Support Demos Begin Wednesday for Greece’s Battle with Banks

After the Greek president’s and finance minister’s lucid statements this weekend of Greece’s demand to end the Troika bankers’ austerity and begin wide-scale investment in employment in Europe, demonstrations are called to support Greece against the banks’ hard line.

The Party of the European Left group of parties within the European Parliament, which includes the governing Syriza party in Greece, called for demonstrations around Europe from Feb. 11 (the day of the Eurogroup finance ministers’ meeting on Greece’s proposal) through Feb. 17. Its head signed a statement issued just two weeks ago (Jan. 25) in support of Greece, calling for a “European Glass-Steagall Act” and new credit for development in the form of a new lender of last resort to nations, rather than to banks (the European Central Bank).

Their Feb. 8 call accuses the ECB of cutting off credit to Greek banks and government to create panic, and says:

On the eve of the G20 finance ministers’ meeting in Istanbul which started Monday, many banks had their “research departments” put out notes forecasting systemic impacts if Greece is forced to leave the Eurozone, something no one in the Greek government has suggested. The real Wall Street fears being reflected, are of a derivatives blowout if Greece debt is significantly written down. But the banks forecast:

• The euro going immediately to 90 cents if Greece is forced out, with Swiss and Austrian bank failures (Morgan Stanley);
• Other countries quickly following Greece out (Citigroup);
• Multiple countries exiting the euro and runs on major European banks (a UBS Group special report issued Sunday).

U.S. President Obama on Feb. 8 issued a contentless statement, “urging compromise” between Eurozone leaders and Greece. Typical of its duplicity was Obama’s CNN interview Feb. 7, in which he talked of a “limit to austerity”, but then indicated it hadn’t been reached in his view:

“They probably don’t need to do an enormous amount of additional fiscal adjustment; they need to hold on to the gains from the reforms they’ve already made….”

This is exactly the austerity disaster the Greek government insists on reversing.

At the G20 Istanbul meeting. The one opening to sanity was French Finance Minister Michel Sapin’s comment to Reuters: