What Kostas spoke about.

15

Jun

2023

Speeches EL

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The water crisis in Europe (debate)

Madam President, since, with the help of the European Union and all the governments, water is a commodity and the people a customer, with the business groups in the sector also treasure the droughts affecting Spain and France, it is the people who pay them both as a consumer and as a taxpayer and as a worker in the sector. Farmers are also hit hard. In Greece, the government of New Democracy, like that of SYRIZA, strengthened the commercialization of water, the operation of state and municipal enterprises with private economic criteria, in partnership with individuals in the liberalized water market, on the basis of the legal framework of the European Union directives. Against them, a strong popular strategic opposition with an even stronger KKE can fight together with the people for cheap, controlled, quality water, with an immediate 30% reduction in the tariffs for unemployed low-wage earners, against the immediate privatisation, the overall commercialization and business operation of state-municipal enterprises, with infrastructure projects, without concession contracts, so that water is a social good and not a commodity.

31

May

2023

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Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (debate)

Mr President, the directive is a monument to immunity for monopolies. The European Union washes away large business groups and exempts them, even from any formal impact or sanction, for the fact that, in pursuit of maximum profitability, they promote the work galleon against workers, employer crimes, the robbery of their customers and the looting of the environment. The capitalist state, with the help of the directive, assigns every obligation to control the groups to themselves, according to "Yiannis buys and Yiannis drinks". They are the ones who self-evaluate, self-monitor and get credentials of due effort, as well as affirmations of respect for human rights, towards self-advertising towards their competitors. The same Directive provides that directors of companies are responsible for controlling their own company. This is a provocative mockery of the people. In Greece, the workers, the people, can give an answer to the European Union, their capital and their parties, setting as a criterion the dilemma "or their profits or our lives", with a much more powerful Communist Party.

9

May

2023

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Revision of the Stability and Growth Pact (debate)

Mr President, an anti-people multi-tool is being activated at the expense of the people by any government of the next day and in Greece. The Stability and Recovery Pact is reintroduced in conjunction with the Recovery Instrument and the so-called ‘green and digital transition’. For example, in Greece, either with ND or SYRIZA in the government, primary surpluses are foreseen with preconditions for unpopular reforms or mechanisms. For the slightest thing that will appear as a permanent benefit to the people, they will have to offset it by an equal increase in taxation from the "menu" of the "wild" green taxes of the Fit for 55 package that all of them voted for here in the European Parliament, that is, by increases in fuel, in the upgrading of buildings, even cheaper air and boat tickets or by cuts in government spending. All the savings that the people will pay from their dismantled wages will "feed" the repayments of the Recovery Instrument, the peg that the large groups are "bleeding out", and will premium the so-called "war economy" of the imperialist slaughterhouse in Ukraine. Faced with the new "corset" that any given anti-people government will wear to the people, the people can only confront them with a much more powerful communist party.

8

May

2023

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Establishing the Act in support of ammunition production (debate)

Mr President, the war cries of the Commission for the passage of its European offensive industry into a "war economy" signal a new phase of escalation of imperialist antagonisms and "mammoth" war preparations, precipitating new sufferings for the peoples. The billions in increases for faster production of more ammunition and missiles, the extra EU project for armaments – beyond the plans of each Member State – come without even counting the respective NATO standards that will again be paid for by the peoples. This is an anti-people plan with which, given the role that Greek Defense Systems also assume, Greece is even more deeply involved in the imperialist war and the NATO-Russia conflict, with the states of central-western Europe spending more than 350 billion on military equipment. The Greek people must condemn the European Union of war and its parties, because, due to the signatures of ND, SYRIZA and PASOK, they are paying dearly for the competition of the monopolies. The only way out is to strengthen the KKE and the struggle against the imperialist war.

