Speeches

Mr President, two days ago an employer's crime took the life of another worker in the Perama shipbuilding zone. Large hoteliers threaten a clause of 5,000 euros if their employee resigns from their occupation. This reveals the ghettos of capitalist development, which parties and governments of capital, liberal and social-democratic, promote. The stability, competitiveness and sustainability of the report mean that in more than 50% of the Member States collective labour agreements are abolished, wages are set by ministerial decision, trade union action is restricted and the right to strike is restricted, which marks the strategy of the European Union. They mean deforestation of labour inspections from effective control and sanctioning responsibilities, understaffing and abandonment, as happened in Greece according to the standards of the European Authority. The workers against the European Union's declarations of class cooperation to walk the road of conflict with the rotten system that puts their lives on the weigh of the profitability of the groups. To strengthen the KKE, their tried and tested support, in the struggle for modern rights, for the abolition of all anti-worker laws.

Mr President, in the European Union, poverty and social exclusion threaten 95 million workers. Trade unionism is banned in 10 countries; In more than 15 countries, the right to strike is violated. More than half of the workers work without a collective agreement. Flexible forms of employment are widespread everywhere. Partial unemployment is being swept away by EU-wide widely advertised programmes. Over 30% work at a salary lower than the minimum wage. Social security has become a commodity. Retirement ages in some Member States exceed life expectancy. These are results of the European pillar of minimum rights that constantly pushes to the bottom of the survival threshold of every labour, wage and social right of workers in the name of the supposed "relief of the vulnerable". These are the rails on which the European Union is moving, on which ND, SYRIZA and PASOK-KINAL have locked up, because the cheapening of labour power is a prerequisite in order to shield the profitability of the few. This path leads to the rights of the many "in Kaiada". A strong KKE is necessary, therefore, as well as a mass organized struggle for a change of course, in order to bring the popular needs to the forefront.

Mr President, the reports on the Recovery Fund "make dust" the pre-election propaganda of the "pseudo-saviors" (New Democracy, SYRIZA, PASOK, MERA25) in Greece. It is not about "sacks of euros" that can be made available for the benefit of the people, but about a memorandum: It is loading peoples with additional anti-people measures and prerequisites until 2027. "Fiscal stability" means new reductions in wages and pensions for the guaranteed profitability of renewable energy and digital technology groups, scaling up of accuracy, inflation in food, energy, other types of popular consumption. New "own resources" - taxes, such as the "green trolleys" that New Democracy, SYRIZA and PASOK voted in the previous plenary, new extraordinary taxes to the people due to the increase of the European Central Bank's interest rates - are being added to repay the funds that will be "bleached out" by big businessmen and banks, more than 700 000 auctions of popular houses are being held in order to shield the banks and funds in the face of the emerging new capitalist crisis. The workers must turn their backs on the parties that slaughter popular rights and try to mock the people with "if" and "when". With a strong KKE, on the path of overthrowing the barbarity of the European Union, governments and bourgeois parties, the people can save the people.

Mr President, Fit for55, the strategy of the green transition, instead of real environmental protection measures, favours groups to pollute without impact or at a minimum cost and this is constantly returned to them as a green subsidy. The people pay multiple, with their own resources-taxes, with green trolleys, with huge expenditures for green building standards, vehicles that they are forced to make by borrowing, if they do not have one, by passing on costs as a passenger, paying for ticket prices, while shipowners de-bond subsidies and tax exemptions. Even carcinogenic and hazardous waste burning is provocatively included in the European Union's best green practices. These unpopular commitments as a common program have been undertaken by New Democracy, SYRIZA, PASOK, MeRA25, whatever government emerges in Greece in the upcoming elections. With a stronger KKE, the people can escalate the struggle for their modern needs, for the protection of the environment, fighting for the transformation of energy, natural resources into social popular property, with its central planning at the service of their own popular needs.

Mr President, the resolution on minimum income sheds crocodile tears over the plight of workers who work for crumbs and face the race of inflation, the prices of basic products and services, the outpouring from banks and funds. It calls on the Commission to table a draft directive equivalent to that on the minimum wage, that is, the directive calling for the unacceptable abolition of collective labour agreements and the setting of a minimum wage by law a national tradition of Greece and other Member States. The strategy of the least is well known. It has been applied for years by the government of New Democracy, SYRIZA, PASOK/KIN.AL. in my country: He distributes crumbs by pass to those who lack the elementals, which he takes from those who are less poor. It pushes social rights downwards, defines a line of misery above which no one is entitled to support, while the groups are flooding with people's money. Strengthening the popular income are the measures that the workers are demanding with struggle today, the class trade union movement: collective labour agreements, increases in wages and pensions, on the basis of modern needs, the abolition of VAT on articles of popular consumption, excise duties on fuel and energy, the cancellation of coats and debts of popular households to banks and the protection of popular housing from auctions.

