Syriza’s victory in Greece is allowing the European working class to draw many conclusions. The most important is that it’s necessary to fight and it’s possible to defeat austerity. Not just in the electoral arena, but mainly in the streets, where the Greek people have staged countless scenes of heroism, with dozens of general strikes, hundreds of local strikes, demonstrations and an increasing organization.
Another very clear conclusion is the character of the European Union. Their institutions and the rulers of their main member states, such as Germany, France and Britain, don’t wish to make any kind of concession to Greece, so that it can breathe and improve the living conditions of its people.
After Tsipras’s speech in the parliament, he faced a battery of threats from those institutions and governments.
Greece’s creditors, the so-called Troika — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — are forcing the new government to extend the country’s bailout of €240bn and receive the latest instalment, a loan of €7 billion.
At the same time, the European Central Bank said it will no longer accept Greek bonds as collateral for liquidity, which means it will not approve the issuing of treasury bills. Treasury bills would be repaid in more favourable conditions than an EU loan.
All of this means that the main European imperialist institution, the EU, prefers to see the Greek people starve to death rather than help Greece find a way out of its crisis.
It’s no different with the other member states. A tour of European capitals by Tsipras and Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis failed to win firm support for Greek ambitions to write down the €320bn debt burden and to revoke some of the most severe cutbacks.
The European Union of the capital must be destroyed
For revolutionaries there is no other option. If we really want to help the Greek people, demonstrations of solidarity are necessary, but are not enough. We must build a united front of every fighting group in Europe to face the EU and call for its defeat. Mainly in its core, the main imperialist countries: Germany, France and Britain.
This policy has nothing to do with the Ukip policy who just want to leave the EU (in words, but not in deeds), and continue to deal with it under “better conditions” for Britain. Ukip pursue the reactionary dream of “Great Britain.” It’s a nationalist and chauvinist policy. They are enemies of the European working class and want to maintain capitalist exploitation over us.
The policy we defend is the opposite: a union of the European working class and its peoples to fight our exploiters, including Ukip, and our rulers. The struggle against the EU is not aimed at leaving Europe, but – united with all the workers of the continent – to destroy the EU and build a new Union, a European Union of workers and peoples.
Those on the left who refrain from seeking this policy are helping imperialism to smash Greece and all the indebted countries (Portugal, Spanish State, Ireland); because the main tool to do this with is the European Union and its institutions.
Some of them, members of the Party of the European Left (PEL) defend the “re-foundation” of the EU aimed at its “democratisation.” This policy doesn’t change the imperialist character of the EU, it just tries to make it more acceptable for the working class. It is, objectively, a pro-imperialist policy because it accepts the EU rules, its institutions and its capitalist limits.
We call on all the British left to unite around the only way to put an end to the plundering and the exploitation of the Southern European countries and the whole European working class: the destruction of the EU to build the Socialist United States of Europe, an EU of the workers and the peoples.