18

Apr

2023

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EU Rapid Deployment Capacity, EU Battlegroups and Article 44 TEU: the way forward (debate)

Madam President, the Borrell proposal is dangerous. It calls for the European Union's rapid intervention teams to be transformed into the European Union's so-called rapid-deployment capability of up to 5,000 troops initially. This is a broader and faster involvement in the intensified imperialist war in Ukraine and other military operations, with the activation of Article 44 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which does not require unanimity in the Council, the so-called military mobility II is strongly promoted, aiming at large-scale movements of military forces throughout the European Union, with or without NATO, in the context of the so-called strategic autonomy. In any case, their aim is to shield the bourgeois political system against the enemy people. Greece's involvement in Euro-Atlantic plans is becoming increasingly dangerous and only with a much stronger KKE can the people, through their struggle, put obstacles in the way of the imperialist plans that all the parties that have governed are promoting against them.

15

Mar

2023

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Conclusions of the Special European Council meeting of 9 February and preparation of the European Council meeting of 23-24 March 2023 (debate)

Madam President, the Summit promotes the escalation of armaments, prolonging the imperialist war in Ukraine between NATO and Russia. The European Union, the government of New Democracy in Greece, with the support of the other parties, are bidding to engage in the massacre with bases, weapons and the people paying a heavy bill for the profits of the groups: expensive energy, fuel, food, successive increases in interest rates of the European Central Bank and loan instalments, in the hammer the people's house. The EU common strategy of the bourgeois parties liberated, dismantled and handed over to the groups of every strategic sector. From the energy, now the water, the railway, everywhere the groups make unimaginable, green and digital profits, based on cost-benefit, and the people count heavy losses, like the 57 souls in the prescribed crime of train collision in Greece, which should not be disguised and about which there was no talk here. Guilty of the exploitative system, the European Union, the governments of capital and the organized popular struggle for the overthrow of this situation. The Communist Party of Greece is fighting in this way.

15

Feb

2023

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One year of Russia’s invasion and war of aggression against Ukraine (debate)

Mr President, for a year now the European Union and the governments have been portraying the imperialist war in Ukraine as a one-act project. But it is the result of a long course of escalation of the conflict between NATO, the United States, the European Union and capitalist Russia on the ground of fierce monopolistic antagonisms between them. Victims of the Ukrainian and Russian people, who for seven decades in the Soviet Union lived in peace. False dilemmas about the democratic West on the one hand and totalitarian Russia on the other. Both sides are capitalist. The Communist Party of Greece has condemned the Euro-Atlantic interventions and the coup d'état in Ukraine in 2014 and the unacceptable invasion of Russia and is fighting against the growing Greek involvement of the New Democracy coalition with the support of the NATO left of SYRIZA, the transformation of the country into an American-NATO base and a target of retaliation. The peoples to strengthen their independent struggle for disengagement from the imperialist plans, for their own interests, their own power.

13

Feb

2023

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EU response to the humanitarian situation following the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria (debate)

Madam President, the impact of the powerful earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, coupled with the policy of leaving the peoples immune to the profits of business groups, has led to an untold tragedy with thousands of dead, injured and homeless. We welcome the wave of genuine solidarity of the peoples in which the Greek people participate, as well as the Communist Party of Greece. We now demand the lifting of all unacceptable sanctions by the European Union, the US and NATO against Syria, so that humanitarian aid reaches the Syrian people who are suffering from the long imperialist intervention. We stress in particular that in earthquake-prone countries, such as Greece or Italy, on the basis of the European Union's green strategy detrimental to the people, governments favour the energy upgrading of buildings because it is profitable for construction and other groups and not to ensure the static adequacy of buildings with the necessary earthquake-proofing. Only the people save the people with solidarity and claiming integrated seismic planning with a focus on prevention against major interests.

1

Feb

2023

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Preparation of the Special European Council meeting of February, in particular the need to develop sustainable solutions in the area of asylum and migration (debate)

Mr President, the European Union is speeding up the digital file to quickly sort out cheap and flexible refugee workers. Those who "fasten" to the EU capitalist exploitation machine with interstate agreements, each of its member states claims them on its behalf, while for those who do not need to expedite deportations with the eloquent term "returns" in a miserable bargain with their countries of origin. In Greece, New Democracy, SYRIZA and PASOK, with one voice and one vote, are promoting "modern slave trade" agreements, such as the one with Bangladesh. At the same time, they are jointly defending wretched walls of repression, with Frontex as a gendarme, to prolong the unacceptable EU bans on secondary movements and the damaging EU-Turkey statement. These agreements create the problem of entrapment in the Greek islands and facilitate the instrumentalization by the bourgeoisie of Turkey in competition with the Greek one. Asylum services are needed here and now in Turkey, under the responsibility of the European Union and the UN, with human hospitality and full rights for the uprooted of the imperialist wars to go to their countries of real destination.

