COALITION OF THE RADICAL LEFT (SYRIZA) –

UNITED SOCIAL FRONT (USF)

June 1st, 2012, Athinais Hall

Dear friends,

I want to thank you for your presence here.

Today, we present the government programme of SYRIZA-USF to the society,
and we submit it to the judgement of the citizens.

This is a programme of dignity and hope for the people and for the
country.

It is an elaborated, comprehensive and concrete, step by step,
contemporary political plan of the Left.
It guarantees the fiscal restoration based on social justice and the exit
of the country from the crisis. It guarantees the reconstruction of
production and the development of the country and its participation in the
Eurozone and the European Union on politically equal terms.

Today we submit the only credible, realistic and applicable alternative
to the Memorandum in front of the Greek people, and not to the Troika,
seeking its endorsement.

A contemporary political plan, which deconstructs the neoliberal model in
practice – a plan which at the same time represents a compass for the
European Left.

A road map for the new Greece.

Upon submission of this plan, it becomes clear to the Greek people, that
in June 17 they have one and only real choice to make: they either vote for
the Memorandum, or for the government programme of SYRIZA-USF.

They either vote for a government of the Memorandum which will be formed
around New Democracy, or for an antimemorandum progressive government, which
will be formed around SYRIZA-USF.

It now becomes crystal clear, that the sole dilemma of the elections
ofJune17th is: Memorandum or SYRIZA.

For, there is no such thing as a more or less evil Memorandum.

There is no such thing as a more inappropriate or a less inappropriate
medicine.
You either apply the Memorandum or you cancel it.
New Democracy and PASOK do not want to cancel the Memorandum, they want
to apply it.
We are going to cancel it.

It now becomes crystal clear to every Greek, that in June 17th there will
be a counterposition between the past and hope.

A counterposition between the past and SYRIZA/USF.

The last, desperate battle of rearguard is now given by an old world.

By a closed system of power which organized the rotten, dependent,
corrupt and discredited political establishment of the post-dictatorship era
of the bipartisan system of New Democracy and PASOK.

By the real clientalist state of the uncontrolled Media proprietors, of
the state-fed bankers and of the political personnel that safeguarded their
power and which, during the last two years, interconnects its interests with
the Memorandum and the countryʼs lenders.

It furiously departs from the primacy of our countryʼs public life. After
it plundered it and delivered it hostage to its lenders.

Now it threatens, it blackmails, it tries to split
society and cause generalized fear and insecurity.

It believes that in such a way it can harm SYRIZA/USF
In fact, it is harming the country. And it doesnʼt care about it.

This is the swan song for the managers of burned land.

However, the strategy of fear, turned against its mentors.
Just yesterday, Reuters revealed the blank fires against SYRIZA/USF.
The false dilemma “Memorandum or return to the drachma” was revealed to
be a mere political favour from the elites of the EU, to their friends who
requested it: The local political forces of the
Memorandum.
A political favour, without a real value.
But at the same time, it is a proof of the moral and political decadence
of the local establishment.
Of a panicked establishment, which is washed out by the wave of dignity,
self confidence and decisiveness that the Greek people raised on the 6th of
May, and which now leads the historical overthrow of the 17th of June.
Yesterday, for one more time, Mr. Samaras announced his pre-electoral
intention to renegotiate his signature in the second Memorandum.
And this surprised us.
Because we all remember him boasting on television last February for his
hard negotiation with the lenders.
Claiming that it was the first time that Greece really negotiated with
its lenders, thanks to him.
We remember him ascertain the Greek people that he is not going to accept
the decrease of main and supplementary pensions.
And what he proudly rejected in front of the cameras, was exactly what he
signed shortly after on the table of our unconditional surrender to the
lenders.
He signed the decrease of both main and supplementary pensions.
And now, after the electoral crush of New Democracy in 6 May, and with
the justified fear of an imminent defeat in 17 June, he asks for a second
chance to negotiate.
Supposedly, in order to repeal his personal commitment to the loyal
application of the Memorandum.
He deceived the Greek people once in February 2012. Now he tries to
deceive them for a second time.
He tries to snatch the peopleʼs vote and surrender it to Ms. Merkel.
As for the perpetrator of the Memorandum and lawmaker of the system of
interwining interests, Mr. Venizelos, he has proclaimed a pre-electoral war
to the very legislation he himself introduced.
He has now come to the point to even demand the reform of the adverse
conditions of the loan agreement.
The loan agreement he signed himself, and for the voting of which he
blackmailed the parliamentary group of PASOK and ND. But the only thing he
succeeds to do is reveal the false dilemmas and the emptiness of the
blackmails he extends together with Mr. Samaras..

