Comrades and friends,

Europe is on edge. Two worlds
collide.

On one side stand the productive forces of democracy, the people fighting
to create a society of justice, equality and freedom.

On the other side, a neoliberal biopolitical project unfolds. Its aim
is to control bodies and minds through the politics of fear. To discipline human
life in its entirety.

To intensify the exploitation
of labour and to increase the profits of capital.

I am privileged to
address you here in the heart of London today to declare that we are part of the experiment of democracy.

We in SYRIZA believe that
radical democratic changes are the only way out of the crisis for the people of
Europe.

This is not an optimistic illusion.

It is the compelling conclusion of rational argument
and detailed analysis.

It is widely accepted
that the strategy of European Elites and the Greek government cannot provide a
viable prospect of exit from the crisis. The only thing that austerity has
accomplished is to plunge Europe into economic depression and to throw Greece
in an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Austerity is leading the Greek economy
and society down a catastrophic path. This
is not an assertion, it is a fact! Numerous reports of European and
international institutions confirm it.

I will only mention
some of the most striking statistical evidence. This is the sixth consecutive year of economic recession.
The latest Morgan Stanley forecast predicts the same for next year too. The Greek
economy has contracted by 20% since 2008. Workers and pensioners have lost more
than 30% of their income in the last three years. Unemployment keeps increasing
and is approaching a scary 30%, with youth unemployment at nearly 60%. A new
wave of emigration leads hundreds of thousands of highly qualified graduates
and scientists abroad, undermining any future recovery.

Austerity policies
have led to cuts in benefits, deregulation of the labour market and the further
deterioration of the limited welfare state.

Collective bargaining
has been abolished and every aspect of life has been subjected to the demands
of capitalist profit and fiscal discipline.

European elites and
the Greek Government have sufficient evidence that these policies cannot yield
any positive results.

The IMF has confessed
that its economists have failed in any
attempt to predict the consequences of horizontal cuts and of other austerity measures.

Everybody now knows
that austerity policies create a vicious spiral of austerity / recession / increase
in debt.

Why then do the European and Greek rulers continue
with this self-defeating strategy?

The answer is
obvious.

Their true goals are different from those officially and
publicly pronounced.

They actually aim at a total transformation of the social
framework.

They seek the
creation of an economic environment based on cheap labour, Special Economic Zones,
deregulation of the labour market, tax exemptions for capital, and extensive
privatisation of public goods and services.

European and Greek
elites use public debt as blackmail for the imposition of this transformative
strategy.

Their scheme is a subtle
technology of power aiming to exclude alternative political programmes.

If the debt did not exist, the elites
would have to invent it.

The austerity policies
associated with the debt crisis are not
imposed on Greece by the Troika.

Samaras and his political
allies, PASOK and the Democratic Left, play a crucial role in instigating,
planning, and implementing the austerity programmes.

This became more than
obvious when the internal Troika refused
our demand to renegotiate the
Loan agreement, even after the IMF admitted
their repeated multiplier error. 

The Greek Government
is prepared to go to the bitter end in order to please its social allies: Big capital
and the corrupt elites.

Its willingness to implement
fully this catastrophic programme
has dramatically transformed the
state and carries unprecedented perils for democracy.

The Samaras coalition
has intensified the trend started by the Papadimos government: They circumvent
the separation of powers and the constitution by passing legislation through
ministerial decrees and without Parliamentary approval.

Austerity has led to growing
popular disobedience and resistance, and it has triggered unprecedented police
repression.

A near state of exception has been imposed in Greece.

Unlimited state violence
and repression has been unleashed against anyone who dares to resist.

Basic civil liberties
and constitutional rights are constantly violated. 

The torture of detainees by the Greek
Police, revealed by the Guardian, is sadly just one of many examples.

Violent police repression
in Chalkidiki, where the local community resists an environmentally catastrophic
goldmine investment, is another.

The continuous
attacks on immigrants by fascist thugs, under police protection or tolerance, create a sense of
undeclared war in the streets of Athens and throughout Greece.

The government does
not hesitate to implement its catastrophic plans.

It has launched a violent shift to the far right,
endangering the European liberal and humanist tradition and democracy itself.

Samarasʼs plan is clear.

Based on a pretext of law and order, he is trying
to create a political pole that will halt the advance of the Left.

He exploits the
conservative reflexes and the justified fear of the victims of the economic crisis,
in order to attract those voting for Golden Dawn, the advancing neo Nazi party.

The latest episode of
this political drama took place three days ago, when it was revealed that the Minister of the Interior has
appointed a Nazi apologist and holocaust revisionist as an adviser on issues of
nationality and immigration.

Despite our calls for
his resignation he is still in his position.

SYRIZA has a political and moral responsibility to put
an end to this social disaster.

We are responsible
not only towards ourselves and future generations.

We are responsible towards the European tradition and
the European vision.

Towards our own past
and future.

But do we have an answer?

Is there an alternative to neoliberal domination in
Greece and in Europe?

Or are we, as our
critics say, just demagogues and populists who only know how to deny the
obvious and to deceive?

It is always easy for
our political rivals to call anyone who resists a populist and a demagogue.

Every political force
that has an alternative political agenda and vision, every political agent that
dares to deny their one-way solutions, is either a utopian or a fraud.

To this we
emphatically respond: We do affirmative
politics!

Every single of our
Nos is followed by a decisive Yes.

We affirm a political
strategy for justice, equality, and freedom;

A plan for human emancipation.

But we are no utopians.