17

Jan

2023

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Implementation of the common foreign and security policy - annual report 2022 - Implementation of the common security and defence policy - annual report 2022 (debate)

Madam President, the reports are a manual for escalating imperialist wars, which people pay with their blood. The European Union, NATO and the United States are stepping up coordination in their competition with Russia and China. Kalpikoi are the divisions between them into democratic and authoritarian forces – all of which are capitalist. The scope of the monopolies conflict is not only Ukraine, but also Taiwan, the Southeastern Mediterranean, the Balkans and other regions. The lifting of the veto and the announced European Security and Defence Councils are tools for conducting military operations, promoting armaments and military corps at the front, imposing new sanctions. These dangerous plans involve the Greek government together with the other bourgeois parties. The ally European Union considers the bourgeoisie of Turkey a strategic partner and in practice unacceptable disputes of borders and sovereign rights are encouraged, in the context of its competition with the Greek bourgeoisie. The people in vigilance must oppose the imperialist plans and wars, the co-exploitation in the Aegean and the seizure of energy wealth by the monopolies.

17

Jan

2023

Speeches EL

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Surge of respiratory infections and the shortage of medication in Europe (debate)

Mr President, really, how is it that in Greece of the 30 major pharmaceutical companies there are explosive shortages in elementary analgesics, inhalants and even preparations for specialized treatments? Why are there similar shortcomings in other countries of the European Union? Because medicine is a commodity. Because this is the normality of the laws of the capitalist market and competitiveness, which impose parallel exports on the backs of the people. Governments, the European Union and the parties that serve the interests of the groups, such as New Democracy, SYRIZA and PASOK in Greece, blackmail the people with one mouth with the dilemma "or price increase or shortages". We saw the same work in the pandemic with vaccines and group competitions, where the latest developments confirm that the "corruption" of the European Union is up to the neck. The people have the power to impose the payment of capital. To ban parallel exports, for universal free pharmaceutical coverage of the people and for another economy based on the people's needs and not the profits of the groups.

14

Dec

2022

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Tackle the cost of living crisis: increase pay, tax profits, stop speculation (topical debate)

Madam President, the European Union and the governments are trying to disguise the causes of the galloping precision that is torturing the people, but these are not hidden: Hunger wages and pensions with increases constituting reductions; the soaring inflation from the recovery funds and the expansionary policy of the green and digital strategy of the European Union and governments, with plenty of money for capital, paid for by the people with "green chips" in energy, fuel, food, rents; the escalating NATO-Russia war and the ensuing sanctions; All this, among other things, marks the real culprit, the exploitative system. So it is not about profiteering as they claim, but about the very laws of the capitalist market. In the face of the mockery of the baskets of misery, of the "fight" between liberals and social democrats, the organization of the people's struggle for real increases in wages and pensions, the abolition of indirect taxes on fuel, energy and food, the emancipation of the people in rupture with the commitments of the European Union and the long-term strategy of the governments that serve capital must be strengthened now.

13

Dec

2022

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Turkish airstrikes on northern Syria and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (debate)

Mr President, Turkey's unacceptable invasion of Syria and Northern Iraq is causing serious consequences for the peoples of these countries, complicating the explosive situation in the wider region and creating conditions for dangerous border changes. The US, the European Union, NATO, as well as Russia, cover and justify the whole operation as an extension of their rivalries in the massacre in Ukraine. They encourage the aggressiveness of the Turkish bourgeoisie, seeking to extract it, each for their own interests. In response to the threats of invasion that it is unleashing against Greece, in the context of its geopolitical competition with the Greek bourgeoisie, the otherwise "allies" respond "Find them", a stance that "lays the table" of co-exploitation in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, with dangerous arrangements for the interests of energy groups. Such are the alliances of the bourgeoisie. The people's struggle and the vigilance for any change of borders and the treaties that provide for them must therefore be strengthened.

