Greece – The Delphi Declaration

By Peter Koenig – on behalf of The Delphi Initiative

During the weekend of 20 and 21 June 2015 a forum of international scholars, scientists, economists, sociologists, political analysts – met in Delphi Greece to discuss Greece and Europe. The organizers were the so-called “Delphi Initiative”, sponsored by the Lyssarides Foundation in Cyprus, the Greek Institute for Research on Political Strategies, the Russian Institute for Globalization and Social Movements, and the Forum Mondial des Alternatives, France.

The forum ended with a Media Conference on Monday 22 June https://youtu.be/AEALxsSWRC4  and with the issuance of The Delphi Declaration – see below.

The world must realize that the so-called troika – IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission, is literally blackmailing Greece and subjecting her to outright economic torture.

During the past days, Mr. Tsipras, Greece’s Prime Minister, has made considerable concessions to the creditors in Brussels and Washington – but none were good enough. Instead they, the notorious troika, have presented Greece with an austerity package which is simply unacceptable for the Government – and for the people.

Pensions have already been cut by close to 50% to an unlivable level especially for the poor – the troika requires more cuts. Already now most of public services and assets have been privatized, hospitals and schools closed – they want more. The public administration has already been reduced to a minimum, causing huge unemployment - they want more. They also want additional taxes which further affect the poor.

In short, they want to cause a political upheaval in Greece, creating chaos – what the Brussels / Washington gang knows best and is famous for – and, as usual – the end goal is “Regime Change”. How dare the Greek people voting for a socialist government in an otherwise fully neoliberal Europe, western world? They must be punished.

But Regime Change shall not happen. I have just published an article – Greece – The Way Out - that offers other solutions, solutions that will allow Greece to find back to her bearings and her economic recovery.

Thank you for your solidarity.

THE DELPHI DECLARATION
On Greece and Europe

European governments, European institutions and the IMF, acting in close alliance with, if not under direct control of, big international banks and other financial institutions, are now exercising a maximum of pressure, including open threats, blackmailing and a slander and terror communication campaign against the recently elected Greek government and against the Greek people.

They are asking the elected government of Greece to continue the “bail-out” program and the supposed “reforms” imposed on this country in May 2010, in theory to “help” and “save” it.

As a result of this program, Greece has experienced by far the biggest economic, social and political catastrophe in the history of Western Europe since 1945. It has lost 27% of its GDP, more than the material losses of France or Germany during the First World War. The living standards have fallen sharply. The social welfare system is all but destroyed. Greeks have seen social rights won during one century of struggles taken back. Whole social strata are completely destroyed, more and more Greeks are falling from their balconies to end a life of misery and desperation, every talented person who can leaves from the country. Democracy, under the rule of a “Troika” acting as collective economic assassin, a kind of Kafka’s “Court”, has been transformed into a sheer formality in the very country where it was born! Greeks are experiencing now the same feeling of insecurity about all basic conditions of life, that the French experienced in 1940, Germans in 1945, Soviets in 1991. At the same time, the two problems which this program was supposed to address, Greek sovereign debt and the competitiveness of the Greek economy have sharply deteriorated.

Now, European institutions and governments are refusing even the most reasonable, elementary, minor concession to the Athens government, they refuse even the slightest face-saving formula there might be. They want a total surrender of SYRIZA, they want its humiliation, its destruction. By denying to the Greek people any peaceful and democratic way out of its social and national tragedy, they are pushing Greece into chaos, if not civil war. Indeed, even now, an undeclared social civil war of “low intensity” is being waged inside this country, especially against the unprotected, the ill, the young and the very old, the weaker and the unlucky. Is this the Europe we want our children to live in?

We want to express our total, unconditional solidarity with the struggle of the Greek people for their dignity, their national and social salvation, for their liberation from the unacceptable neocolonial rule the “Troika” is trying to impose on this European country. We denounce the illegal and unacceptable agreements successive Greek governments have been obliged, under threat and blackmail, to sign, in violation of all European treaties, of the Charter of UN and of the Greek constitution. We call on European governments and institutions to stop their irresponsible and/or criminal policy towards Greece immediately and adopt a generous emergency program of support to redress the Greek economic situation and face the humanitarian disaster already unfolding in this country.

