Question for written answer E-012043-13
to the Commission
Rule 117
Charalampos Angourakis (GUE/NGL)

In Greece, unemployment is nearing 28%, and 87 out of 100 unemployed people do not even receive unemployment benefit, which amounts to just EUR 361. Several thousand people who are in work have not been paid for months. Taxes and tax hikes are on the increase, houses are being confiscated because of small debts to the tax authority, and power is being cut off for people who have no money to pay. Tens of thousands of families will be without heating.

At the same time, the All-workers’ Militant Front, the People’s Committees, and teachers and pupils are increasing their struggle. By implementing the authoritarian doctrine of ‘Law and Order’ required by employers and the ruling class, the coalition Government of New Democracy and PASOK is attempting to impose the ‘silence of the tomb’.

The following incidents have caused particular resentment and a very broad solidarity movement:

• — The arrest of 20 pupils from the 1st High School of Lamia on the pretext of a breach of the peace, and the accelerated court procedure for eight of them on the ground that they had occupied the school to prevent it from being closed down after the teachers were placed on standby and their specialisations discontinued. In other words, children are being tried because they are fighting for the self-evident right to education and life.
• — The intervention a few days ago of riot police at the building of the Evia Regional Authority, which was occupied by unpaid employees and former employees of many factories in the region that have recently closed down, the new managers of which are selling their stock, and in this way keeping the employees as hostages in a situation where they are neither employed nor unemployed, and they have no unemployment card, insurance or salary.

What is the Commission’s position regarding the unprecedented authoritarian actions of the Greek coalition Government of New Democracy and PASOK?

OJ C 221, 11/07/2014