13

Dec

2022

Speeches EL

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Suspicions of corruption from Qatar and the broader need for transparency and accountability in the European institutions (debate) (debate)

Mr President, the matrix that generates corruption with the European Parliament at its core is the European Union of Capital itself. This is where the bribery scandal with Kaili and other former and current MEPs took place. Your resolution on Qatar's laundering was adopted without even a roll-call vote. The European Union, People's Party and Social Democrats, on the graves of thousands of dead workers in Qatar's prisons, were discovering exemplary labor reforms advocated by the also persecuted head of ITUC's "worker fathers." Qatar's capitalists, until yesterday strategic partners for the European Union's alternative energy sufficiency and with a liberalized visa, have now become an authoritarian regime attacking European democracy. Those who pretend to have discovered the lobbies starring in this mire, alongside suspicious NGOs and on-demand resolutions of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, are now creating new "fairy tales" about opacity, "good" lobbies and codes of conduct. Let the people draw conclusions. No trust in the European Union and the rotten capitalist system it serves! Not corrected; They are only overthrown by the struggle of the peoples.

23

Nov

2022

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The need for a European solution on asylum and migration including search and rescue (debate)

Mr President, we cannot reconcile ourselves with the shipwrecks and tragedies of uprooted people in the Aegean and the Mediterranean, with their boats becoming a miserable ball between governments. Another "best" practice of the European Union... We are not accustomed to the barbaric repression against them, their many months of entrapment in superstructures-prisons and unacceptable conditions in the claws of circuits. We condemn the instrumentalisation on the part of the Turkish bourgeoisie to promote its claims in competition with the Greek bourgeoisie and with the unacceptable EU-Turkey statement as a common denominator. For the European Union, all but Ukrainian refugees are irregular migrants. But the majority of asylum seekers are from Afghanistan and Syria, countries of equally imperialist wars and interventions. The EU capital seeks to have an impoverished workforce. That's why this is called legal immigration. Faced with your agreement to intensify repression, deportations, pushbacks with the role of gendarmerie in the sinful Frontex, we demand asylum services in Turkey under the responsibility of the European Union and the UN with human hospitality and full rights for the persecuted of your wars to go to their countries of real destination.

21

Nov

2022

Speeches EL

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Madam President, the eviction of a low-income pensioner from her home in Athens for a debt of EUR 15 000 is savage and challenging. It strips away the lies of the New Democracy government that there are no auctions of primary residences, while it bids in fat words for the vulnerable while together with the European Union and the European Central Bank they implement their goal of 40,000 auctions by the end of the year. The legislative framework adopted by SYRIZA and implemented by New Democracy delivers the popular houses to banks and crows of the Patsis type, expelling popular families or turning them into housewives in their own homes. The decisive response of thousands of workers today prevented eviction and hit in practice the criminalization of mobilizations against the auctions put by the SYRIZA government. People's homes are saved by the people. Now a firewall in the popular residence from extortion and auctions. To abolish the legislative framework that groups are taking the toil of the people, to stop the persecution of fighters for participation in mobilizations against the auctions.

9

Nov

2022

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REPowerEU chapters in recovery and resilience plans (debate)

Madam President, the new anti-grassroots EU regulation on RepowerEU is mobilising additional funds from the European Recovery Fund that energy and construction groups will "unspoil" as they will enjoy a huge range of provocative immunities, for the construction of pipelines, RES production infrastructure and energy storage. By invoking the "green" competition race of the European Union with Russia, the USA and China, against the background of the imperialist war in Ukraine, and while even within the European Union the contradictions are sharpening, even the ostensible regulations of the Green Deal, as well as the so-called obligation to apply the principle of do no significant harm to the environment, are lifted. For the people there are the known crumbs of some temporary discounts on unbearable energy bills, already paid by the people since, in the name of saving, they will still freeze, or stay in the dark. With the impetus given by the large strikes and demonstrations in Greece, Belgium, France and Spain, the people oppose the EU's strategy of precision and impoverishment, demanding wage increases, collective agreements, cheap energy and the abolition of taxes. No popular house without electricity!

