Workers Solidarity Movement

The rain is pouring, Summer's over and the Eurozone crisis is back from his hols. Timed nicely to coincide with the brutal Spanish riot police attack on the indignados protest outside the Madrid parliament, yesterday's statement by the remaining triple-AAA rated "Nordic Front" of Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, has put the cat back amongst the pigeons.

Undoubtedly, Greece is the country that has suffered the most during this last and totally unrestrained wave of liberalization and fierce devaluation of labour which has been sweeping Europe since the start of the financial crisis in 2008. At the same time there are a multitude of political anti-systemic oppositional forces which have managed to maintain a living presence in Greek society.

The third world war

is coming

That's what they say

Fuck

This ain't gonna be

a class war either

Something is changing in Spain. On Thursday 19th July, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people took to the streets against the greatest attack on Spain's welfare state in its history, in the form of cutbacks announced by the Partido Popular government. Public servants, trade unions, left wing political parties, worker organisations and unemployed people marched in 83 cities across Spain. A WSM member who returned on a visit to Toledo during Friday's protests reports on the struggle.

Four anarchists including two Greek anarchists examine the real effects of the Euro crisis on the Greek population, resistance to the attempts to impose all the costs of the crisis on ordinary Greeks and the meaning of the second round of elections in particular the role of SYRIZA

Spain began this week in bailout territory. Despite the increasingly shrill warnings of imminent catastrophe from Madrid, the battle of wills between the Spanish capital and Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt has managed to avert the hour of judgement thus far. But can they achieve the aim of preventing the fall of Spain before the second Greek election?

With votes still being counted it has become clear that the largest block of potential voters refused to take part in the fiscal compact referendum, rejecting the arguments that they could either vote for 'stability' or against 'austerity'. Quite possibly more people chose to boycott the referendum then the combined Yes and No voters. On top of this some 17% of the population who live and pay tax in Ireland were excluded from voting at all in the referendum. This means as many as 2/3 of the adult population did not vote in the referendum.

The slow-motion car crash that is the ongoing Eurozone crisis has hit yet another seizure point. The previous weekend’s French and Greek elections, Sunday’s German election in Nordrhein-Westfalen and the threat of a second Greek election next month, has raised the Eurozone stress levels back to panic levels. Hanging over the whole situation is the spectre of a death foretold - a funeral for the vision of the Euro as the party that no-one ever leaves.

The fiscal treaty, as agreed by EU governments, is clearly an austerity treaty and will impose serious levels of economic and financial pain on Irish workers for years to come.  In his blog ‘Notes On The Front’ Unite economist Michael Taft says “The Government, in signing the Fiscal Treaty, has effectively committed itself to introducing up to €6 billion more in tax increases and spending cuts in the medium-term, over and above what it has already planned”.[1]

Irish opposition politicians have called foul over Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s statement at Davos that the blame for the crisis in Ireland is that “people went mad borrowing” a month after he told the Irish people that “you are not to blame” in a national broadcast. But their are far more interesting issues that explain why the same man can make both statements without being aware of a contradiction than simple two-facedness.

This conversation between anarchists from the so-called “peripherals” in the Eurozone, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain took place by timely coincidence on the very day that saw the birth of the Spanish M15 movement.  This spread for a period around the globe and was to some degree a precursor or pattern for the “Occupy Everywhere” movement which emerged later this year. On a historical point of interest, in this conversation we also look at the precursor to the M15 movement, the March 12th mass demonstrations in Portugal called by the Geração À Rasca movement.