Electoral Declaration for the June 2009 Elections for the European Parliament

NO TO THE EU OF INJUSTICE, INEQUALITY, AND EXPLOITATION

THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE FOR THE PEOPLES OF EUROPE TO FOLLOW.

ALL PEOPLES HAVE THE INALIENABLE RIGHT TO CHOOSE THEMSELVES THEIR WAY OF STRUGGLING, THEIR ALLIANCES, TO DETERMINE THEIR OWN FUTURE.

DISOBEDIENCE – RIFT - OVERTHROW: FOR A GREECE OF SELF-SUFFICIENT DEVELOPMENT, AGAINST THE SUFFOCATING EU BONDS.

Workers, employees

Peasants

Self-employed, tradesmen

Intellectuals, artists

Pensioners,

Young people

Women

Follow the way paved by the “NO”! of the French, Dutch and Irish peoples.

Enough is enough!

THE PARTIES SUPPORTING THE “EU-CONSENSUS” AND THE “EU ONE-WAY ROAD” MUST BE PUNISHED WITHOUT REMORSE

No more time wasted!

Let’s take a step forward together

By voting for KKE we give strength to the people’s alliance, to the struggle against the reactionary policy, against EU, against the parties supporting the EU “one way-road” and the “EU-consensus”; we reinforce the struggle for People’s Power, for the building of a Europe of people’s economy and welfare.

Use your vote to give a lesson to both nd and pasok parties

Reveal the hypocricy of syn-syriza and the demagogy of laos 

At the ballot of the elections for the European Parliament, must be condemned at the national level both the anti-people policy and its perpetrators – the ND government, and more general the parties that support the “EU one-way road”- as well as the EU in general.

It is a battle that in any instance will have a strong impact on the domestic developments with repercussions on European level. Criteria of vote should be your increasing and acute problems. Condemn all those who are responsible for them, both within your country or at the EU.

At the elections for the European parliament in June 2009, you have the opportunity to cast the KKE ballot and give a resolute answer to the EU and the parties that all those years:

• Have supported and still do, this way or another, the strategy of this intergovernmental imperialist union, the EU, as well as its reactionary choices in the economic, political and military fields.
• Have together decided and implemented all fundamental guidelines in favour of capital’s profits. Through the Treaty of Lisbon and the National Reform Programs they amplified the EU policy that had painful consequences for the workers’ income and gains. 
• Have applauded and implemented measures that violate fundamental rights leading in: Unemployment, prices boom, ridiculous rises in salaries and pensions, devastating changes in the working relations, reactionary measures at the expense of women and young people; increase of the working time, blows on the collective contracts, further privatisation of the social insurance, healthcare and education systems; privatisation of strategic sectors of economy like energy, transports, telecommunications. Thousands of medium scale farmers have been wiped out through the C.A.P.; self-employed, tradesmen and craftsmen have also been affected. They commercialised the environment, handed over the management of coasts, mountains, water supply services, along with the environmental protection to private capital, increasing enormously the profits of the monopoly groups.
• Voted all the disgraceful treaties, starting from the fundamental Maastricht Treaty, that established the “four freedoms”, namely the free movement of workforce, services, goods and capitals, which opened the all-around offensive of the European capital and its political representatives against the working class and the popular strata.
• Adopted, in the frame of the EU, the US doctrine of pre-emptive wars, so that the EU may intervene politically and military anywhere in the world through Rapid Response Forces under the pretexts of either the “humanitarian missions” or the “combat against terrorism” and the “crisis management”. In addition, they enforced the mechanisms of suppression against the popular movement.
• Promoted the closer cooperation among the EU, US and NATO regarding the interventions for the control of markets and the plundering of the natural resources. They consented to the increase of the involvement and participation of Greek troops in the EU military missions, whose activity has been constantly increasing since 2003. Until June 2008, EU had dispatched 19 missions in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia.
• Agreed on the increase of military expenditure by 30% until 2013 in order to enforce the military arm and the submission mechanisms of the EU.
• They have been deluding the Greek people by concealing the truth that the EU is a Union serving the interests of the few and powerful and not the interests of the people.

The position of KKE on the EU has been fully vindicated

 
KKE is the only Greek party vindicated for its clear stance against the EU.

