CAMPAIGN RESUMES:PUBLIC TRANSPORT in Athens will grind to a halt today as workers protest against the latest wave of austerity measures announced by the Greek government last night.
Not only will the Greek capital be bereft of its metro, tram, bus, trolley and suburban rail network – on a day that was scheduled to be marked as European No Car Day in Greece – but the city’s taxi drivers are also throwing in their lot with the country’s public sector transport workers, in the first such co-operation of its kind.
Flights will also be disrupted following the announcement by air traffic controllers that they will participate in a three-hour work stoppage, to start after noon.
Most schools will also be shut as teachers join other public sector employees at protests in Athens city centre.
Today’s protests are the first major strikes since Greeks returned from their summer holidays, which traditionally mark a lull in demonstrations.
However, in a clear indication that unions are determined to ratchet up their response to the government, the country’s private and public sector trade union federations said yesterday they would stage two joint general strikes, on October 5th and 19th.
“If the troika threatens Greek society that it has a ‘marathon’ ahead of it, it must realise that our reply will be a militant ‘marathon’,” said Yiannis Panagopoulos, president of private sector union GSEE.
As details of the new wave of austerity measures were released yesterday at about 8pm, the news ticker on one television station referred to a “new tsunami of painful measures”.
Commentators on the main evening news programme on Mega TV, traditionally considered sympathetic to prime minister George Papandreou’s Pasok party, blamed the latest round of measures on the collective failure of the government to fulfil any of its previous bailout commitments.
According to journalist Pavlos Tsimas, Greece had failed to make any progress comparable to Ireland or Portugal under their bailout deals.
For other observers, the “stalemate” that the country finds itself in may force the formation of a coalition government.
“The logic and the horror of the facts might, in the final analysis, lead to Mr Papandreou and [main opposition New Democracy leader Antonis] Samaras to the path of responsibility and consensus, should this government melt under external or internal pressure,” said Alexis Papahelas, editor of the conservative, centre-right broadsheet Kathimerini.
