After finding  a last-minute agreement that prevents Greece from an uncontrolled exit out of the Eurozone, thereby deepening the humanitarian crisis and the economic recession, GUE/NGL President Gabi Zimmer said:

“It is a success for the Greek Government that the reprofiling of Greek debt is included into the agreement despite resistance by the German Government and other hardliners to deal with the unsustainable debt at all.”

“The Eurogroup now has to find an immediate way to provide the bridge financing that Greece needs in order to stabilize the Greek economy and allow the banks to reopen for citizens as soon as possible.”

“We strongly criticize the disgraceful blackmailing of the new Greek Government during the whole negotiation process, the threat of a Grexit scenario by Merkel and Schäuble and their allies in order to force the Greek Government to accept the creditors' conditions, which have failed during the last years.”

Gabi Zimmer continued: “In particular, the German Social Democrats, who are members of the Merkel Government, will have to explain how they can back these European policies which are detrimental to European workers, employees and poor people, and damage European democracy and solidarity.”

“Germany already had a very negative experience with privatisation funds to sell public property after reunification. The so-called “Treuhand” dumped public companies, real estate and public land at prices far below their value. The way “Treuhand” acted encouraged corruption and nepotism and private investors benefited mostly from it. This is not what the Greek state needs. Everything has to be done to avoid the big mistakes made by Germany in the past.”

“One other  important result achieved by Alexis Tsipras is that part of Greece's revenue will be reserved for investments into the economy and that this fund will be located in Greece with the Greek Government having a say in how it is used. Merkel and Schäuble wanted it to be located in the tax haven of Luxembourg, and wanted Greece excluded from any decisions.”

“Schäuble and Merkel destroyed a lot of trust in the Euro and the European integration process as a whole by ruthlessly trying to impose their radical market and neoliberal approach on their European partners. Using authoritarian and undemocratic measures to enforce EU policies in the interest of Germany will further weaken confidence of European citizens in the EU. A European Union mainly serving the specific interests of an exuberant German export industry is putting its own future at risk.”

 

 

GUE/NGL Press Contact:

Gay Kavanagh +32 473 84 23 20