ATHENS—A massive general strike on Wednesday brought Greece to a standstill as thousands of angry protesters took to the streets, while parliament prepared to vote on deep public sector cuts and riot police braced for violence.
Some 70,000 protesters started massing outside parliament as the day began and groups of workers assembled at various points throughout the capital. Thousands more demonstrated in other cities.
The large turnout prompted a major police mobilization: 5,000 policemen were deployed in Athens, with another 2,000 held in reserve.
Authorities also threw a cordon of riot police buses and a steel fence in front of parliament. Two metro train stations were shut down in the area.
Beleaguered Prime Minister George Papandreou has appealed for support from Greeks ahead of a vote later on Wednesday on tax increases, wage cuts and additional layoffs demanded by international lenders who have been pressing Athens for tougher action.
Unions who have called a general strike to coincide with the vote say they expect one of the biggest labor actions in the two years since the start of the Greek financial crisis, which now threatens to spread across Europe’s single currency zone.
Hostile mood
The mood was hostile among the protesters. A police motorcycle patrol was attacked with stones in the working-class district of Kaisiariani as the protests kicked off in central Athens. One of the police riders was hurt.
Most of the country’s professional classes joining the walkout included civil servants, tax collectors, doctors, bank clerks, teachers, sailors and taxi owners.
Traders, gas station operators and even bakers also shut down their businesses in protest against the government’s economic policies.
Many state buildings were blocked by public sector staff outraged by new pay cuts and layoffs on top of last year’s slashing of state payroll.
“Take the memorandum and get out of here,” a sign strung across a health ministry building in central Athens read, referring to the loan bailout deal with the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that saved Greece from default in 2010.
Air traffic controllers also planned to stage a 12-hour work stoppage on Wednesday, promising widespread flight disruptions. Some 150 domestic and international flights have been canceled.
Train services have also been crippled.
The streets in Athens remain littered with mounds of refuse owing to a two-week strike by garbage collectors that authorities have only partially succeeded in circumventing by requisitioning trucks and using private operators.
Downfall of gov’t
On Tuesday, the media held a 24-hour news blackout and some 2,000 journalists protested in central Athens against layoffs.
Unions, the opposition and some economists say repeated cuts in government spending will only drive Greece’s stricken economy further into recession. Many called for the downfall of Papandreou’s Socialist government.
“We want them out because they can only bring us misery. They are squeezing people dry,” said Dina Kolovou, a 46-year-old municipal worker. “This is going to be a huge protest.”
Greece has seen violent clashes during demonstrations throughout the crisis, culminating with two days of running battles between rioters and police in June when Syntagma Square outside parliament was cloaked in clouds of tear gas.
‘There will be war’
“With these measures, they are killing us slowly. There will be war today and I am going to take part,” said Dimitris Panagiotopoulos, a 75-year-old private sector pensioner.
As the first groups began to arrive, thousands of students and young communists gathered in front of parliament, carrying banners with slogans such as “Power to the People” and “The government must fall now.”
Apart from the protests, the streets of central Athens were eerily quiet with posters reading “We are shutting down for the day so that we don’t shut down forever,” plastered over shuttered storefronts.
Trapped in the third year of deep recession and strangled by a public debt amounting to 162 percent of gross domestic product which few now believe can be paid back, Greece has sunk deeper into crisis, despite repeated doses of austerity.
State data showed unemployment climbing to 16.5 percent.
New austerity bill
The new austerity bill includes collective wage amendments, a new civil service salary system and temporary layoffs for thousands of public sector staff.
The EU and IMF have demanded the spending cuts in return for the latest loans from a 110-billion-euro ($151-billion) rescue program agreed last year.
The Greek government has still enough money to pay its bills through mid-November. On Tuesday, the government raised 1.625 billion euros in a sale of three-month treasury bills but had to offer a steeper interest of 4.61 percent.
Wednesday’s protest action also comes as European Union leaders scramble to set the outlines of a new rescue package in time for Sunday’s summit that hopes to agree on measures to protect the region’s financial system from a potential Greek debt default.
Painful cuts
Speaking to his fellow Socialist deputies late on Tuesday, Papandreou compared the situation facing Greece to a war and told his party it had a duty to support the painful new cuts, despite the opposition from the streets.
“We must persevere in this war as people, as a government, as a parliamentary group in order for the country to win it,” Papandreou said. “We will win for the country, we will persevere. That is why I’m here.”
A first vote on the overall bill will be held on Wednesday night, with a second vote on specific articles expected some time on Thursday.
Papandreou’s narrow four-seat majority in the 300-member parliament would be sufficient to ensure the bill goes through, especially given possible support from a smaller opposition group.
Discipline strained
But party discipline has come under increasing strain, and one Socialist deputy resigned his seat in protest on Monday.
At least two other Socialist deputies have also threatened to vote against part of the package dealing with collective wage bargaining agreements.
The austerity package mixes deep cuts to public sector pay and pensions, tax hikes, a suspension of sectoral pay accords and an end to the constitutional taboo against the layoff of civil servants.
“None of my colleagues—who have been through a lot lately—will risk letting the country fall from our hands and break, go bankrupt,” Development Minister Mihalis Chrysohoidis told Mega TV on Wednesday, saying parliament would pass the bill.
Int’l lenders
International lenders, who are providing the funds that Athens needs to stay afloat after it was shut out of bond markets last year, have expressed impatience at the slow pace of reform as Greece has slipped behind on its budget targets.
There has been growing talk that Athens should be placed under tighter supervision by EU authorities to ensure the government meets its reform obligations.
“We have very tough negotiations ahead of us,” Papandreou said late Tuesday, urging Europe “which has not been capable up till now of finding a solution … to take decisions to put an end to the uncertainty which reigns over the eurozone or else it will be difficult for Greece and European countries to emerge from the crisis.”
Taking a lead from Germany, Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos tempered earlier optimism on the EU summit’s prospects.
“We must not have great expectations,” Venizelos said ahead of a meeting with President Carolos Papoulias.
But the finance minister warned: “If Europeans fail in Greece, they will not be able to shield themselves (either).”
Repeated warning
The government has repeatedly warned that failure to pass the legislation ahead of the summit would prompt Greece’s EU partners to block the release of loans and cause a payments freeze.
Squeezed between escalating popular protests against the cuts already imposed and demands from the EU and IMF for even tougher action, Papandreou’s support has appeared increasingly uncertain.
Although the government has repeatedly ruled out early elections, many political analysts now believe that a snap election will probably be held some time in the coming months. Reports from Reuters and AFP
Originally posted: 11:10 pm | Wednesday, October 19th, 2011