 
Since the first moment, KKE had declared “no to the EEC of the monopolies” and later on “no to the Treaty of Maastricht”.  Until nowadays KKE never has stopped fighting back EU in the struggles, in the Greek and European Parliaments but also in international meetings and mobilisations.

 
The prediction of KKE that only the bankers, the ship-owners, the industrialists, the big merchants, the constructive enterprises will benefit from the EU “predatory alliance”,  while on the other hand the people will constantly lose rights, has also been proven true. The EU has nothing to do with the Europe of the peoples.

 
Nowadays, these truths are not just statements; they constitute living experiences and negative lessons for broader popular forces in Greece and the other EU countries.

It is not necessary to agree in everything with the communists in order to entrust your vote to KKE at the June 2009 elections for the EP

Abandon ND and PASOK!

• ND must suffer a tough blow! The Greek people have realised what the reforms of ND, which had been so widely advertised in the pre-election campaign, mean in practice. During the 5 years of its governance ND has revealed its real, tough, reactionary policy as a representative of capital’s interests. 
• PASOK neither wants nor is able to offer a real alternative. It has the same strategy with ND and the same policy regarding the EU and domestic affairs. It has been repeatedly tested both as government and opposition. Its policy is based on the criteria of competitiveness and entrepreneurship, that is the increase of the capitalist profits.
• Both ND and PASOK serve the interests of the ruling class, they work for the monopolies. Their policy enhances the profitability of capital, its participation in the distribution of markets. They whitewash the EU, and only quarrel who is the best manager of the system.
• ND and PASOK as ruling parties participated actively in the adoption of anti-labour measures at the EU, introduced them in Greece and transformed them into laws and resolutions of the Greek state. They worked out and implemented measures depriving workers of the rights achieved through tough struggles. They consented and participated in imperialist interventions and wars, developed anti-democratic laws and institutions and contributed to the military armour of the EU.     
• When ND and PASOK, found themselves in opposition, they conceal the role of the EU by accusing each other for being“insufficient” or “bad” negotiatior in the EU. In fact, they assist each other in fundamental and crucial issues arising both in the European and Greek Parliament, and resort to demagogy in order to throw dust in people’s eyes.

Do not trust SYN-SYRIZA

Neither SYN-SYRIZA represents an alternative for the people’s vote. On the contrary, it indirectly supports the anti-people EU by systematically concealing the truth and cultivating illusions about its character.  

It misleads the people and puts obstacles in their effective resistance by cloaking the role and the responsibilities of the EU.

• Since 1991 SYN not only has been hiding the true policy of the EU, but it has justified and supported its basic and crucial decisions. It is a party that supported the construction and consolidation of this EU as it exists today, starting from the endorsing of the Maastricht Treaty. It spreads fatalism and fear towards the EU among the people. It spreads lies claiming that opposition to the EU means national isolation.

• The double-faced stance of SYN has to be condemned; on one hand it supports the EU heart and soul and on the other it complains about the consequences of the implementation of its strategy putting the blame solely on the supposedly bad Greek “handling” and implementation. More concretely:

• SYN-SYRIZA urges the temporary workers or those who work under contract, the women, the youth to use as a protection shield the anti-labour legal framework, and the EU directives. However, the policy and the directives of the EU establish mandatory flexible forms of employment, increase the retirement ages, promote work without established salary and social rights. SYRIZA voted blank or abstained from the votes in the European Parliament about the destructive reactionary changes. It conceals the EU policy against the peasants arguing that if the CAP is managed in a different way the peasants will be benefited.
• Demands that the capitalist integration of the EU should deepen and accelerated, cultivating illusions that in this way it is possible to develop the social and labour rights. It supports the European Army and the EU policy towards terrorism, without defining who is threatening the peoples. It notes as positive development the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by the Irish people and asks referendum, and at the same time it supports the idea of a “European constitution” and criticises the EU for not having realised it yet.
• The declarations of SYN-SYRIZA for rights, freedoms and welfare of the people are empty words since SYN has celebrated the euro and the EMU that together with the Stability Pact constitute tools of strategic importance for the brutal exploitation of the people. It misleads by saying that the European Central Bank can function in favour of the workers if it is subjected to a European governance,  if the Stability Pact changes.
• Applauds the EU reactionary environmental policy that puts forward the deceptive slogan “polluters must pay” in order to whitewash its anti-labour policy.  This way, SYN exonerates the environmental destruction. Furthermore, it supports the so-called “green economy”, which is used as a pretext for the further promotion of capital’s restructuring at the expense of the workers. It calls itself an ecological party and at the same time it adopts the anti-environmental policy of the EU that assigns the protection of the environment to those who are responsible for its destruction.
• The “euro-addiction” of SYN-SYRIZA provokes people of the left as well as militant people. People need renewal and modernisation for the satisfaction of their needs, for a better future with popular prosperity, security and rights and not the establishment of the imperialist, exploitative union in the popular conscience putting forward by SYN-SYRIZA through its leftist phraseology. In this way, it creates obstacles in the development of resistance and counterattack that is needed nowadays.

