“Sustainability”, “fairness”, “necessary reform” are some of the words uttered by government officials in their effort to defend its plans against the social-security system and to conceal the truth.

They are not at all original. The “sustainability” and “fairness” of the system were invoked by all the previous governments in order to justify their own anti-people interventions in the social-security system. They are now doing the same. ND and PASOK used tonnes of lies and selective data in their line of argument. Today, the coalition government of the “left” party SYRIZA and the allegedly “patriotic” party ANEL are doing the same.

Previous “rightwing”, “social-democratic”, “technocratic” bourgeois governments also implemented increases in the retirement age, increases in social security contributions and reductions in pensions. The new measures of the SYRIZA-ANEL government are a continuation of all the preceding anti-people laws.

This is the reason why the SYRIZA-ANEL government is trying on the one hand to differentiate itself from the other bourgeois parties by using fake slogans and on the other is attempting to curtail or assimilate popular protests with lies and maneuvers.

This similarity with previous governments is not at all accidental. The government is marching unswervingly along the line set out by the specific directives and guidelines of the EU, which aim to liberate capital and its state from their contributions to the social security system, to transform healthcare, welfare and pensions into a private matter for the workers.

In the end, they aim to create new avenues of profitability for the vultures of the private insurance companies, either through their management of the assets of the professional funds or through insurance contracts in the health and pension sectors.

All the laws drafted over the last 25 years, amongst them those voted for or being prepared by the current government, are completely aligned with the aim of further reducing the price of labour power in order to increase capital’s profitability. The difference is that today’s government is once again posturing that it is allegedly a “tough negotiator” with the imperialist organizations (EU, European Central Bank, IMF). So, G. Katrougalos, the Minister of Labour stated: “The people should take to the streets. The people on the streets support the same things I do. Redistribution, higher pensions… And I am trying to negotiate with the institutions for these things. However, at the same time I am also trying to balance between the need for the pension system to have these characteristics and the need to tame the deficits that exist. And our basic difference with the previous governments is that my reform has a redistribution character and is socially in favour of those “at the bottom”.”

The brazenness of these so-called “left wingers” has no limits. And if the goals of the government are in line with those of the people, how is it possible for the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEB) and the “institutions”, i.e. the EU and IMF, to applaud the government’s plan against social security and for Katrougalos to be pleased with this?

If the government wants the people to take to the streets, then why did it send the riot police to attack PAME’s demonstration last Friday on 8/1/2016?

If this reform is “socially in favour of those at the bottom” then why does it crush the small and medium farmers, abolish EKAS (additional pension) for poor pensioners, condemn old and new pensioners to starvation pensions?

The minister is a liar and a conman and wants the movement to demonstrate in favour of the government to conceal that it is on the same side of the employers and “institutions”.

The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, during his visit, the 4^th largest city in Greece, stated that “The new social-security bill is a casus belli for the working class and popular strata.” As the GS of the CC of the KKE stressed during his visit to the city’s town hall and after his meeting with the city’s communist mayor, K. Peletidis’ “There needs to be a general uprising so that this draft law is not tabled or proposed, nor in the form that it will finally take after the government’s negotiations with its “partners”. It must not be tabled in Parliament. If it is tabled it must be voted against. And of course this can happen only if the working class, the poor farmers, the self-employed, the youth and women from the popular strata of our country take to the streets. If they take to the streets and demonstrate their real power, then this draft law can truly be tossed aside.”

12.01.2016