Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-18-Speech-4-134"
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"en.20000518.4.4-134"2
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"The European Parliament is being called upon today to give its opinion on the adoption by Greece of the single currency, now that the Commission and the European Central Bank have given the go-ahead.
We would start by pointing out that, as far as we are concerned, the matter is not technical, it is highly political. It is precisely on the basis of the ideological and political aspects of the entire process of EMU and the single currency that we shall be voting against the admission of the drachma to the euro zone.
From a technical point of view, Greece has undisputedly managed to fulfil the criteria set in the Maastricht Treaty for entering the third stage of EMU. The problem, however, is how we got here and what happens next.
The nominal convergence criteria have been achieved at the cost of intolerable sacrifice on the part of the Greek people and as the result of a harsh austerity policy, the main features of which were, and still are, reduced social spending, a highly restricted budgetary policy, wage freezes, limited protection for workers, deregulated markets and greater privatisation. Unfortunately, this policy, which has reduced large groups of the population to despair and has resulted in a dramatic rise in unemployment, a mass exodus from farming and the closure of factories throughout the country, will not be repealed when we enter the single currency; on the contrary, it will be stepped up. Both the obligations imposed by the Stability Pact and the strict recommendations accompanying the reports by the Commission and the European Central Bank prove it. Both demand that we continue the austerity policy, dismantle labour relations even more quickly, rush in measures to repeal the social security system and continue and accelerate the process of privatisation.
It is obvious that the workers have nothing to gain from Greece’s accession to the single currency amidst disorientating celebrations; on the contrary, they are even more certain to see a continuation, on stricter terms and with increased “supervision from on high” on the part of the EU, of the dead-end austerity policy which has been exercised for the last ten years. Besides, those who speak of the need to safeguard the “sustainability” of the criteria seek solely to ensure that it is easier to harden the present policy and support the anti-grass roots measures yet to come. The experience of other countries already in the euro zone proves that one new measure after another is introduced in order to reverse what has been achieved over previous decades and the “American model” is now the example to be followed by the famous European social model.
We, the MEPs of the ΚΚΕ, who stand by the positions to which we subscribed when the Maastricht Treaty was signed and which only the ΚΚΕ voted against when the time came to ratify it in the Greek national parliament, will be voting against Greece’s accession to the euro zone on the grounds of the workers’ and Greece’s interests. At the same time, we and the workers shall continue to fight against this policy and to promote an alternative development policy which focuses on man and his needs and which takes the opposite line from the reactionary policies of the ‘democracy of the monopolies’."@en1
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