Dear friends,

New Democracy and PASOK are leaving, and they are delivering Greece in an
economic decomposition and social desertification, on the edge of a
humanitarian crisis.
I want to note at this point, that there could not be a
more tragic symbolism of the slow death of our country, than the many
suicides of people who cannot cope anymore.
Unfortunately, this is an unfolding tragedy.
Because everyday we witness the increase of people getting fired, of
people becoming unemployed, of people being homeless, of working poor and
pensioners, of bankrupt professionals and small business owners.
Because the Memorandum failed to address the fundamental reason for its
imposition: the lending crisis. The fact that the country was unable to
borrow from the markets.
And it failed, because it rendered the public debt as a percentage of GDP
unviable.
It prolonged the exclusion of the country from the markets.
It is no accident that the overcoming of the recession is postponed from
year to year. Instead of 2013, as it was foreseen in the second Memorandum,
it is already postponed for 2014.
And this could happen only under favourable –in other words unrealistic–
conditions.
It is also no accident that no one speaks about Greeceʼs return to the
markets anymore.
And allow me a prediction: With the Memorandum and with the new
composition of public debt, whereby the debt to individuals has been
replaced with institutional and interstate debt under the English Law, we
must forget about borrowing from the markets, at least for the current
decade.
Finally, it is no accident that none of our lenders advises us in favour
of the continuation of the Memorandum, because the latter has succeeded.
They advise us to follow it only because in this way they safeguard
themselves, and because Mr. Samaras and Mr. Venizelos have both signed and
guaranteed its application.
They advise us to do it independently of the fact that it constitutes an
automatic pilot to total disaster.
It constitutes a mechanism of utter bankruptcy, and of pushing the
country towards the voluntary exit from the Eurozone.
The only exit from the Eurozone which is institutionally possible.
This is why, the false dilemma “Memorandum or return to the drachma”, is
used in order to conceal the only real equation, which is:

Memorandum = Return to the drachma.

But even the prolongation of time for the application of the Memorandum,
is another pre-electoral evasion.
It does not constitute a solution.
On the contrary, the prolongation of the time for fiscal adjustment,
without changing the Memorandum policies, will lead to a smaller primary
surplus than that foreseen.
And this does not result to development.
What it results to is either more lending from troika or a generous
“haircut” of the institutional and interstate debt.
In other words, by just changing the dose of the lethal medicine, you
donʼt deter death.
You must change the medicine itself.
Therefore, there is no such thing as a milder Memorandum.
And neither the so-called gradual disengagement from the Memorandum,
which is cunningly promoted by the latterʼs supporters, is any more
realistic.
The hook of the Memorandum has trapped all Greek people. And this is why
we must get rid of it right now.

New Democracy and PASOK are leaving, delivering a society split into
three.

The typical analytical schema of the two thirds society, which was
introduced in European political thought in the 80s by the German
Socialdemocrat politician and intellectual Peter Glots, has been reversed:
it is now the two thirds –not the one third- that live in deprivation and
great insecurity.
Only a small part of society is prospering in this instance.

The lower end of society, which continuously increases and has already
overcome 40%, consists of the victims of the crisis and the Memorandum
policies.
It consists of the unemployed, the low income employed or poor pensioners,
the bankrupt households, the destroyed proffessionals and small business
owners.
The middle class is still economically alive, but it lives in a
depressing insecurity.
We are talking about relatively high waged working individuals,
proffessionals and small business owners that still hold on, although not
for long if the same policies continue.

The whole of the society faces an impass and a lack of visible
perspective.

Nevertheless there are some, few, who have gained from the tragedy that
has struck our country.

