People Strike In Greece, But The Rulers Are Selling Everything Saleable
By Countercurrents.org
21 September, 2012
Countercurrents.org
Debt ridden Greece is going to sell everything saleable: islands, palaces, royal estates, embassies. It’s part of a program for privatizing public property. It’s, “occupy [the] country and […] buy up [the] country at rock-bottom prices”. On the other pole, police, judges, public transport workers, physicians, tax workers, are striking. People are telling: “If we don’t have strikes how we will pursue our rights?
Helena Smith’s report [1] from Athens was carried by The Guardian on September 20, 2012 with the headline “Greece embarks on a firesale”. Following are excerpts:
An unprecedented clear out is now under way in Athens.
Greece has announced it will sell anything it can do without. These include islands, royal palaces, prime real estate, marinas, airports, roads, the state-owned gas company, lottery and post office.
The downsizing would also include diplomatic residences abroad – starting with the Victorian townhouse that was once the Greek consul general's residence in London.
The Greek finance minister revealed that their economy is not just shrinking but slipping inexorably into a 1930s-style Depression. Officials are now working frantically to get the mother of all firesales off the ground.
[T]he foreign ministry is fully aware of what and where the properties are – unlike the Greek state, which until recently was still struggling to attain an inventory of what it actually owned given the lack of a proper land registry.
[A]gents are already being sounded out to sell the 10,000 square foot consular residence in London's upscale Holland Park – which is currently being renovated.
In what will be surely be sad news for another UK resident, Constantine, the former king of Greece, officials have also let slip that the Tatoi palace, the royal family's historic estate at the foot of Mount Parnitha, will be sold off too.
The property, acquired by the family in 1871, was originally set in gardens laid out to "provide the typical charms of both the Greek and English countryside" and, as such, comes with some 40 outbuildings, stables, a swimming pool and several royal graves. Shortly after it was built outside Athens, Prince Christopher wrote that it was the only place where "we could forget that we were not supposed to be ordinary human beings." An array of old Rolls-Royces, and other paraphernalia that once belonged to Constantine before he was forced to flee into exile, can still be glimpsed on its now dilapidated premises.
The sell-off, which will include buildings in Brussels and Belgrade, Rome and Nicosia, is part of a privatization campaign that may well be the most ambitious ever conducted on the continent of Europe. With Athens' debt load still at a whopping 166% of GDP […] the country has agreed to raise €19bn by 2015. Earlier this year, the cash-strapped culture ministry even announced it would make the Acropolis more "readily available" for photographers and film crews. Previously, the ancient site had been regarded as "too sacred' to rent out or besmirch with commercial use.
This month the conservative-led coalition […] declared that it had also pinpointed at least 40 uninhabited islands which it planned to lease out for the development of "tourism ventures".
Officials are not hiding that the drive has been spurred […] by the desire to placate the international lenders […]
On the privatization front, officials have invariably encountered the resistance of unions and political parties not only opposed to the arduous terms of the loan agreements but the sale of prized possessions regarded as "the family silver".
For many Greeks, the new drive is the most humiliating development yet in a process of brutal fiscal realignment that has seen poverty and unemployment hit record levels. "Foreigners have been allowed to occupy our country and now they are going to buy up our country at rock-bottom prices," Notis Marias, the parliamentary representative of the vehemently anti-bailout Independent Greeks party railed in parliament.
But government officials starting with Kostis Hadzidakis, who, as minister of development, is leading the campaign, say desperate times call for desperate measures.
Making clear the privatization program is now the cornerstone of the government's economic policy, the newly installed privatization chief this week called on investors to take up the rich pickings. Greece, he said, was set to become an El Dorado for those who did so.
The eurozone's weakest members have been selling off the family silver since the crisis began.
Portugal raised nearly €3bn (£2.4bn) selling part of a power company to China's Three Gorges Corporation. A Chinese-Oman partnership snapped up a stake in Portugal's power and gas grid operator. Its national airline, TAP, and the post office are now up for grabs.
Ireland hopes to raise €3bn selling off assets. Bidding for the right to run a new national lottery starts next month, and a stake in Aer Lingus is also up for grabs. It is also offering to sell parts of the country's Electricity Supply Board, and some of its forests.
Spain hoped to raise €7bn selling a stake in the lottery, El Gordo – “the fat one”, but no big bids was forthcoming. Madrid is now hoping to find buyers for tourism sites and transport operators - and has put 100 office buildings on the block.
In June, Italy agreed to sell €10bn of undefined assets, but progress is slow.
A media report by A. Papapostolou, headlined “Protesting Greek Police Pepper-Sprayed by Police” [2], on Sept. 20, 2012 said:
Greek police officers staged a protest outside the prime minister’s office on Sept. 20, with some even pepper-sprayed by police on duty as they demonstrated against new austerity measures the government is planning.
Officers guarding the central Athens building sought to push back their colleagues who were holding up a banner that read “Protect those who protect you.” No arrests were reported by authorities.
“We staged a small protest together with colleagues from the Coast Guard and the Fire Service. We wanted to hand over a petition to the government,” Grigoris Bakaris, said a senior member of the Greek Police Officers’ Association who joined the protest.
“There was an argument — I wouldn’t call it a scuffle, but an argument — and that was a very limited use of chemicals (pepper spray) and the incident ended there. We later were allowed to hand in our petition,” he said.
Authorities responded to the protest by padlocking entrances to a public park near the prime minister’s office, leaving more than 20 tourists stranded inside for over an hour. Elsewhere in Athens, meanwhile, public transport workers staged a 24-hour strike, halting subway and tram services.
Judges and doctors at public hospitals also began a slow-down strike this week while tax workers are to strike on Sept. 21. Athenian Stelios Noussas drove to work because of the subway strike, but said he supported the protest. “They’re striking for their rights. We’re all in the same boat,” he said. “If we don’t have strikes how will we pursue our rights? Good for them.”
Source:
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/19/debt-ridden-greece-firesale?newsfeed=true
[2] http://greece.greekreporter.com/2012/09/20/protesting-police-pepper-sprayed/
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