Workers’ struggle against G20 and Eurozone crisis

As a financial crisis rages through Europe, the G20, which officially describes itself as a meeting of world leaders “to provide world growth with more stable, sustainable foundations,” is scheduled to meet on Nov. 3-4 in Cannes, a small coastal city on the French Riviera best known for its annual film festival.

During the last week in October, the Greek Parliament pushed through another even harsher austerity package putting the cost of the debt crisis on the backs of the workers, even though thousands were protesting in the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki. European government heads managed to cobble together a bailout on Oct. 27 based on this severe austerity plan to rescue the banks that had loaned money to Greece.

Financial markets rose worldwide on the news of the deal, perhaps prematurely. The global chief investment officer for Citi Private Bank described this bailout as “a patchwork.” Another financial expert said, “There are very real risks that this will prove to be just another divot in the road.” (New York Times, Oct. 28)

On Oct. 28, thousands of Greek workers and their allies in Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece, blocked the annual military parade held to honor Greece’s refusal to surrender to fascist Italy in 1940. They threw bottles and eggs at President Karolos Papoulias; His Eminence the Metropolitan of Thessaloniki, Anthimos Roussas; and other officials until the cops evacuated all these big shots. Although the Greek workers and especially the communists were the strongest and most valiant enemies of Mussolini and Hitler, they supported these demonstrations against the Greek government.

Demonstrators burned the German flag, according to pictures on CitizenStore, to protest how Greece has become a puppet government for its foreign lenders. Germany occupied Greece in World War II. The military parades were also blocked in Héraklion (in Crete), Rhodes, Patras, Kalamata, Trakala and Naupli. (Le Parisien, Oct. 28).

This “sovereign debt crisis” in Europe is different from the housing bubble in the United States. When the Greek government splurged billions of euros (1 euro at the time was about $1.20) on the 2004 Olympics, they had to borrow the money from German and French banks at a high interest rate. Currently Greece has to pay around 10 percent on its bonds to attract buyers, who consider Greek bonds to be high risk.

But the big, private banks could borrow at 1 percent in 2004. This meant a substantial profit, as long as Greece didn’t default. For the banks, a number of other European countries, in particular Portugal, Ireland and Spain, face similar “sovereign debt” problems. Threatened by defaults, the eurozone has even invited China, one of the few large countries in the world with a huge reserve of foreign currencies, to invest in its stabilization fund.

An important focus of the G20 is allegedly to alleviate hunger. The method they have chosen, according to a report of Attac-France, is to strengthen the market in agricultural products and remove all import quotas.

What happened in Haiti in 2008 is a good example of how such policies fail. Starting in the 1980s, U.S. experts put pressure on Haiti to transform its agriculture, especially after the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier. His successor was pressured into removing restrictions on rice imports, which meant U.S.-subsidized rice flooded the Haitian market, destroying local production, which had generally produced all the rice Haiti needed. By 2000, Haiti was a major export market for U.S. rice and when prices for rice shot up in 2008, Haitians starved until they nearly overthrew the government.

Attac-France has assembled a coalition, supported by major progressive forces like the French Communist Party, the New Anti-capitalist Party, trade unions and community organizations, to hold anti-G20 teach-ins on Nov. 1 and 2, and then to conduct protests as close as they can get to the meeting in Cannes. They expect to get some participants from Spain and Germany, but the French government is closing the nearby French-Italian border.