No to the demagogy of LA.O.S.

LAOS mostly resorts to demagogy in order to conceal its nationalism, its support to the policy in favour of the interests of the big capital. It tries to hide from the Greek people its reactionary and retrogressive positions, its racism, its substantial support to capitalism, its role as an obstacle to the radicalisation of the people. Although it presents itself as a party belonging to the area of “euro-scepticism”, it supports the fundamental reactionary choices of the EU. 

Turn your back to all of them! Come with us!

It is not necessary to agree in everything with the communists in order to entrust your vote to KKE

With a strong KKE, the battle of the elections for the European parliament can become a starting point for the reorganisation of a strong, unifying popular movement, of a strong alliance of workers, peasants, and self-employed. 

With a strong KKE, the battle of the elections for the European parliament can contribute to the weakening of the bipartisan alternation in power and the same shield the popular forces from illusions and from wasting more time, preventing them from being trapped in schemes of anti-peoples coalition governments.

With a strong KKE, the elections for the European parliament can become the starting point for a movement capable of defying blackmail, mechanisms of fatalism, a positive start of a course of rift and overthrow in favour of the people.  

It’s Not Enough To Deliver A Blow To The Bipartisan Rotation

But Also Against The Efforts To Rectify the Political System

The vote for KKE

• is both a vote of resistance and a vote for the perspective; a vote of responsibility towards the peoples of Europe. A vote that will encourage and strengthen the European movement of the working people. 
• is a vote of solidarity with the peoples, a way to condemn the dismissals in all the EU countries, the anti-communist persecutions in the EU member-states and the stirring up of existing and non existing minority issues.
• is a vote against the policy of “divide and rule”, creating protectorates, against racism and nationalism, against the concentration camps for immigrant workers.
• is a vote against the pre-emptive wars and the so-called “war against terrorism”. It is the most effective way to condemn the EU imperialist policy against the peoples of Africa, against the plans of the so-called democratisation of the Middle East, the reactionary choices against the people of Latin America and especially against the EU “common position” towards Cuba.
• is a vote against the anti-communist campaign, against the effort to re-write history in favour of imperialists and reactionary forces.

The working people of Greece, the peoples of Europe, do have an alternative choice both before the poll as well as in their daily struggle.

• The peoples of Europe can deliver a joint blow against the parties of the “EU on-way road” and “euro-consensus”. It will be important if the day after the elections, the EU and the bourgeois governments -both central-right and central-left- will count losses. This can be done by voting the Communist Parties and their allies that fight back the imperialist EU and its class choices against the workers within and beyond Europe.
• There is only one choice: resistance – disobedience - counterattack at national and European levels. No compliance with the EU law and decisions because they are class-based, run against the popular interests. No concession of sovereign rights to the imperialists.

Greek people: Enough is Enough!

Vote on the Basis of Your Negative Experiences, with criterion the hardships caused by their anti-peoples’ policies

 
17 years passed since the ratification of the Treaty of Maastricht with the approval of ND, PASOK and SYNASPISMOS that triggered the most barbarous onslaught against the people and its rights.

Nowadays, the workers live the consequences from all reactionary EU Treaties, the deterioration of the economic situation, the blight of unemployment, the dangers of the imperialist new world order, the  competition for the distribution of the markets, the disputes of borders, the partition policy in Cyprus and the Aegean Sea, the course of destabilisation in the Balkans.