Madam President, with the Data Act, industry monopolies will no longer only be able to record, store, analyse and exploit user data, personal or otherwise, as they have done so far, for example in Greece, thanks also to the relevant directive voted jointly by New Democracy, SYRIZA, PASOK and MERA25. Within the framework of the EU data market, European monopolies will be able to resell them to third parties, as part of their commercial product or services, supported by the Recovery Fund, i.e. the people's money. Στο πλαίσιο των ανταγωνισμών με τις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες Αμερικής και την Κίνα και των ανακατατάξεων που συμβαίνουν στον κλάδο, πολλαπλασιάζονται οι απολύσεις στους επιχειρηματικούς κολοσσούς, όπως οι Google, Facebook, Amazon,Twitter. There are bankruptcies that are also related to the sector, and their burdens will of course be passed on again to the peoples. The conclusion: the European Union and the capitalist market are incompatible with any data protection. The struggle for digital technologies in the service of modern popular needs against the obscure framework of file, therefore, is connected with the struggle for the overthrow of the power of the monopolies.

Mr President, we are living in Greece with the Tempi railway tragedy. Predicted crime with 57 dead. Hundreds of thousands of people and youth demand that the crime not be covered up, that the real culprits be punished. It wasn't a human error or a bad time. It was the result of the EU strategy of liberalising transport, cutting it up and handing it over to monopoly groups, with reduced staff, without network security. This strategy cost 640 victims, only in 2021 in the European Union, where only 13% of the network is covered by telecommand systems. According to a Parliament report, which the KKE voted against, groups are provocatively justified for not implementing security systems if this harms their profitability; the European Parliament, which rejected a plenary debate on Tempi. This European Union wants the Greek bourgeois parties, which govern by implementing its dangerous strategy, to be an expert. The dilemma for the working class and its children is: new victims and losses for profit or organized struggle for the overthrow of capitalist barbarity? The answer is given with a new strike on March 16, so as not to cover up the crime.

Madam President, we unequivocally condemn the constant state repression, the murders - such as of Thulani Maseko, the abductions, torture and imprisonment against activists, members of trade and student unions by the autocratic Mswati regime. We express our solidarity with the communist party of Swaziland in particular, recognising its important contribution for the organisation of the struggle for the people's needs against the reactionary regime that was established in 1973 and has since imposed a ban on political parties’ constant restrictions on trade union struggle. We condemn the arrests and torture against activists of the communist party, the false accusations, such as against recently Bongi Mamba and Mvuselelo Mkhabela, aiming at weakening the party’s militant stance in favour of working people's interests. We salute the struggle of the people of Swaziland. We support their just demands for the legalisation of political parties, the safe return of political exiles and refugees, the lifting of all restrictions of the right to protest, of media censorship, for unrestricted parliamentary elections.

Madam President, the report promotes the design of banking and business groups and the strategy of the European Union and the Central Bank leading to interest increases of up to 33%, the proliferation of bad loans and generalised auctions of popular property. This goal is served by the decision of the Supreme Court in Greece for an auction pogrom based on the bankruptcy law of the government of New Democracy and that of the previous SYRIZA that handed over the red loans to the predators of the funds. As for the price and inflation race, they are the result of giant subsidies to monopolies through the Recovery Fund Memorandum and cheap borrowing with workers' money. Ultimately more expansive, more restrictive, your strategy always demands wages and rights to the pitfalls. Only the people can save the people, claiming real measures of income protection, banning auctions, writing off debts-floors of popular households. Against the groups, banks and funds and the repression of the mobilizations of the people who are losing their homes today.

Madam President, we are really witnessing a blanket confrontation and phony dilemmas over democracy and diversion. Because the bourgeois parties today aim to keep intact the EU regulations, directives, mechanisms that have co-formulated and voted and shielded the unacceptable anti-people framework against the so-called enemy people. By a 2021 regulation, spyware is considered normal in the European Union. At least 14 Member States have used them. The responsibilities of New Democracy and the prime minister for the wiretapping are enormous, but SYRIZA, PASOK, is also responsible. Together in the European Parliament they voted on the regulation. Together with MeRA25 in the Greek Parliament they approved the European Union police directive that generalizes the file, the trade of personal data. That is why all à la carte defenders of the rule of law have been observing radio silence for the confirmed wiretapping of the KKE for six and a half years. We strengthen the struggle against the cover-up of surveillance and the EU-wide mechanisms of file-keeping, strengthening the KKE with the crystal clear, unwavering position in favour of unhindered trade union and political action to protect people's freedoms.

