ENG 
The GS of the Cc of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, visited the regions of Thessalonica, Pella and Imathia, where he met with workers, trade unions such as those of the Thessalonica Metro as well as with farmers, artists and he discussed with them their sharpening problems.
The GS of the CC of the KKE gave a press conference at the ITF on the 8/9, where he stressed amongst other things: “The KKE openly and clearly poses the following issue to the people: in this difficult and critical period we find ourselves in, every political force must take a position and be judged by the people on the basis of the answer it gives to certain basic questions:
- How and when will the people recover the enormous losses they suffered during the period of the deep crisis of the Greek economy?
- What path of development can ensure the satisfaction of the social needs that are today being sacrificed at the altar of the profitability and competitiveness of the monopoly groups?
We clearly pose these issues, these criteria, because the confrontation between the two basic poles of the bourgeois political system – the coalition government and SYRIZA- is attempting to trap and paralyze the people’s anxiety about the future with the deceitful question: which bourgeois government can most rapidly safeguard the return to capitalist growth and more effectively negotiate with the troika?
The government and SYRIZA are consciously deceiving the people when they promise development for everyone, development which will simultaneously safeguard the interests both of the people and of the strong business groups.
They raise their voices in a sloganeering confrontation about who will give the most crumbs to the sections of people living in extreme poverty, with the purpose of hiding their common obeisance to the goal of the profitability of the monopolies that hold the keys to the economy in their hands.
The way out of this phase of stagnation of the recession may be delayed in relation to the initial official predictions which had stated that it would take place in the first months of 2015.
The stagnation of the Eurozone, the reduction of growth in Germany and Italy in the 2nd quarter of 2014, as well as the sharpening of the contradictions between the imperialist centres in Eurasia and the Middle East impact on the course of the Greek economy, an example of this is the sanctions’ war between the EU and Russia.
However, in any case, whether it is sooner or later, this exit from the phase of the capitalist crisis is not going to alter the strategic directions of the anti-people restructurings being implemented in all the EU member states.
These are directions that aim at buttressing the competitiveness of the monopolies in the EU, ensuring cheap labour power and new areas of profitability for the over-accumulated capital. These directions, such as e.g. the Strategy “Europe 2020” bind all the governments of the EU member-states.
Negotiations about the level and the terms of managing the state debt do not aim at the substantial improvement of the state social policy, but at changing the distribution of state resources amongst the creditors and domestic monopolies. It is also related to the negotiations and pressure of the governments of Italy and France on the German government, due to the alteration of the correlation of forces at their expense inside the leading core of the Eurozone.
Italy and France, with the support of the USA, are demanding greater fiscal flexibility and an all-Europe programme to reinforce investments, as Draghi of the ECB in any case recently stated. These are choices that in the final analysis do not alter the anti-people character of bourgeois management, nor can they eradicate the laws and contradictions of capitalist production that create unemployment, destitution and the periodic outbreak of crises. In any case, they themselves talk about the continuation of the anti-people restructurings and political line that leads to increasingly cheaper labour power.
Whichever management proposal for the debt prevails, the ‘haircut” or the extension, i.e. that of the IMF or of Germany, of ND or of SYRIZA, with or without the troika, Greece as a member-state of the EU will find itself in a regime of “reinforced EU monitoring” on the basis of the well-known criteria of the Commission regarding the debt’s “sustainability”.
Whatever agreement is made by any government of bourgeois management, it can not negate the EU commitments for the “liberalization” and privatization of strategic sectors of the economy, regarding anti-people flexible labour relations, the quotas for domestic production, such as for meat or milk and other products.
Whatever tax relief and assistance is announced or discussed as a possibility, regarding the paying of the unbearable heavy taxes, will evaporate in the framework of the total implementation of the anti-people political line concerning taxation, social security, the commercialization of health and education.
Any crumbs for those who live in extreme poverty will come from the new bleeding of the rest of the salaried workers and self-employed, as the new tax breaks and exemptions are being provided for big capital.
Even if the large scale state debt is reduced, even if we accept that there will be a small recovery, the people’s sacrifices will continue, as long as the criterion of development and investment continues to be capital’s rate of profit. All the aspiring alleged tough negotiators with the troika and Commission are committed to this path of development.”