20

Oct

2022

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Cultural solidarity with Ukraine and a joint emergency response mechanism for cultural recovery in Europe (debate)

Madam President, the European Union is one-sidedly projecting Russia's responsibilities, shrinking the dimensions of a huge problem of destruction of cultural monuments for which it bears equally huge responsibilities. You use the issue with expediency for your war propaganda and you present the disasters as a consequence of the imperialist war in Ukraine distorting reality. The problem is much bigger. It began with the counter-revolutionary upheavals. When you praised Putin, "your own child" and his peers. Destructions of anti-fascist and Soviet monuments are recorded in Russia and Ukraine, but also in Poland, the Baltic countries, Germany, the Balkans, while in Finland the last statue of Lenin has just been removed. Disasters and vandalism are provocatively accompanied by substitution by Nazi constructions. We met with UNESCO in Paris, which is limited to monitoring ongoing crime. We highlight the need for urgent measures to protect anti-fascist and Soviet monuments and to put an end to the reprehensible actions by governments, regional authorities and Nazi gangs against the cultural heritage and historical memory of the peoples. To punish those responsible for their destruction and to stop any persecution now against those who defended them.

19

Oct

2022

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Preparation of the European Council meeting of 20-21 October 2022 (debate)

Madam President, the Commission's new package presupposes that the people freeze in the name of reducing non-basic consumption, to ensure sufficiency for large industrialists. The mechanisms of the green transition and liberalisation, which are the causes of soaring energy and fuel prices, are further shielded. Groups are given new incentives to gamble safely on the energy exchange and joint gas orders at competitive prices with China and India, against the "goods and interests" of European monopolies and not the people. Therefore, inaccessible prices for the people will continue and they will pay out of their own pocket the state subsidies in order not to disrupt the collectability of the energy business groups. Solidarity with reparations and with compensation only the European Union, governments and energy predatory monopolies could announce. The working people must strengthen their struggle for disengagement from the imperialist war, against the EU precision strategy, for wage increases and cheap energy, so as not to freeze any popular family.

18

Oct

2022

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Keep the bills down: social and economic consequences of the war in Ukraine and the introduction of a windfall tax (debate)

Mr President, really, who are you kidding by claiming that it is only the imperialist war in Ukraine that is to blame for the soaring prices of electricity, fuel, food and inflation? You know very well that the price increase race started in autumn 2021. So let the green transition strategy promoted by the European Union and all governments, imposing the energy exchange, its liberalisation, the trade in pollutants, green fees and delignification, sit on the stool. This is the unified strategy of the European Union and its governments, despite the contradictions between you in the European Councils over the sharing of booty. While energy groups are fed crazy profits, subsidies and all kinds of tax exemptions, the imposition of a tax on windfall profits is a mockery. The benefits paid by the people out of their pockets do not relieve the people's income. In France today, in Greece on November 9th: strike uprising for increases in wages and pensions, abolition of unfair taxes, electricity and fuel and items of popular consumption cheaply, no house without electricity.

17

Oct

2022

Speeches EL

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Guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States (debate)

Mr President, the report is a roadmap of new tough anti-labour measures on the pretext of the pandemic and the imperialist war in Ukraine. In the name of the highly competitive labour market, it seeks to shield European monopolies against international competition, in the face of the emerging capitalist crisis. Behind declarations without any consideration and guarantee for decent wages and collective bargaining hide the terrifying anti-worker reforms with the help of the European Union, such as the Hatzidakis law in Greece, the dismantling of daily working time is promoted, the setting of wages as a minimum based on the basket of household products for the impoverished, the generalization of teleworking and slave-trading contractors, the mobility of workers, as well as the free throw in social security. In this context, prosecutions are escalating against workers fighting for their rights, such as those against the strikers of grassroots unions in Italy, the "protest courts" in Greece, the mobilisation of workers in refineries in France. The anti-people policy of the European Union-governments-monopoly is a cause of war for the workers and it is necessary to escalate the struggle with the all-workers' strike in Greece on November 9th.