Madam President, the debate that is taking place and the resolution itself are revealing. The United States of America, the European Union, NATO and their governments are promoting the escalation of warfare by sending tanks and manipulating fighter jets. The Russian side is strengthening its own operations, mainly in Donbas. In the context of the imperialist war paid for by the Ukrainian people and the Russian people with their blood, the European Union is stepping up its intervention in Ukraine for investments, energy agreements and reconstruction worth billions of euros in competition with the United States of America. Agreements that mortgage the future of the Ukrainian people for capitalist profitability. It is abundantly proven that war is born of the fierce antagonisms of the monopolies, is waged by the bourgeoisie and the peoples are killed for the master's food. In Greece, New Democracy, SYRIZA and PASOK alignedly support the Euro-Atlantic plans, fuel the race of involvement, armaments and sanctions, which not only do not shield sovereign rights, but turn the people into a target. The independent struggle of the people for disengagement from the war and disengagement from the murderous alliances can provide an answer.

Madam President, the alleged cleansing and transparency measures which the European Union claimed it would take following the Qatargate scandal have sunk into the mire of the interests of the monopolies it serves. The admission by those involved in the scandal that they had even drawn up a price list for resolutions and amendments for the defence of human rights by the European Union confirms what the KKE - that is to say - in an unsuspecting time denounced as an industry of human rights resolutions. It is even a huge challenge that the report proposes to upgrade the relevant DROI subcommittee that has been the focus. It goes a long way for the European Union, one of the main culprits of barbarism, oppression, imperialist wars, interventions, refugees and migration, to seek to appear today as the guardian of human rights. The European Union is instrumentalising human rights as a vehicle for intervention around the world to safeguard the interests of its groups. So what the peoples need to do is reject the self-appointed saviors, who intervene with expediency. With their struggle, to impose their right and interests against the exploiters and the rotten system they support.

Madam President, the agenda of the Swedish Presidency is speeding up the anti-people strategy of the European Union and its governments, which is afflicting the peoples, who of course recognise who is the culprit, and this is also recorded in the very low acceptance of the European Union in the measurements. The priority is to escalate the war in Ukraine between Euro-Atlanticism and Russia and with the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO. The aim is for the European Union to intervene wherever it is, by implementing the dictates of the war-mongering security and defence policy, the strategic compass, by taking additional measures to continue the European Union's policy of repression. Sweden, a leading country in the implementation of the green transition, with renewable energy and nuclear energy, independent from Russia, is now announcing power cuts for the people. It turns out that this strategy leads people to pay a heavy price for the guaranteed profitability of the groups. The European Union, which defends monopolies, cannot provide a solution to the pressing problems of workers, such as accuracy, inflation and declining income. Only the people can save the people, when they realize the power they have in their hands, claiming their modern needs and marching on the path of overthrowing this system.

Madam President, the historical facts are not disputed. The so-called genocide of the Ukrainian people adopted was a well-treated Nazi slander that was then dispersed by pro-Nazi press moguls such as Hearst and fascist gangs such as Bandera. In Ukraine, in Russia, in 1930-1932, there was indeed drought, there was famine, typhus. But you hide that the big peasant capitalists sabotaged the harvest, the warehouses, the machinery, murdered executives of the socialist state, exacerbating the problem. Of course, the real victims have nothing to do with the astronomical figures of Euro-Atlantic pseudonymism. You identify capitalist Russia, its unacceptable invasion of Ukraine, with the Soviet Union. You are using miseries, you are escalating anti-communist legislative atrocities, as in Poland, while together, Euro-Atlanticists and Russia, you are adopting these myths, despite the imperialist slaughter in Ukraine between you. Capitalist barbarism is not "made up" with distortions and lies. The truth will shine, the popular achievements of socialism are a beacon that illuminate the way for a world without exploitation, crises, wars and refugees.

Mr President, over time the European Union and all Greek governments have stepped up economic, energy and military cooperation with Israel, to the detriment of the Palestinian people. This year, there are more than 141 victims of Israeli occupation violence. Among them underage girls, young boys, journalists. The atrocities of the Israeli army are taking place all around the world. Thousands of political prisoners are in appalling conditions with unacceptable "administrative detentions". Today's debate again reveals the hypocritical sensitivity of the European Union to instrumentalise "human rights" for the victims of war, occupation, raids; Because when these things happen in Palestine by the murderous state of Israel, the perpetrators are equated with the victims and you keep "equal distances". The only solution is the escalation of solidarity with the Palestinian people for the recognition of its own sovereign state on the border of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital. We demand that the resolutions on the recognition of the Palestinian state adopted by the Member States, such as that of the Greek Parliament since 2015, enter into force.