 
All these years the workers in our country have accumulated bitter experience of the consequences of the EMU and the euro, the effects of the capitalist restructurings on the Greek economy, the reactionary changes in working relations, the attack against social and insurance rights, the privatisation and commercialisation of the social services, low salaries and expensiveness. Furthermore they have experienced the painful consequences of the CAP at the expense of the poor peasants, persecutions, state suppression, restriction of popular rights and freedoms. Problems are sharpened due to the grim monopoly competition that affects not only the working class but also the small and medium sized enterprises.

The class nature of the EU as

an intergovernmental imperialist union is now obvious

• After fifty years of EEC - and especially the last 17 years -  it has been proved that the slogans “democratic principles”, “general interests”, “EU-convergence”, “national goals” , “one-way roads” and “European dream” used by the bourgeois and “Europhile” political forces powers are totally fake.
• The Greek plutocracy has accumulated enormous wealth through its activities both within the EU as well as out of its borders. Greek owned and based companies have an all the more active participation in the international markets.
• In order to confront more effectively the competition with the other imperialist centres, the European governments and monopolies adopt measures at national and European levels aiming at increasing the exploitation of the workers and the wealth resources, at the growth of profits and the concentration of land. At the same time, it is not by chance that in Greece the rivalry over the big construction works among the foreign multinationals corporations becomes phenomenally acute. 
• The structural reforms carried out all these years by the governments of ND and PASOK have been in favor of the monopoly capital and have nothing to do with the interests of the people.  The modern needs of the working class and the popular strata demand a radical change both in the field of economy and the political system.

Workers and young people of Greece, men and women

It is time to leave behind the illusions and the vain hopes of a supposedly “European paradise” cultivated by the other political forces. Now we have accumulated a lot of experience.

Immigrants and refugees

The policy of the EU, ND and PASOK has been against the interests of immigrants and refugees. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the immigrants and their families live under conditions of illegality or “semi-legality”. In addition, they face intimidation and blackmails at work; they are forced to sell their labour force cheaper, under worse conditions than those set by the collective working contracts.

The “Fortress Europe” and the harsh suppression are the main characteristics of the EU policy against the immigrants.

Every single euro from the EU funds has been given to Greece

under heavy terms and grave commitments.

A great part of the Greek people believed the propaganda that the sooner and more subserviently Greece would adapt to the EU the easier things would be for the Greek people.

All these years, the country has been flooded by EU funds, most of which are money paid by the Greek people themselves and the other European peoples. 

The EU decides on its own which projects in the member states are to be funded by the EU. According to its own statistics, the 42% of the union funds allocated to Greece return to the powerful capitalist states (Germany, France, and England) through the monopoly groups that undertake the works.

The greater part of them ended up once more in the pockets of the industrialists, the bankers, the ship-owners and the big merchants. The rest has been used to throw dust in peoples’ eyes, as it prepared the ground for wiping out the small and medium-sized peasantry, for the attack on small shops and small enterprises, for further privatisations. The EU generously distributed money through various programmes, so as to extinguish struggles, to bribe and corrupt consciences, to set up mechanisms of manipulation of women and youth, to give crumbs to dismissed, unemployed, poor, so as they do not rise in protest and pretend their toil and their sweat, so as they do not ask for all they have been robbed of.

As Long As The Peoples do not decide to Stop the EU And Overthrow It, The Consequences Will Be Intolerable, Especially For The Poorest Popular Strata.

With our vote and our struggle we say a strong NO:

• to the overthrow of labour relations, to the so called “flexicurity”.
• to the abolishing of collective agreements. To the promotion of the 65-hour week, to the working time arrangements on the basis of active-inactive working time.
• to the dismantlement of Social Security systems.
• to the downgrade of public Education, Healthcare, Welfare and the promotion of their privatisation. 
• to the privatisation of Telecommunications, Energy, Transport and other strategic sectors of economy.
• to the legalisation of “slave-trading” offices, the “sub-hiring” of workers.
• to the brutal exploitation of economic immigrants.
• to the overall attack on the peasantry and its income, since the concentration of land, production, processing and trading of agricultural products in monopoly business groups is a strategic choice in favour of the EU capital and against small and medium-sized peasantry.
• to the mass utilisation of genetically modified organisms in agricultural production and animal breeding by big business, for the maximisation of their profits, having serious consequences for the whole food chain in the ecosystem, in public health.
• to the intensification of state terrorism and repression, of “antiterrorist” laws striking peoples’ movement.
• to the new EU Treaty, which was rejected by the vote of French and Dutch peoples as the “European constitution”. With the new Treaty, the EU further organises itself against peoples, accelerates the militarization drive, prepares a new attack on the peoples’ interests and the needs, rights and freedoms of the peoples.