Who gains from the Memorandum, when so many fall into misery?

• All those who owned real property through off-shore
  companies. Because whithin a period of six months, they were given the
  opportunity to register it under their name, without paying any surplus
  value tax, but only 50% of the tax for transfer of ownership.
   
• Tax evaders. Because on the basis of the motives given
  for the repatriation of capital, they washed their money and benefited from
  a rate of 5% (in many cases, when the capital was re-invested, the rate was
  reduced to 2,5%). This was the most immoral decree of the PASOK government:
  legalisation of assets without criteria, money that could have come from
  arms trade, trafficking, drugs.
   
• Tax evaders, again. Because with the provisions for
  closing open tax cases of the years 2000-2010, all illegalities of tax
  evasion and tax stealing of a period during which they should have paid
  taxes as high as 110 bil. Euros, were prescripted.
   
• All those who made profits from transactions in the
  Athens Stock Exchange. Because, the payment of suprlus value tax from
  selling shares registered in the Athens Stock Excange, is extended until
  31.12.2012.
   
• All those receiving high dividends from SA and LTD
  companies. Because, the principle of taxation of all incomes, independently
  of their source, on the basis of the personal tax rate is thrown in the
  garbage with the institutionalisation of a 21% tax rate for the incomes of
  the financial year 2011.
   
• All those with really high incomes. Because, the higher
  tax scale was not increased..
   
• All those who exported money abroad. Because, no-one
  decided to impose a tax on the export of capital, unlike what happens
  elsewhere, in the USA for example.

New Democracy and PASOK are leaving, delivering the economy in collapse
and empty state coffers.

And instead of proposing a credible solution for the problems they
created, they carry around the results of their policies as a bugbear in
order for the same policies to be continued.

They try to scare people in order to contain the
prospected victory of SYRIZA/USF in the elections of June 17th as much as
they can, .

New Democracy and PASOK are leaving, together with the pillars of their
intertwining system, and the day of hope for a life with dignity and
perspective is rising.

SYRIZA/USF is coming.

We are coming to restore democracy, peopleʼs sovereignty and the
sovereign rights of the country.

We do not participate in the political dispute of decomposition and decay,
which the New Democracy tries to impose.

We have the ideological and political self-confidence of a calm force
that has the volition, the knowledge and the ability to change the destiny
of the country and its people.

At this point I want to stress certain focal points of immediate
application included in our governmental programme:

• We will form a small and flexible ministerial group.
   
• We will put an end to the armies of councillors that
  substitute public administration by overlapping and immobilising its most
  able cadres. Those who function as a state within the state, and they
  usually offer very little, relatively to their high salaries.
   
• We will trust the public administration, and we will
  use its cadres for the planning and the application of decisions,
  independently of their party affiliation.
   
• We will decisively put an end to the politically
  impermissible and socially provocative phenomenon of the golden directors,
  appointed by parties, commissioned in Public Companies and banks that are
  under public control. We will finish with these golden boys nurtured with
  borrowed public money.

  I would also like to clarify that the first act of the government of the
  Left, immediately after the opening of the new Parliament, will be the annullation of the Memorandum and of its application laws.

We will replace it with a National Plan of Reconstruction for social and
economic development, for productive change and fiscal restoration, which we
have already elaborated.

Immediately upon the annullation of the Memorandum, the new government
will denounce the burdensome conditions and will seek the renegotiation of
the loan agreement.
More particularly, concerning the viable management of the countryʼs
public debt, it will seek a European solution.

Without a common European solution to the problem of accumulated debt and
the funding of development, fiscal adjustment, the realisation of primary
surpluses, paying for the interest of accumulated debt, funding public
investments and carrying out public policies all at the same time are
impossible for Greece.

It is an insoluble equation.

This is why we will renegotiate a solution for the problem of debt,
aiming to a drastic decrease, or a moratorium and the suspension of interest
payments, until the conditions are created for the stabilisation and
recovery of our economy.

The servicing of the debt should also be connected with the rate of
development of the Greek economy, that is, with the rate of GDP growth (development
clause).