Madam President, NextGenerationEU, like the European Recovery Fund, is a memorandum. It distributes huge amounts of money to renewable energy and digital technology groups and mortgages workers' incomes for decades. The bourgeois governments of the European Union, however, do not find them in sharing. There are fierce arguments for the repayment of the loans of the program against the background of the imperialist war in Ukraine and its consequences in the face of the emerging capitalist crisis. So you are putting forward as a solution the so-called purchase of bonds by the people. You are essentially covering banks, groups and funds to speculate on the backs of the workers you are putting on them the burden of debts, new taxes on own resources – beyond inflation, accuracy, energy costs – and they cannot afford it. The peoples, therefore, must not compromise with barbarism in order to pay for the broken capitalist profitability of the antagonistic states and groups. On the road of the mass militant struggles that are taking place today, to escalate their struggle for modern needs in order for those who create it, i.e. the European Union and the monopolies, to pay for the crisis.

Mr President, following the PEGA Committee's visit to Athens, we would like to point out that the wiretapping scandal is becoming more and more widespread. The facts confirm the KKE's position that an attempt is underway to cover up the truth about the bleak EU legislative framework that all governments and bourgeois parties have co-created. This framework allows for mass surveillance of everything and all kinds of files by states and monopolies. The whole confrontation between New Democracy, SYRIZA, PASOK-KINAL and the respective European political groups is conducted through clearing accounts of business interests and leaves this legislative framework untouched. The announcements of the Greek prime minister for a ban on software prescribe another deception operation, since then they will be legalized again, but with terms and conditions. The KKE has revealed and will continue to reveal the truth to the people. The reactionary framework of the European Union, the state and governments that shields the dictatorship of capital is not corrected, it is only overturned by popular intervention and action itself.

Mr President, the established celebrations and empty declarations of solidarity after each summit cannot hide fierce competition within the European Union. Germany, France, Italy, Spain and others argue over prices, infrastructure, pipelines, storage and energy efficiency. At the same time, people make countless sacrifices, paying for the profitability of green groups and sanctions in the energy war with Russia. The people's problems, however, pre-exist the imperialist war, have been generated by the strategies of the green transition and the liberation of energy that the European Union, the governments and the parties have established to treasure the business groups. Energy poverty vouchers and baskets do not address the unbearable accuracy of electricity, fuel, food. The peoples in Greece, Belgium, France, Spain, leave behind EU false expectations, oppose the strategy of accuracy and impoverishment, reject the waiting attitude and today demand wage increases, collective labour agreements, cheap energy, abolition of taxes. No people's house should be left without electricity!

Mr President, the annexation of Ukrainian territories announced by President Putin adds more fuel to the fire of the imperialist war, as does US-NATO support, of course, for the reactionary Zelensky government with heavy weapons and other means. It signals a new tension between Euro-Atlanticism and the forming Eurasian bloc led by China and Russia, as well as competition within the Eurozone between Germany, France and Italy against the background of energy economic problems. The threats to each other's use of nuclear weapons, sabotage of pipelines and critical infrastructure are leading to incalculable consequences for the peoples of Russia and Ukraine, but also for the whole world, who are already paying the cost of the accuracy of energy poverty. In these conditions it is urgently necessary to disengage Greece from the war, the US-NATO plans, which multiply the dangers for our people. Stop now the sending of military material to Ukraine, the use of Greek territory and the country's infrastructure as a base of war. And of course the development of the independent struggle of the peoples in each country is therefore urgently needed today.

Madam President, this report also makes known and recurring findings, descriptions of the problems that the Roma really face in all the Member States. The report, however, does not and cannot solve the problems it finds, but aims to re-serve the EU strategy implemented by the bourgeois governments, which consciously and over time preserves the miserable living conditions, paving the way for the action of circuits and demonizing the Roma for crime, while shifting state responsibility to various well-meaning and non-governmental organisations, exacerbating their impoverishment and hostage-taking. A way out cannot be given by the European Union and governments that, with their strategy, crush the workers' and people's rights as a whole. To break the vicious circle of ghettoisation once and for all, it is necessary to ensure permanent and stable work, modern housing, public health services and education, as well as respect for Roma culture and lifestyle. This is the way to their effective social integration against discrimination, against the pressing problems perpetuated by the system of exploitation.