We also appeal to all European peoples to realize that what is at stake in Greece it is not only Greek salaries and pensions, Greek schools and hospitals or even the fate even of this historic nation where the very notion of “Europe” was born. What is at stake in Greece are also Spanish, Italian, even the German salaries, pensions, welfare, the very fate of the European welfare state, of European democracy, of Europe as such. Stop believing your media, who tell you the facts, only to distort their meaning, check independently what your politicians and your media are saying. They try to create, and they have created an illusion of stability. You may live in Lisbon or in Paris, in Frankfurt or in Stockholm, you may think that you are living in relative security. Do not keep such illusions. You should look to Greece, to see there the future your elites are preparing for you, for all of us and for our children. It is much easier and intelligent to stop them now, than it will be later. Not only Greeks, but all of us and our children will pay an enormous price, if we permit to our governments to complete the social slaughter of a whole European nation.

We appeal in particular to the German people. We do not belong to those who are always reminding the Germans of the past in order to keep them in an “inferior”, second-class position, or in order to use the “guilt factor” for their dubious ends. We appreciate the organizational and technological skills of the German people, their proven democratic and especially ecological and peace sensitivities. We want and we need the German people to be the main champions in the building of another Europe, of a prosperous, independent, democratic Europe, of a multipolar world.

Germans know better than anybody else in Europe, where blind obedience to irresponsible leaders can lead and has indeed led in the past. It is not up to us to teach them any such lesson. They know better than anybody else how easy is to begin a campaign with triumphalist rhetoric, only to end up with ruins everywhere around you. We do not invite them to follow our opinion. We demand simply from them to think thoroughly the opinion of such distinguished leaders of them like Helmut Schmitt for instance, we demand them to hear the voice of the greatest among modern German poet, of Günter Grass, the terrible prophecy he has emitted about Greece and Europe some years before his death.

We call upon you, the German people, to stop such a Faustian alliance between German political elites and international finance. We call upon the German people not to permit to their government to continue doing to the Greeks exactly what the Allies did to Germans after their victory in the First World War. Do not let your elites and leaders to transform the entire continent, ultimately including Germany, into a dominion of Finance.

More than ever we are in urgent need of a radical restructuring of European debt, of serious measures to control the activities of the financial sector, of a “Marshal Plan” for the European periphery, of a courageous rethinking and re-launching of a European project which, in its present form, has proven unsustainable. We need to find now the courage to do this, if we want to leave a better Europe to our children, not a Europe in ruins, in continuous financial and even open military conflicts among its nations.

Delphi, 21 June 2015

The above declaration was adopted by nearly all participants in the Delphi conference on the crisis, on alternatives to euroliberalism and EU/Russia relations, held at Delphi, Greece on 20-21st of June. It is also supported by some people who were not able to be present. The list of people who signed it follows. In it there are not only citizens of EU countries, but also of Switzerland, USA, Russia and India. Many distinguished American scholars seem to be more sensitive as regard the European crisis, than the … political leaders of EU themselves! As for Russians, it is only normal and natural to bear a great interest for what is going on in EU, as EU citizens bear also an interest for what is going on in Russia. All participants in the Delphi conference share the strong conviction that Russia is an integral part of Europe, that there is a strong interconnection between what happens in EU and in Russia. They are categorically opposed to anti-Russia hysteria, which in fact is nothing less than the preparation of a new, even more dangerous cold, if not hot war.

Altvater Elmar, Germany
Member of scientific community of AΤTAC. Retired Professor of Political Science, Free University of Berlin.