We know that in order
to change the situation we need to be both
idealists and visionaries, but at the same time also brutal pragmatists.

Our Pragmatism,
however, is subject to our vision for radical change.

It is not a step back
but a necessary precaution.

Because we know that
to be successful we must trust in the power of the people, in the productive
power of democracy and participation.

We will never
compromise our principles.

What is the alternative then for Europe and Greece?

SYRIZA has stated that
a future government will put a stop to the austerity policies while, at the
same time, renegotiating the loan agreement with our creditors.

SYRIZA argues that an
economically viable strategy must follow the model of the 1953 London Debt
Agreement, which gave the post-war German economy a kick start and helped it
create the “economic miracle” of the post-war era.

Let us re-emphasize
the point. Without the London Agreement, there would have been no German
economic miracle.

The central planks of
that deal were debt reduction, a huge investment drive through the Marshall
Plan, and financing terms linked to export and growth performance.

We see no reason why
in 2013 such a settlement is not also the appropriate way forward for the whole
of the South, and for Greece.

Why canʼt we have a
new conference on the debt in the South of the Eurozone?

Why have we accepted such
diminished expectations, such a conservative approach, now that the
step-by-step and country-by-country approach has so evidently failed?

This new settlement
is only one aspect of our political plan.

We are well aware
that the Greek economy cannot recover if we don t implement a series of
economic, institutional and democratic reforms, which will radically change the
picture of the Greek society and state.

Our first priority is
to freeze all measures reducing wages and pensions and to restore the minimum
wage to pre-Memorandum levels.

This will be a
crucial step in our effort to stop the downward spiral of economic depression
and to restore the dignity and prospects of the Greek working class.

The restoration of the minimum wage is a precondition for
exiting the crisis and would be a victory for the social classes and forces that
the Left represents.  

It is also time to
put forward a radical tax reform that will redistribute the burden of taxation
and restore justice.

It is common
knowledge among progressive politicians and activists, but also among the
troika and the Greek government, that the burden of the crisis has been carried
exclusively by public and private
sector workers and pensioners.

This has to stop.

It is time for the rich to contribute their share in
our attempt to exit the crisis, and we commit ourselves to that task.

We will confront the
long standing problem of tax evasion and tax avoidance.

We will pursue and
tax the capital removed from Greece, to buy luxury flats in Mayfair and Chelsea.

We will secure the
viability of the banking system by introducing
social and public control of banks.

The banking system we
envision will support environmentally viable public investment and cooperative initiatives.

It will promote
quality regional products, renewable energy sources and crucial infrastructure
improvement projects.

What we need is a
banking system devoted to the public interest–not one bowing to capitalist profit.

A banking system at
the service of society, a banking system that serves as a pillar for growth.

Economic reforms,
however, are required but not sufficient for exiting the crisis.

They need to be
supplemented by drastic changes in the political and administrative system.

We need to restore confidence in the ability of democracy to
provide solutions for the whole population.

This is of course an
enormous task.

It requires the
mobilisation of all the social forces who have an interest in fighting
corruption, cronyism, clientelism, and public sector inefficiency.

None of these
political aims can be achieved, of course, without popular support and
participation.  

This is exactly the
new element that we want to introduce in the political system. Workers,
pensioners, the youth and the unemployed are only passive observers of political
developments.

They are almost
entirely excluded from processes of decision-making.

This, too, has to stop.

All vital forces of
our society need to return to politics and decision-making.

And the state must be
radically transformed in order to support the vision of a society that takes / its
present life and future prospects, in its own hands.

The political programme that SYRIZA puts forward presents
a complete hegemonic project.

It is not just about
winning elections and forming a government;

it is about gaining power and moving Greece in a
democratic socialist direction.

As Gramsci once wrote,
the Modern Prince, the political party of the left, needs to become the basis
of a modern laicism or popular transformation, of a complete popular remaking of
the whole of life and all customary relations .

We don t start from
scratch in this endeavour.

We, the movements and
the political forces of the European Left have achieved much. Much more than
someone would have expected a few years ago.

After the uprisings
of 2011, from the indignados of Puerta del Sol and Syntagma Square, after the unprecedented
resistance all over the world, nothing is the same.

Last summer, SYRIZA
came close to winning the elections and making another step in the overthrow of
the dangerous and corrupt political elite in Greece.

We did not succeed
then.

But we will very soon.

And we are not alone
anymore.

A new wave of popular
struggles is emerging all over Europe. The balance of power has started to
shift.

From Lisbon to
Madrid, from Paris to Athens, a new wave of mobilisation and resistance has
begun. Soon it will reach London.

The politics of
austerity will come to an end.

What we need to do is
to oversee its demise.

Resistance is in the
air and from resistance grows the seed of change.

For the first time
since the 80s, Europe is on edge.

It finds itself at a
crossroads.

It will either follow
the path of a permanent state of exception, aiming to control growing popular resistance, or it will choose
– we will choose – a radical act of
change that will entirely transform the field of economy and politics.

We, the European Left,
need to learn from the resistance of the popular movements, and at the same
time we need to express their aspirations at the political level, exactly in
order to change what politics means.

We need to leave the
managerial attitude of technocrats and bureaucrats behind.

We need to unite with
the people and express their aspirations for a just and egalitarian world.

Our aim is not just to
rescue the economy from the death throes of neoliberal austerity.

Our aim is to change the dominant capitalist paradigm.

We will not be able
to achieve our aims without the solidarity and the help of the European Left
and of Trade Unions.

Our struggle is the
same.

The future of Greece, the future of Europe depends on
our success.