At the same time, the government of the Left:

I. Will immediately abolish the Ministerial Act no
6-28/2/2012 which enforces the decrease of the minimum wage by 22% (32% for
the youth up to 25 y.a.), as well as the decrease of unemployment benefits,
sickness and maternity benefits, and restore the abolished collective
bargaining. We will bring the minimum wage back to the level of ?751 and the
unemployment benefit to ?461,50.

Unemployment benefits will be granted for two years
(double the current time period).

It will annulate the abolition of the after-effect of
collective contracts for collective agreements, and restore the obligatory extention of sectoral agreements.

II. It will abolish the imposition of special taxes on
small and medium incomes, and primarily on the unemployed, the low waged,
the low pensioners and all those living close to the poverty line.

III. It will directly work for three basic goals:

1. the material relief of the victims of the crisis and
of the Memorandum policies,

2. the stabilisation of the economy in order to deter an
even bigger economic disaster,

3. the consolidation of a feeling of security and hope,
by fighting insecurity and cultivating positive realistic economic and
social expectations and perspectives.

These three immediate goals will be met with the application of the
elaborated plan of SYRIZA/USF for the realistic, effective and socially just
fiscal stabilisation.
The plan provides for the stabilisation of primary expenditures as a
percentage of the GDP, at least on the level of 43% – against its decrease
to under 36% of the GDP as a result of the Memorandum – and, at most, on the
level of the current average of the Eurozone, which is 46%.
The stabilisation of expenditures must be covered by the increase of
public incomes, which are significantly lower than the average of the
Eurozone (41% of the GDP against 45%).
The adjustment proposed will come from the taxation of wealth as well as
that of high incomes, with the goal of increasing revenues from direct
taxation in order to reach the european average, (which is higher by 4% of
the GDP) within 4 years (increasing them by 1% of the GDP every year).

This presupposes a radical reform of the tax system, in order to trace
the incomes and property of every citizen for the fair allocation of
taxation.

The indicative measures for the stabilisation of primary expenses also
include:

• The immediate freezing of the reduction of social
  expenditures, salaries and pensions, in order to stop the marginalisation of
  low incomes and the undermining of medium incomes,
   
• The radical re-examination and redistribution of public
  expenses, in a way that the resources spent will improve the quality of
  public goods and services offered,
   
• The functioning and empowerment of the central
  authority for state provisions which will control the cost of goods and
  services bought by the state from the private sector,
   
• The application and extension of regulations for the
  direct control of expenditures, such as the “transparency” program,
  electronic prescriptions and the information system for monitoring all
  public expenditures.

The indicative measures for the increase of public incomes, also include:

• The creation of a comprehensive and total
  property register, where the property of all Greek citizens in Greece and
  abroad will be registered, with all types of mobile and real estate wealth,
  as well as the provision for strict penalties, even for the confiscation of
  part of the property of those who do not declare it truthfully.
• The change of tax rates and the income scale for
  personal incomes and the incomes of legal entities and their adjustment to
  the average european level, in order to increase revenues at the expense of
  the richer and not the poorer.
• The re-examination of all special tax regimes and the
  effective confrontation of tax evasion.
• The gradual reduction of the VAT, and its minimisation for basic goods (bread, milk etc.)

It is estimated that this, as well as the previous measure, will have a
positive and multiplicative effect on internal demand, due to the higher
propensity of the lower incomes to consume such goods.

• The modernisation and staffing of the tax service
  with specialised personell and the reinforcement of the infornation system
  for the control, the comparison and the constant monitoring of the tax base.
  
   
• A national programmatic agreement with the
  shipping industry and the shipowners, which will increase tax revenues.

The relation between the Greek state, the shipping industry and the
shipowners, aiming to the abolition of the provocative 58 different tax-exemptions
and the creation of a stable tax regime which will meet the constitutional
demand for the contribution of all Greek citizens to the tax burdens, will
by reexamined.

At the same time, we will mobilise resources for funding development,
from both internal and external sources.