Madam President, the President's speech was a war delirium. Why is it? Because the European monopolies, which make multifaceted use of the imperialist war and sanctions against Russia, are now taking a position on the "reconstruction" of Ukraine. The peoples, therefore, should not choose sides in the imperialist war, in the US-EU-NATO confrontation with Russia and China. And your European solution to energy costs is really blackmailing the people: Pay or freeze. But the spike in precision began long before the war. The reason is the EU's "green transition", energy liberalisation and delignification, which shield the profitability of the groups. And, of course, the fact that the energy giants will share their profits with the people is a mockery. The capitalist system you are defending today, in 2022, deprives even the elementary ones. It generates crises, wars, exploitation, refugees. The European Union is only getting worse. The people will give a solution! Claiming drastic price reductions and caps on fuel and energy, abolishing unfair taxes. Energy should be a social good and not a commodity, with the people owning the wealth and disengaging from the European Union.

Mr President, in addition to the well-known crocodile tears about dignity and the ‘working poor’, the directive on the so-called ‘adequate wage’ – in practice – ‘sharpens the bottom’ of already low wages. For the Greek data, it recommends a salary of EUR 600; lower than the bottom. This is why it actually opens the appetite in capital for a reduction in wages and restores the possibility of sub-minimum wages for practical and part-time workers. And seafarers are not included, foreshadowing even lower wages at the will of shipowners. This is why the associations of industrialists and shipowners, New Democracy and SYRIZA are celebrating in Greece, which have demoralised collective agreements, abolished collective bargaining and set a minimum wage by law. But it is the great workers' struggles that are growing all over Europe that are showing the way, not the EU regulations that make poverty a habit. The workers have nothing to expect from the European Union of monopolies. Overcoming any waiting, organized, they must fight for wages and rights based on modern needs, for real measures of relief from the accuracy and cost of energy, based on their own needs and not on the dictates of their groups and governments.

Mr. President, Attica, Evros, Lesvos, Valia Calda. Hundreds of thousands of burnt acres of forest, national parks, Natura sites. Hundreds of destroyed homes, small businesses, injuries to firefighters and civilians. The European Union and the Greek governments, in recent years, invoke as a pretext the "climate crisis" and "extreme phenomena" as causes of major disasters. However, such climate change and extreme events have always existed. You seek to hide your heavy responsibilities, because the cause of the disasters is the absence of a comprehensive modernized fire protection plan focused on prevention. The commercialisation of land and the EU Forest Strategy. The EU's "green transition" strategy, which subsidizes groups for the deployment of RES, unregulated, in protected areas, but considers the staffing and equipment of civil protection to be an unbearable cost. The solution is not the various RescEU programmes that recycle the few firefighting equipment from country to country, but the elaboration of integrated protection plans, the staffing of services under the responsibility of the state, the provision of the necessary firefighting equipment and the removal of unacceptable terms and conditions for the compensation of those affected through the European Union Solidarity Fund.

Mr President, for over a month, the workers at the Malamatina factory in Thessaloniki have been waging a militant strike. They demand the immediate reinstatement of their 15 unjustly dismissed colleagues, against the detrimental changes in their employment status with individual contracts, with reductions in wages and rights, through which the company – whose 55% of debts were written off – further boosts its profits. Opposite them are the forces of repression, which on the side of the employers and on the order of the government try to intimidate them with wood and chemicals. They have the laws of the governments of New Democracy and SYRIZA against the right to strike, to restrict trade union action and collective agreements, which have been signed by the European Union. At their side are the workers of all Greece, in the fair struggle for safeguarding jobs, for work with rights, for wages at the level of modern needs, for collective agreements, for the overthrow of all anti-worker laws; That's why they endure. Victory to the strikers of Malamatina, against the employer terrorism and strike break, against the state repression!

Madam President, the advisability of today's debate is obvious. You later cursed Putin, but in 1991 you applauded the Gorbachev-Yeltsin-Putin clique when they broke up the Soviet Union, the socialist state where people lived fraternally for decades. Until January, you praised the Putin government, the intervention in Kazakhstan against the great popular mobilizations. The Greek government awarded it last year. Only the KKE opposed it. Today's Russia, despite the pretexts for a battle between democracy and authoritarianism, is a capitalist state, just like you. Putin is one of you. The Euro-Atlantics and Russia are complicit in the abattoirs of war, the anti-people measures. Boost the anti-communism that feeds the far right, shielding the exploitative system you serve. The imperialist conflict in Ukraine is between two camps of robbers: US-NATO-EU-Ukrainian bourgeoisie against capitalist Russia for the control of pipelines and markets by the monopolies at the expense of the peoples. We are with the peoples and their independent struggle against the monopolies, against their alliances, for disengagement from the war massacre now.