The people of Ireland with their proud NO to the Lisbon European Treaty at the referendum of June 2008 demonstrated that when peoples want, they CAN! KKE saluted immediately the victory of the Irish people, who resisted the unprecedented pressures, did not succumb and achieved a first great victory in the name of all the peoples of EU member states.

Peoples’ NO to the EU weakens EU; contributes in the effective struggle for their rights, for the people’s power, for their cooperation on the basis of their own interests at the expense of monopolies and the imperialist policy in the region and beyond.

The time has come to open up the way for

an alliance of workers - peasants - self-employed,

of the movements of youth – women;

of all those who are affected by the monopolies

and the imperialist commitments.

There are no “one-way roads”. The Greek people have to choose between two different paths of development.

• The first one is the way we have known since many years, and that has become even more unattainable during the last two decades. It is the way that only serves the monopoly capital that is the way of adaptation to the choices of the imperialist EU and NATO.
• The alternative is the road of building a broad peoples’ alliance, an alliance of the working class with the rural and urban popular strata. This way, along with a powerful KKE, secures that everyday struggles are linked up with the perspective of the peoples’ power, the building of a peoples’ economy.

KKE puts forward the creation of this social and political alliance on the basis of a contemporary programme in an anti-imperialist direction, a programme that takes into account the developments in our country, in Europe and the entire world since the beginning of the 1990ies. 

In this effort, not for a single moment will KKE strike the flag of struggle. I will tirelessly mobilize all its forces in the mass movement, in the Parliament, in the European Parliament, everywhere so that the workers may achieve any immediate gains that may disburden them, even temporarily, from the more sharp effects of the problems.  

KKE underscores that there is no other feasible and realistic alternative capable to deal with the problems we face in our country, than a Greece of the peoples’ economy and power, in a Europe of peace, friendship, of socialism.

Answer strongly with your vote to all those claiming

that “small Greece” cannot do anything on its own, out of the EU without the EU of capital!

No matter how small peoples are,

they can do wonders when they decide to.

Despite the serious and often catastrophic blows inflicted by the domination of capital and monopoly competition to certain sectors, Greece is able to develop an –up to a great extend- self-reliant peoples’ economy.

• It has an adequate level of concentration of production, means of production, and trading network as well as a certain level of development of modern technology.
• It possesses experienced and numerous labour forces, with improved educational level and specialisation compared to the past, as well as a numerous scientific force.
• It has considerable natural resources, significant reserves of mineral resources that constitute an important advantage for the production of industrial and consumer goods.
• It has the great advantage of being able to secure food adequacy both for the people’s needs and as well as for foreign trade.
• It is capable of producing modern products, engines, tools, instruments and appliances.

The proposal of KKE to socialise the basic and centralised means of production in the fields of energy, telecommunications, mineral resources, mines, industry, transport, water supply, banking system, foreign trade, peoples’ housing, research and democratic information etc. is realistic. KKE proposes the development of exclusively public, integrated, and free of charge for all, systems of Education, Healthcare, Welfare and Social Security, the creation of productive cooperatives of small and medium-sized farmers, of small businessmen in sectors with low level of concentration.

The socialised, as well as the cooperatives sector of peoples’ economy should be included in a centralised, national economic mechanism of planning and administration, along with workers’ control over the administration of every production unit and service, of every administrative board.

Peoples’ power will promote intergovernmental trade agreements and deals, agreements for the utilisation of expertise on the basis of common benefit and interest.

Peoples’ power will have to face domestic and international reaction, the EU and NATO, the anti-peoples agreements signed by the previous governments.

KKE rejects and fights back the dangerous positions of those, who for political and other reasons support that peoples’ power in Greece will allegedly be on its own or will not be in position to handle the affairs of Greek people, to cope with the big problems to come.