The internal sources include: the creation of conditions for the return
of deposits and for the stability of the financial system, the increase of
resources stemming from the radical reform of the tax system for the redistrubution of wealth, the cessation of refusing to pay for social
contributions, the exploitation of the mineral wealth and fossil fuels, the
signing of an inter-state agreement with Switzerland for the taxation of the
deposits of Greek citizens there, which is still pending, as well as the
suspension of interest payments for a period of time that will be agreed
through negotiations.

The external sources of funding and development include: the reorganisation of the NSRF (National Strategic Reference Framework) and the
increase of its absorption, the application of a European program for
funding investments in the member states of the European Union for
confronting recession, and the use of multilateral economic diplomacy, as a
possible source of new funding resources.

Dear friends,

We undertake the responsibility and we guarantee:

• To unite the people, which New Democracy tries to
  divide, with outdated separation lines from the deep and dark past of the
  country, in order to conceal the Memorandum.
  To unite them around the governmental programme of SYRIZA,
  which disentangles Greece from the crisis, poverty and international
  disrepute.
   
• To convey abroad the decisiveness of the Greek people
  to get out of the crisis with justice and dignity – and not to reproduce the
  blackmail of the creditors, who offend our national dignity and the insurpassable cultural contribution of the country and of our people, inside
  the country.
   
• To create conditions of stability and safety for all
  the citizens.
   
• To restore the right of the Greek family, of every
  Greek woman and Greek man, to a dignified life,a safe work and a fare
  remuneration.
   
• For everyone to have a dignified pension for the old
  age and health care, independently of their income.
   
• To cover the future needs of the social security system
  from the Fund of National Wealth and Social Security.

In this special, exclusively public fund which we are
going to create, we will tranfer all incomes stemming from the natural and
mineral wealth of the country, including the possible fossile fuel deposits,
if they are proved economically exploitable, as well as all the tradable
mobile and immobile property of the state.
Thus, public property and the sources of our country are
going to be reclaimed, with social reciprocity and with the eyes turned to
the amelioration of the standard of living for the next generations.

• To immediately raise a shield of social protection in
  order to deter the humanitarian crisis.

With the programme of immediate application that we have
elaborated, and with the mobilisation of the state mechanism.
To relieve the unemployed and the underemployed, the
homeless, the poor pensioners, the low waged, the highly indebted households
and the people with disabilities.

• To apply our proposal for a total or partial
  cancellation of the debt obligations of the highly indebted households and
  businesses depending on the decrease of their income or of their turnover
  from the granting of the loan until today.
   
• To re-orientate European resources for the support of
  the unemployment, of low incomes, for the funding of the programme “Home
  Help” and other structures and services of social care.
   
• To organise the productive reconstruction of the
  country, with targeted development motives, for the support of the
  competitive branches of the economy.

In this direction we will immediately decrease the VAT for catering and
tourism.

• To create conditions which will safeguard the
  continuity and the stability of the agricultural production.

With the regulation of the farmers debts to the banks, as
a part of our general policy for a safety net for the peasants.
With shaping low interest rates for short-term loans,
through state funding of the interest rate, directly connected with the
continuation of agricultural production.
With the issuing of a cultivation card for every farmer,
during the next two years, guaranteed by the Greek state, a card that will
be valid for a period equal with the cultivation period, and with an
economic ceiling based on the cultivation declaration of the last two years.

With this card and through a single bank chosen by the
farmer, the farmer himself or herself will choose the legal providers of
his/her inflows, who will be paid according to their sales straight from the
bank, up to the amount set as ceiling.

• To nationalise and subsequently socialise, i.e. put
  under public social and transparent control, the banks which are
  recapitalised from the EFSF.
   
• To freeze the privatisation of public companies of
  strategic importance for national economy, which passed to the notorious
  Special Fund. And to gradually, and according to the possibilities of the
  economy, bring back under public control strategic companies which are in a
  course of privatisation or have been privatised (Electricity, Telephone,
  Post, Water, Public Transport etc.).
   
• To reorganise the public sector and give motives for
  the development of the so called third sector of social economy and self
  management.
   
• To reorganise the public administration and permeat it
  with the values of democracy, of meritocracy, of transparency and democratic
  programming in its everyday function.
   
• To responsibly address issues related to migration
  policy.