4

Oct

2022

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Access to water as a human right – the external dimension (debate)

Madam President, the beginning and end of the report is the concept of 'water commodity', promoting the profitability of business groups. The declarations of all bourgeois parties on the right to water, as they say, are a fraud. The direction of the European Union, of governments such as New Democracy in Greece, is to boost business activity by covering the bourgeois state and EU funds, on the basis of the revised European directive of 2000, with the involvement of business groups and through PPPs, as is currently the case in Greece, with the privatisation of the external water supply network of Attica, prepared by the SYRIZA government, integrating EYDAP and EYATH into the privatisation superfund. The people to strengthen their struggle for no increase in the price of water, drastic reduction of tariffs, no interruption of water in popular households, recruitment of permanent staff with rights to abolish contractors, water management for the benefit of the people, This presupposes exemption from the laws of the market and capitalist profit. Water, its treatment, networks, irrigation, sanitation should become social property and not a commodity, for the satisfaction of the people's needs and the protection of the environment.

4

Oct

2022

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The death of Mahsa Amini and the repression of women's rights protesters in Iran (debate)

Mr President, we condemn the brutal murder of Mahsa Amini by the Iranian state, as well as the brutal repression it has carried out against the mass popular mobilizations. The murder of Amini, the dozens of dead, wounded and countless arrests bring to the surface the orgy of state violence, economic, social, religious discrimination that reproduces women's inequality, obscurantist, anachronistic perceptions and practices. The hypocrisy of the European Union, the US and NATO, with their a la carte sensitivities to Iranian women, while supporting regimes in other countries that engage in the same repugnant practices against women, is also unfathomable. Their aim is to manipulate the popular mobilizations and turn them into a tool in the intensified capitalist antagonisms, which are escalating at the same time in the imperialist war in Ukraine. The rage for such heinous crimes must become an uncompromising struggle against reactionary regression and the rotten ideas that cultivate it, against capitalist exploitation and oppression, for women's equality and the emancipation of peoples.

13

Sep

2022

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EU response to the increase in energy prices in Europe (debate)

Madam President, a difficult winter is only for the people and not for energy groups. The so-called "European solution", which the European Union and governments are working on, is sewn into the measures of their profitability. It is a big lie that accuracy began with the imperialist war in Ukraine. For a year now prices have taken off because of another so-called "European solution", the green transition, liberalisation, delignification and the energy market, supported by all parties. Allowances-crumbs for measured perpetuate energy poverty and guarantee the collectability of groups. A Greek government minister is cynically threatening citizens that if they don't turn their boilers from gas to oil, they will die. The answer is to strengthen the struggle for a drastic reduction and cap on electricity, gas and oil tariffs, the abolition of the special tax and VAT on fuel and energy. No popular house without electricity. In the hands of the people, utilization of all energy sources, with energy as a social good and not a commodity.

12

Sep

2022

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Surveillance and predator spyware systems in Greece (debate)

Mr President, there can be no jokes about ‘error’ and invocation of secrecy by the New Democracy government in the very serious allegations of the surveillance of Nikos Androulakis, other politicians, journalists and an entire party, the Communist Party of Greece – since there have been several proven wiretaps to his call centre since 2016. It is absolutely hypocritical for the European Union and the European Parliament to play the supposedly ignorant "neutral observers" who "seek the underground paths of spyware", because with EU regulations and directives such reactionary mechanisms were activated in the name of combating "terrorism" and radicalism. As is the regulation legitimizing the development and sale of spyware, which was voted by the European Parliament last year. This dark legislative framework was supported by the New Democracy government, together with SYRIZA-PASOK, and is also being implemented in Greece. Their responsibilities are great. To strengthen the struggle against cover-up, for the abolition of the dangerous legislative framework of the European Union, bourgeois states and their governments against the people and their struggles.