax, the Carbon Tax, and the Project Bonds.
The second is to make peace with democracy and organize a campaign in view of
the European elections in 2014 for a Constituent Assembly, whose task will be
to draft a federal Constitution to be submitted to the European citizens for
approval in a pan-European referendum.
We cannot leave the responsibility up to the
governments and the European Commission only. The European Parliament must
retake the initiative, launch a much-needed public debate around positive
proposals of new measures to handle the crisis, and start a new constituent
process.
It is time to act. There is no more time to waste.
Europe. May, 31th 2012
Join the call for action of the European
citizens for Greece and Europe on June, 9th 2012 and 27th 2012
. Organize an event (flash mob, sit-it, etc.)
in your city.
Email
to: genova@mfe.it, mob.: +39.347.0359693
. Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/WeareallGreeksandEuropeans
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