Home > IV Online magazine > 2015 > IV486 - July 2015 > Communiqué of Syriza Youth on the agreement-memorandum and the future of Syriza

Greece

Communiqué of Syriza Youth on the agreement-memorandum and the future of Syriza

Thursday 23 July 2015, by Syriza Youth

Save this article in PDF Version imprimable de cet article Version imprimable

The agreement of July 13, reached after negotiations lasting several months, conducted by the Syriza-ANEL government, is undoubtedly a huge defeat of the forces of the radical Left in Greece. The unprecedented coup d’état carried out by the creditors was only the latest episode in a series of acts of outright blackmail that led the government into a suffocating political impasse.

It would however be rather elliptical to interpret the outcome of the negotiations as solely determined by the choices of the creditors. We are obliged to evaluate negatively the underestimation of the relationship of forces within the euro zone, the unshakeable conviction that rational arguments could persuade the "institutions" to be in favour of a "mutually beneficial" agreement, but also that the threat of a Grexit that could play a catalyzing role for our proposal to prevail. All these points contributed decisively to the absence of an alternative plan of rupture that could have functioned both as part of the negotiations and as a choice for the government; all this was a decisive factor in our being politically kidnapped.

Parallel to this, the long indulgence in the technical aspect of the negotiations, waiting for an "honorable compromise" that was considered to be certain, left no space for the enthusiasm and dynamism that the participation of society would have created, against the dominance of the technocrats and the pursuit of a political exercise unperturbed by change. Furthermore, we refrained from “unilateral” actions that could have shifted the field of conflict towards the interior, consolidated our relationship with the people we represent, given the starting signal for new struggles, guaranteed the means to ensure the implementation of our programme.

In the face of this whole situation the insufficiency of the mechanism of the party (and of the youth organization) was decisive. The non-convening of the Central Committee before the parliamentary vote on the pre-conditions for the agreement shifted the weight of decision-making towards incompetent organs, such as the parliamentary group, and towards the individual conscience of each of the elected members. The political undernourishment of the leading bodies of the party and the taking of decisions outside of collective procedures are two complementary aspects of the same relationship.
The agreement that was signed bears the mark of the overwhelming relationship of forces within the euro zone and of the blackmail perpetrated against the government and the Greek people. This political kidnapping and this impasse, for which we have paid the price, compels us to reconsider the axes and the orientations of this plan. We have the duty to consider that in the end, the EU and the euro zone operate as an institutionally moulded neoliberal system, limiting in the extreme the margins for their transformation. Our internationalist strategy must involve withdrawal from these formations, which is a demand for democracy and popular sovereignty, but also the prerequisite for challenging neoliberalism.

The adoption by parliamentary vote of the third memorandum runs counter to our ideological references and our collective decisions: it reverses the long march of Syriza and runs the risk of crushing hope in the only EU country where the Left has achieved a historic victory. For these reasons we situate ourselves in opposition to this agreement.

There is an imperative need, at this stage, for the immediate convening of the Central Committee of Syriza and for the immediate calling of an extraordinary congress, the supreme decision-making body of the party, which would have overall responsibility for the balance sheet of the previous stage and for planning the strategy for the coming stage. Syriza also has a responsibility; it must protect all its members against personal attacks, which are foreign in their methodology to the principles and values of the Left.

It is in no way conceivable, in this context, to put aside the major importance of the referendum result. In this case, the government succeeded for a short time in making the people a protagonist, by choosing to give it the floor, against the extreme blackmail, the financial asphyxiation, the closed banks, the media frenzy. The referendum, as a social process and as a popular verdict, demonstrates that the struggle for the establishment of a social alliance capable of expanding democracy, synergies and solidarity in all areas of social life is more than ever relevant, but also that it bears within it a victorious dynamic.

As far as we are concerned, the struggle for a more just world is not a moral justification, but a way to change our daily existence, our lives, society. We will continue to follow this path, keeping constantly in mind that history is a field of the possible, in which we fight to make feasible everything that today seems unthinkable.

July 21, 2015