The proposal of KKE is realistic, first of all, because it is in the interest of the people - it serves the workers. Only KKE has such a policy. The proposals of the other political forces lead to the beaten track of anti-people policies, serve the interests of plutocracy, of capital and the imperialist unions

• The people’s way does not fit in the frames of the EU and NATO. The EU cannot be reformed for the benefit of peoples, as SYN-SYRIZA claims. It is a creation of capitalists. Those peoples, who wish to take steps forward, have to oppose to the EU and its policies, to disobey and in due course to disengage from its bonds. When a people wins in its country, when it finds itself in a position to impose a radical change, it will have to face a total break, it will have to seek for new forms of European and international cooperation.
• The disengagement will be a contribution to the international struggle of the peoples. Each popular movement should fight in its country, coordinate its struggle with other popular movements. The developments cannot be synchronised for all countries at once, one people cannot wait for another, but it can mainly influence the other by the results of its struggle, it can make its own contribution to the weakening and overthrow of the imperialist structure called the EU.
• To the extent to which the EU is weakened by the peoples’ struggle, the socio-political conditions will be created for the Europe of equal cooperation, of socialism. In order to reach socialist Europe we will go through an integrated process of successive breaches and disengagements in one or more countries. The inner contradictions, the consecutive blows on the structure of the EU, the disengagements, the disobedience and insubordination create possibilities and conditions to shape other forms of economic cooperation on the basis of common benefit, in opposition to the choices of the EU.
• The more the EU weakens, the more strengthens the opposite tendency of shaping new forms of cooperation among European countries (of Western, Central and Eastern Europe, the countries of former Soviet Union), but also the Mediterranean, North African, Arab countries and countries of other continents. 

The disengagement from the EU proposed by KKE, is part and parcel of the alternative path of development in favour of people, of the other way of unification of Europe to the benefit of peoples. The path proposed by KKE is identified with the peoples’ internationalism.

Workers, employees, peasants, self-employed, youngsters,

KKE proposes a real way out for the people.

All the rest have been tried, are against you.

The rotation in government between the classical conservative and social-democratic parties in Europe has resulted in increasing the exploitation and oppression of the peoples of Europe.

In the same period the centre-left coalition governments in different countries of the EU, where also forces of the so called “Party of the European Left” participated, not only failed totally to ease in the least the situation of the peoples’ strata, but on the contrary they intensified the problems and promoted the EU capitalist reforms in all aspects of social life. They led to the disarmament of labour movement, to the dissolution or mutation of communist parties, to the shrinking of their influence and force among working people of big countries, to the intensification of anticommunist and antisocialist campaign of the EU.

Experience in those countries has refuted the theories of the “welfare state”, of the possibility of centre-left progressive governance, the illusions of an EU of peoples and movements where people would supposedly be “before profits”.

The way of resistance, disobedience, insubordination, rift, of internationalist action and solidarity is the realistic and promising for the people way.

This is the only way to the Europe of the workers, of the equitable cooperation, the only way that guarantees the right of every people to decide itself in a sovereign way the socio-economic and political system of its land.

This will be the contribution of the Greek people, of all peoples in general, to the European and global change of the correlation of forces at the expense of imperialism, poverty and oppression, at the expense of the forces of war and exploitation.

Today the peoples’ dispute and protest, the movement demanding another perspective for the peoples grow stronger.

It is up to us to turn the peoples’ movement in Europe into a pole of anti-imperialist cooperation and action, a counterweight to war, imperialism, authoritarianism; to built the great peoples’ majority, a refuge and support for all those who are persecuted and suffer.

All these years, we have developed joint struggles and actions with other Communist and Workers’ Parties, with left and progressive forces in Europe, always respecting the particular views of each other. There have been organised many meetings around the European Treaty, the democratic rights, education, labour movement and its demands, youth and peace. We demonstrated many times together in Athens, Lisbon, Prague, Brussels, Madrid, Rome, Dublin, Sophia, Tallinn, Nicosia, Istanbul, Budapest, Genoa and other places of the world.

We raised at the European Parliament all problems that concern the people of our country, the peoples of Europe, of other continents. We became the voice of  Workers’ Parties and progressive movements that are not yet represented in the European Parliament. In cooperation with other progressive radical forces in Europe we supported the labour and peoples’ struggles, against conciliation, manipulation, and corruption of consciences.

