SYRIZA Proposal: The Exit from the Crisis on the Left

May 29, 2012

By SYRIZA Translated by Critical Legal Thinking

1. Cre­ation of a shield to pro­tect soci­ety against the crisis

• Not a single cit­izen without a guar­an­teed min­imum income or unem­ploy­ment bene­fit, med­ical care, social pro­tec­tion, hous­ing, and access to all ser­vices of pub­lic utilities.

• Pro­tec­tion of and relief meas­ures for indebted households.

• Price con­trols and price reduc­tions, VAT reduc­tion, and abol­i­tion of VAT on basic-need goods.

2. Dis­posal of the debt burden

The national debt is first and fore­most a product of class rela­tions, and is inhu­mane in its very essence. It is pro­duced by the tax eva­sion of the wealthy, the loot­ing of pub­lic funds, and the exor­bit­ant pro­cure­ment of mil­it­ary weapons and equipment.

We are ask­ing imme­di­ately for:

• A morator­ium on debt servicing.
• Nego­ti­ations for debt can­cel­la­tion, with pro­vi­sions for the pro­tec­tion of social insur­ance funds and small savers. This will be pur­sued by exploit­ing any avail­able means, such as audit con­trol and sus­pen­sion of payments.
• Reg­u­la­tion of the remain­ing debt to include pro­vi­sions for eco­nomic devel­op­ment and employment.
• European reg­u­la­tions on the debt of European states.
• Rad­ical changes to the European Cent­ral Bank’s role.
• Pro­hib­i­tion of spec­u­lat­ive bank­ing products.
• A pan-European tax on wealth, fin­an­cial trans­ac­tions, and profits.

3. Income redis­tri­bu­tion, tax­a­tion of wealth, and elim­in­a­tion of unne­ces­sary expenses

• Reor­gan­iz­a­tion and con­sol­id­a­tion of tax col­lec­tion mechanisms.
• Tax­a­tion of for­tunes over 1 mil­lion euros and large-scale revenues.
• Gradual increase, up to 45%, of the tax on the dis­trib­uted profits of cor­por­a­tions (SA).
• Tax­a­tion of fin­an­cial transactions.
• Spe­cial tax­a­tion on con­sump­tion of lux­ury goods.
• Removal of tax exemp­tions for ship own­ers and the Greek Ortho­dox Church.
• Lift­ing of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity for bank­ing and mer­chant trans­ac­tions, and pur­suit of those who evade taxes and social insur­ance contributions.
• Ban­ning of trans­ac­tions car­ried out through off­shore companies.
• Pur­suit of new fin­an­cial resources through effi­cient absorp­tion of European funds, through claims on the pay­ment of Ger­man World War II repar­a­tions and occu­pa­tion loan, and finally via steep reduc­tions in mil­it­ary expenses.

4. Pro­duct­ive social and envir­on­mental reconstruction

• Nationalization/socialization of banks, and their integ­ra­tion into a pub­lic bank­ing sys­tem under social and work­ers’ con­trol, in order to serve devel­op­mental pur­poses. The scan­dal­ous recap­it­al­iz­a­tion of the banks must stop immediately.
• Nation­al­iz­a­tion of all pub­lic enter­prises of stra­tegic import­ance that have been privat­ized so far. Admin­is­tra­tion of pub­lic enter­prises based on trans­par­ency, social con­trol, and demo­cratic plan­ning. Sup­port for the pro­vi­sion of Pub­lic Goods.
• Pro­tec­tion and con­sol­id­a­tion of co-operatives and SMEs in the social sector.
• Eco­lo­gical trans­form­a­tion in devel­op­ment of energy pro­duc­tion, man­u­fac­tur­ing, tour­ism, and agri­cul­ture. These reforms will pri­or­it­ize nutri­tional abund­ance and ful­fill­ment of social needs.
• Devel­op­ment of sci­entific research and pro­duct­ive specialization.

5. Stable employ­ment with decent wages and social insurance

The con­stant degrad­a­tion of labour rights, coupled with embar­rass­ing wage levels, does not attract invest­ment, devel­op­ment, or employment.

Instead, we are call­ing for:

• Well-paid, well-regulated, and insured employment.
• Imme­di­ate recon­sti­t­u­tion of the min­imum wage, and recon­sti­t­u­tion of real wages within three years.
• Imme­di­ate recon­sti­t­u­tion of col­lect­ive labour agreements.
• Instig­a­tion of power­ful con­trol mech­an­isms that will pro­tect employment.
• Sys­tem­atic oppos­i­tion of lay-offs and the dereg­u­la­tion of labour relations.

6. Deep­en­ing Demo­cracy: demo­cratic polit­ical and social rights for all

There is a demo­cratic defi­cit in the coun­try. Greece is gradu­ally being trans­formed into an author­it­arian police state.

We are call­ing for:

• The res­tor­a­tion of pop­u­lar sov­er­eignty and an upgrade of par­lia­ment­ary power within the polit­ical system:
• Cre­ation of a pro­por­tional elect­oral system
• Sep­ar­a­tion of powers
• Revoc­a­tion of min­is­terial immunity
• Abol­ish­ment of eco­nomic priv­ileges for MPs
• Real decent­ral­iz­a­tion to cre­ate local gov­ern­ment with sound resources and expan­ded jurisdiction.
• The intro­duc­tion of dir­ect demo­cracy and insti­tu­tions of self-management under work­ers’ and social con­trol at all levels.
• Meas­ures against polit­ical and eco­nomic corruption.
• The solid­i­fic­a­tion of demo­cratic, polit­ical, and trade union rights.
• The enhance­ment of women’s and youths’ rights in the fam­ily, in employ­ment, and in pub­lic administration.

