«Greece’s radical left could kill off austerity in the EU»

The columnist Owen Jones notes in his article entitled "Greece's radical left can kill off austerity in the EU", the positive impact of a possible victory of SYRIZA in the elections.

"Another war looms in Europe: waged not with guns and tanks, but with financial markets and EU diktats. Austerity-ravaged Greece may well be on the verge of a general election that could bring to power a government unequivocally opposed to austerity. Momentous stuff: that has not happened in the six years of cuts and falling living standards that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers", says the columnist.

"But if the radical leftist party Syriza does indeed triumph in a possible snap poll in the new year, there will undoubtedly be a concerted attempt to choke the experiment at birth. That matters not just for Greece, but for all of us who want a different sort of society and a break from years of austerity", he continues.
Then, Jones refers to the sad consequences of crisis and austerity in our country.

"What misery has been inflicted on Greece. One in four of its people are out of work; poverty has surged from 23% before the crash to 40.5%; and research has demonstrated how key services such as health have been hammered by cuts, even as demand has risen. No wonder the country has experienced a political polarization that has prompted comparisons with Weimar Germany. The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn – which makes other European rightist movements look like fluffy liberals – at one point attracted up to 15% in the polls; though still a menace, its support has thankfully subsided to half that", he notes.

"But unlike many other European societies – with the notable exceptions of Spain and Ireland – fury and despair with austerity has been channeled into the ranks of the populist left. After years on the fringes of Greek politics, Syriza only became a fully fledged party in 2012, and yet it won Greece's elections to the European parliament earlier this year. The latest opinion polls give Syriza a substantial lead over the governing centre-right New Democracy party. A radical leftwing government could well assume power for the first time in the EU's history", writes the Guardian.

"After years of social ruin, Syriza is offering Greeks that precious thing: hope. Although it has shifted from demanding an immediate cancellation of debt, it is demanding a negotiated solution. It has conjured up the example of a European debt conference to wipe away a portion of the debt, as happened with Germany in 1953. Syriza's manifesto proposes that repayment of debt could come through economic growth, rather than from budget cuts. It wants a European new deal backed up by an investment bank; an all-out war against the tax avoidance endemic in Greek society; an emergency employment programme; a raised minimum wage; and the restoration of collective bargaining. In alliance with anti-austerity forces such as Spain's surging Podemos party, Syriza wants the EU to abandon crippling austerity policies in favor of quantitative easing and a growth-led recovery.

There's one small catch: the determined opposition of the establishment in both Greece and the EU. Greece was ruled by a hard-right junta, the colonels' regime of 1967-74, and there is still clearly anti-leftist sentiment deeply embedded in the state. The police have been infiltrated by Golden Dawn elements, with accusations that they have tortured anti-fascist protesters. The head of the bank of Greece has warned of "irreparable damage" to the economy if there is a change of course."
Jones, mentions the declarations of the European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, who clarified that "Greek people should vote the wrong way", but stresses that Greece needs the evident solidarity of Europeans, as SYRIZA can entrain other European parties, which oppose to austerity.
Closing the article, he says that: "So 2015 could finally be the year when austerity meets its reckoning across the continent. Or it could be the year that a democratic challenge to economic madness was strangled to death. It is a game of high stakes in which the futures of millions of people could be decided."