Through the further strengthening of communist, radical, genuinely anti-imperialist forces in Europe a new wind will blow: a wind of optimism, of revival of the revolutionary movement.

In the elections for the European Parliament let’s say a big YES!

Yes to the rights of working class and all working people – the self-employed, and tradesmen – the small and medium peasants – the women, the youth, the salaried intelligentsia.

• For full-time and stable jobs for all, with wage and pension increases; for the establishment of the 35-hour week, i.e. 7-hour day and 5-day week. Criteria for the wages should be the modern needs of the working people and not the EMU targets and capitalist competitiveness
• For equal rights for foreign workers and their families.
• For full employment for women and young people, jobs corresponding to their education and specialization.
• For comprehensive measures to protect the unemployed. For unemployment benefits equal to real needs during the whole period of unemployment. Full rights to free public Healthcare and Welfare. For social security stamps not to be lost when one is unemployed.
• For measures and efforts to make the improvement of family life and the abolition of discrimination against women a cause for both sexes.
• For family planning centres, to free state-run child care facilities providing upgraded nursery education, to centres for the creative engagement of infants and children.
• For educational training in gender equality.
• For the democratisation of information.
• For the rights of the working people in enterprises that had been privatised in the past years or are in the process of privatisation.

Yes to the rights of self-employed, small tradesmen and small entrepreneurs

• Support of the demands of people with shops and small businesses and the self-employed as regards taxation and state funding for infrastructures, i.e. industrial parks, where light industries will be able to operate without creating environmental problems in residential areas.
• A uniform 48-hour week, compulsory for all, with all shops, large and small, closed on Sundays and on three afternoons a week.

Yes to the rights of small and medium-sized peasants

We are fighting for:

• Support of agricultural development with the creation of productive cooperatives for holders of small and medium-sized farms
• Agricultural production serving first of all domestic food self-sufficiency, giving priority to livestock production, providing cheap and healthy products. Furthermore it will cover the needs of industrial production by providing domestic agricultural material, protect the environment and revive the countryside.
• The programming of peoples’ economy is a prerequisite for establishing a link between agricultural and industrial production, for the cultural development of life in villages.

Yes to the rights of immigrants and political refugees

KKE fights together with the immigrants against the reactionary anti-immigration policy of the EU and the bourgeois governments of its member states and demands:

• Simplification of the processes of granting and renewing stay and work permits.
• Establishment of the rights to education, pension, healthcare, welfare, full labour and social rights.
• Legalisation of the immigrants living in Greece and recognition of their political and civil rights.

Yes  to a public compulsory social security for all, including rights to pension, healthcare services and to the benefits and services of social welfare

We demand:

• The lowering of the retirement age to 60 for men and to 55 for women, and five years less for people working in heavy or unhealthy occupations.
• An exclusively public, integrated healthcare system providing free of charge social services and medical treatment, starting from prevention, public health, health and safety at workplaces and family programming.
• Strict health and safety measures at the workplaces. Setting up of a state agency of labour doctors and safety technicians. Workers’ control for the prevention of accidents and occupational diseases. Abolition of all private services in the field of Healthcare and Safety of workers.
• Special services and benefits for the protection of maternity, of pregnant women and young mothers, of babyhood and childhood in the frame of the public free healthcare-welfare system. 
• State care and provision of corresponding modern free services for persons with special needs and their families, elderly people and people with chronic aliments.
• Allocation of special state funds for the research on the treatment of serious ailments as AIDS, cancer, diabetes, cardiopathy, musculoskeletal diseases, psychiatric and other diseases that have been increased.
• Compulsory and free vaccination for those who need it and general development of preventive medicine.
• All the personnel in the Healthcare and Welfare system should be permanent, full-time and exclusively employed with decent salaries, working conditions and opportunities for scientific advancement. Doctors working as freelancer to be integrated into the public Healthcare system.
• The protection of public health to be linked to corresponding free public services and actions for the protection of health and safety at workplaces, environmental protection, sanitary foodstuffs, the combating of narcotics and crime. All activities are a responsibility of the state and require specialisation by region, gender and age.