Immig­ra­tion reforms:

• Speed­ing up the asylum process
• Abol­i­tion of Dub­lin II reg­u­la­tions and grant­ing of travel papers to immigrants
• Social inclu­sion of immig­rants and equal rights protection
• Demo­cratic reforms to pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion with the act­ive par­ti­cip­a­tion of civil servants.
• The demil­it­ar­iz­a­tion and demo­crat­iz­a­tion of the Police and the Coast Guard. Dis­band­ment of spe­cial forces.

7. Res­tor­a­tion of a strong wel­fare state

Anti-insurance laws, the shut­down of social ser­vices, and the steep fall in social expendit­ures under the Memor­andum have turned Greece into a coun­try where social injustice reigns.

We are in need of:

• An imme­di­ate res­cue of the pen­sion sys­tem, to include tri­part­ite fin­an­cing and the gradual con­sol­id­a­tion of sep­ar­ate pen­sion fund port­fo­lios into one pub­lic, uni­ver­sal sys­tem of social insurance.
• A raise in unem­ploy­ment bene­fits until the sub­sti­tu­tion rate reaches 80% of the wage. No unem­ployed per­son is to be left without unem­ploy­ment benefits.
• The intro­duc­tion of a guar­an­teed min­imum income.
• A uni­fied sys­tem of com­pre­hens­ive social pro­tec­tion cov­er­ing the vul­ner­able social strata.

8. Health is a Pub­lic Good and a social right

Health care is to be provided for free and will be fin­anced through a Pub­lic Health Sys­tem. Imme­di­ate meas­ures include:

• Sup­port and upgrades for hos­pit­als. Upgrade of health infra­struc­tures of the Social Insur­ance Insti­tute (IKA). Devel­op­ment of an integ­rated sys­tem of first-level med­ical care.
• Cov­er­ing the needs of med­ical treat­ment in both per­son­nel and equip­ment, in part by stop­ping lay-offs.
• Open and cost-free access to med­ical treat­ment for all res­id­ents in the country.
• Free phar­ma­ceut­ical treat­ment and med­ical exam­in­a­tions for low-income pen­sion­ers, the unem­ployed, stu­dents, and those suf­fer­ing from chronic diseases.

9. Pro­tec­tion of pub­lic edu­ca­tion, research, cul­ture, and sports from the Memorandum’s policies

With regards to edu­ca­tion, we are call­ing for:

• Con­sol­id­a­tion of uni­ver­sal, pub­lic, and free edu­ca­tion, includ­ing cov­er­age of its urgent needs in infra­struc­ture and per­son­nel at all three levels.
• Com­puls­ory 14-year uni­fied education.
• Revoc­a­tion of the Diaman­to­poulou Law.
• Assur­ance of self-government for Universities.
• Pre­ser­va­tion of the aca­demic and pub­lic char­ac­ter of Universities.

10. An inde­pend­ent for­eign policy com­mit­ted to the pro­mo­tion of peace

The capit­u­la­tion of our for­eign policy to the desires of the U.S. and the power­ful states of the European Union endangers the country’s inde­pend­ence, peace, and security.

We pro­pose:

• A mul­ti­di­men­sional and peace-seeking for­eign policy.
• Dis­en­gage­ment from NATO and clos­ure of for­eign mil­it­ary bases on Greek soil.
• Ter­min­a­tion of mil­it­ary cooper­a­tion with Israel.
• Aid­ing the Cyp­riot people in the reuni­fic­a­tion of the island.

Fur­ther­more, on the basis of inter­na­tional law and the prin­ciple of peace­ful con­flict res­ol­u­tion, we will pur­sue improve­ments in Greek-Turkish rela­tions, a solu­tion to the prob­lem of FYROM’s offi­cial name, and the spe­cific­a­tion of Greece’s Exclus­ive Eco­nomic Zone.

The incum­bent eco­nomic and social sys­tem has failed and we must over­throw it!

The eco­nomic crisis that is rock­ing global cap­it­al­ism has shattered the illu­sions. More and more, people under­stand that cap­it­al­ist spec­u­la­tion is an inhu­man organ­iz­a­tional prin­ciple for mod­ern soci­ety. It is also widely acknow­ledged that that private banks func­tion only for the bene­fit of the bankers, harm­ing the rest of the people. Big busi­ness and bankers absorb bil­lions of euros from health care, edu­ca­tion, and pensions.

An exit from the crisis requires bold meas­ures that will pre­vent those who cre­ated the crisis from con­tinu­ing their destruct­ive work. We are endors­ing a new model for the pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­bu­tion of wealth, one that will include soci­ety in its total­ity. In this respect, the large cap­it­al­ist prop­erty is to be made pub­lic and man­aged demo­crat­ic­ally along social and eco­lo­gical cri­teria. Our stra­tegic aim is social­ism with demo­cracy, a sys­tem in which all will be entitled to par­ti­cip­ate in the decision-making process.

We are chan­ging the future; we are push­ing them into the past!

We can pre­vail by for­ging unity and cre­at­ing a new coali­tion for power with the Left as a corner­stone. Our strength in this endeav­our is the alli­ance of the People: the inspir­a­tion, the cre­at­ive effort, and the struggle of the work­ing people. With these, we will shape the lives and the future of a self-governed people.

Now the vote is in the hands of the People! Now the People have the power!

In this new elec­tion, the Greek people can and must vote against the regime of the Memor­anda and the Troika, thus turn­ing over a new page of hope and optim­ism for the future.

For Greece and for Europe, the solu­tion is with the Left!

Ori­gin­ally trans­lated at left.gr