The necessary precondition is to undertake international
initiatives to address the causes of population movements.
The negotiation of a new European Framework of Migration
Policy, with the proportional and equal distribution of weights among
member-states and the demand for an essential and effective European support
for the policies applied at the national level.
With the gradual granting of travel documents to the
large number of immigrants who wish to depart from the Greek territory.
With the rationalisation of the legal and institutional
framework for the legalisation of immigrants who live and work in our
country and for their integration based on equality.
With the effective wiping out of the rackets of
contemporary slavery-trafficking of women, children, men, individuals with
disabilities, of the rackets that commercialise immigrants and refugees.

•  To put an end to the political system of corruption,
  intertwining and favoritism.

On the basis of the democratisation and transparency in
the structure of the political system.
By setting rules in the management of public property on
TV frequencies and the function of the private RT Media.
By changing the law concerning the responsibility of
ministers – and more particularly the decrees that violate equality before
the law.
By legislating proportional representation.

• To promote a new, independent, multilateral, actively
  peaceful external policy, based on the principles of international law.

The defence of the territorial integrity and national
independence of our country is a priority that we do not negotiate.
Our country is an equal member of the EU. This is a
relation which entails rights and obligations.
But our country is, at the same time, an important
cultural, trade and energy junction of three continents, in the South-East
end of Europe.
The outdated dogma “we belong to the West”, which was
gradually replaced by “we surrender to the powerful”, cannot continue to be
the compass of our external policy.

• To activate all the necessary procedures for signing
  bilateral agreements with the interested neighbouring countries and
  safeguard our inallienable right to the delimitation of an Exclusive
  Economic Zone.
   
• To struggle to consolidate peace and security in the
  sensitive area of Southeast Mediterranean.

To collaborate constructively with our neighbouring
countries, always in the frame of respect to the international law and of
the sovereign rights it sets.
Within this frame we will try to turn the page regarding
the relations of our country with Turkey.
We strongly wish to improve our relations and we will act
in this direction as strongly as possible.
We believe that th people of both countries have paid a
heavy price due to the cold war that continues for many years now in the
Aegean.
We thus gave the opportunity to third parts and strong
interests to exploit this dispute between us in order to increase their
profits from military industries.
This dispute must stop.
Peace must prevail.
But peace needs two.
Our country, but also Cyprus, supported and still
supports the European perspective of Turkey.
But we have not yet seen some decisive step from the
other side, for the restoration of great injustices.
We didnʼt see any positive step towards a fair solution
for the Cyprus issue, despite the sincere efforts of president Christofias.
The truth is that we will not be able to do much if there
is no response from the other side of the Aegean.
The approach and the collaboration need steps from both
sides, they cannot be unilateral.
In this direction we will propose to our neighbours to
immediately proceed to a moratorium for the further purchase of defence
systems.
And we shall wait to see and evaluate their true
intentions.

• To work in order to reach a mutually acceptable
  solution concerning the dispute for the name of FUROM in the framework of
  the UN. A solution of a composite name, with geographical denomination and
  for all uses.

Dear friends,

Today we submit to the judjement of the Greek people, a comprehensive and
complete governmental progrmme.
A programme containing concrete, structured and to a great extend
complementary radical reforms, political interventions and measures to be
applied that will have an immediate, short-term and medium-term effect.

We donʼt claim that “money exist”.
We would never take refuge to such vulgarity.
The Greek people do not ask for money like beggars.
They demand work in order to make a living.
They demand the satisfaction of their basic needs.
But we can ascertain, that resources can be spared.
Without the cruel cuts of the Memorandum.
It is a governmental programme that the people will endorse in the last,
crucial and decisive referendum in 17 June on the Memorandum.
A governmental programme that sets as a first national target the
rehabilitation of social justice and the dignity of all Greek people.
SYRIZA/USF has worthy and specialized cadres, important scientists and
academics, with international acknowledgement and political experience who
are ready to fight and successfully apply this governmental programme.

Greece can and must become a pioneer for change in Europe.
The Greek people deserve a better future.
They have the right to dream, to live with dignity in our country, they
have the right to hope.

We call the people to unite, with their reflections and their dreams, and
open the road to hope.

Thank you for your presence here today.