Yes to an exclusively public and free-of-charge education system; to scientific research serving the people's needs

We fight for

• A free-of-charge public educational system based on a comprehensive 12-year general education for all, without class and racial discrimination, that will ensure the harmonious cultivation of all aspects of the human personality, and will provide general academic learning about nature and society.
• Public post-secondary vocational schools. They should be a source of knowledge and training for young people and not a source of profits to businessmen.
• An integrated system of higher education, without class barriers, the unscientific division of studies into cycles, and of institutions into categories. Cultured professionals should be trained with a high level of specialisation and professional ability, and degrees should be linked to the right to work.
• Development of academic research, to produce new knowledge and serve the needs of the people.

Yes to a cultural development focused on mutual respect, solidarity, equitable cooperation among peoples, respecting and each one's right to determine their own future

• Support and develop cultural and folk amateur creation and to disseminate it among the Greek people. This is a weapon against the corrosive imperialist ideology, against the culture of alienation and lethargy. It is a power creating an attitude of resistance and opposition on all fronts of life and action.
• Address the problems of artists, with provision of a decent living and favourable conditions for creative engagement with art.
• Transfer of the centres and institutions for producing art and culture into the hands of the society with financing from public funds.
• The cultural heritage and popular tradition, the popular culture and our language are part of the history and consciousness of the people. As such, we demand that they be promoted and not as factors serving to increase profits.

For and independent foreign policy, without commitments to the EU, NATO and the US

• Defence capability based on the people and the youth, on young people doing their military service, on officers and non-commissioned officers who refuse to tolerate the ceding of sovereign rights to the US, NATO and the EU. No participation of Greek military forces in imperialist wars or occupation armies. NO to mercenary army.
• Struggle against the Common European Security and Defence policy and against the European army. We demand the return of Greek troops that are being used in imperialist armies in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
• Abolition of foreign bases from our country, and above all that of Souda bay.
• A unified, independent Cyprus without foreign bases and troops; a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation, common homeland for Turkish-Cypriots and Greek-Cypriots without foreign "guarantors and protectors".
• Solidarity and common struggle with the peoples of Cyprus, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. Solidarity with the peoples of the Balkans and of countries in which the action of Communist Parties and Youth organisations is prohibited or inhibited. We stand by the Turkish people and the Kurds, by the side of all those who suffer. Solidarity with the peoples of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and North Korea. We stand by communists and all progressive people who are persecuted.

KKE will fight with all its strength so that:

• A distinctive NO to the “one-way road” of the EU to come out of the ballot-box, NO to “Euro-consensus” that annihilates every possibility of effective resistance.
• The Greek people send with their vote a warning: that they are ready to react to any attempt of new blows against their rights in the name of discipline and adjustment to the EU.
• The protest and the condemnation of the EU policy, the condemnation of both ND and PASOK which carried out eagerly the anti-people policy of the Union, as well as the condemnation of those who consider the EU as the only road and settle with it, as SYRIZA and LAOS, to be expressed in  the most effective way; that is with the electoral strengthening of KKE
• Workers to vote massively for KKE, since it has been proved a consistent fighter in the struggle against the choices of the EU that have been realised by ND and PASOK. KKE sets today only one condition: Resistance and disobedience towards the EU. This means effective resistance to the ND government, to every government of the EU “one-way road” and of Euro-conciliation.
• Workers to condemn all parties that voted the Maastricht Treaty, supported the subsequent Treaties, denied the realization of a referendum, spread lies myths and illusions, intimidated Greek people that there can be no “NO” to the EU.

IMPERIALISM IS NOT INVINCIBLE!

WHEN PEOPLE DO WANT - THEY CAN!

COMMUNISTS CAN BECOME THE STRONG VOICE OF THE WORKERS,

OF THE IMMIGRANTS, THE YOUTH WHO DOES NOT SUCCUMB,

OF THE ELDERLY PEOPLE WHO SEEK FOR SUPPORT!

WITH GREATER FORCE WE CAN DO EVEN MORE, GO EVEN FURTHER,

 PAVE THE WAY TO RADICAL CHANGES!

AT THE ELECTIONS FOR THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT IN JUNE 2009

VOTE MASSIVELY FOR THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREECE!

21st of June 2008

The Central Committee of KKE