Amin Samir, Egypt/France
Economist, President of the Forum Mondial des Alternatives
Ayala Iván H., Spain
Researcher, Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales

Arsenis Gerasimos, Greece
Εconomist, ex-minister of Economy, of Finance, of National Defense and of Education, ex-UN official and ex-director of UNCTAD

Artini Massimo, Italy
Member of Parliament

Bellantis Dimitris, Greece
Lawyer, PHD in Constitutional Law, Member of the Central Committee of SYRIZA

Black William, USA
Professor of Economics, University of Missouri (Kansas City)

Cassen Bernard, France
Professor Emeritus, Université Paris 8, secretary general of "Mémoire des luttes"

Chiesa Giulietto, Italy
Politician, journalist and author, ex MEP, president of the "Alternativa" association

Freeman Alan, Canada/UK
Geopolitical Economy Research Group, Business School, Director

Gabriel Leo, Austria
Director of the Institute for Intercultural Research and Cooperation (IIIC), Vienna, Member of the International Council of the World Social Forum, Coordinator of the NGO Committee for Sustainable Development of the United Nations

George Suzan, France
Political and social scientist, writer, President of the Transnational Institute

Georgopoulos Dimosthenis, Greece
Economist, sociologist, political scientist, Secretariat on Industrial Policy, SYRIZA

German Lindsey, UK
Convenor, Stop the War Coalition

Graeber David, UΚ
Professor of Anthropology, London School of Economics. Author of “Debt: The First 5,000 Years”

Hudson Michael, USA
Professor of economics, University of Missouri (Kansas City), UMKC. President, Institute for the Study of Long-term Economic Trends (ISLET)

Irazabalbeitia Inaki, Spain
Former MEP / responsible for International Relationships for the party ARALAR, Basque Country

Jennar Raoul Marc, France
Dr. in political sciences, specialist on European law and on WTO regulations, writer of twenty books, among them “Europe, la trahison des élites”

Kagarlitsky Boris, Russia
Director of the Institute for globalization studies and social movements (IGSO)

Kalloniatis Costas , Greece
Phd on macroeconomics, adviser to the Ministry of Labour, researcher in the Labor Institute of the General Confederation of Workers of Greece

Kasimatis Giorgos, Greece
Prof. Emeritus of Constitutional Law, University of Athens. Founder and Honorary President of the International Association of Constitutional Law, ex-advisor to PM Andreas Papandreou.

Koenig Peter, Switzerland
Εconomist / geopolitical analyst

Koltashov Vasiliy, Russia
Head of the economic research unit of the Institute for Globalisation and Social Movements

Konstantakopoulos Dimitris, Greece
Journalist, Writer, Coordinator of the Delphi Initiative

Koutsou Nikos, Cyprus
Member of Parliament from Famagusta

Kreisel Wilfried, Germany
Former Executive Director, World Health Organization

Mavros Giannis, Greece
Member of the National Council for the Claiming of Germany’s Debts to Greece

Mityaev Dmitry A. , Russia
Deputy Chairman of the Council for Study of Productive Forces of the Ministry of Economic Development and the Russian Academy of Sciences on Development Issues

Ochkina Anna, Russia
Head of Department of social theory at Penza State University

Pantelides Panagiotis, Greece
Economist, senior researcher, European Institute of Cyprus

Petras James, USA
Bartle Professor Emeritus , Binghamton University
Ex-Director of the Center for Mediterranean Studies (Athens), ex-adviser to the Landless Rural Workers  Movement of Brasil and the Unemployed Workers Movement in Argentina

Pinasco Luca, Italy
National coordinator of Proudhon Circles-Editor for foreign policy of the journal "L'intellettuale dissidente”.

Radika Desai, USA
Professor, Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba

Rees John, UK
Co-founder, Stop the War Coalition

Roberts Paul Craig, USA
Former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy, Associate Editor, Wall Street Journal, Senior Research Fellow, Stanford University, William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Sideratos Aggelos, Greece
Publisher

Sommers Jeffrey, USA
Senior Fellow, Institute of World Affairs, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

St Clair Jeffrey, USA
Editor, CounterPunch, author, Born Under a Bad Sky

Stierle Steffen, Germany
Εconomist, ATTAC Germany

Syomin Konstantin, Russia
Author, TV host at All-Russia State Television (VGTRK.com)

Tombazos Stavros, Greece
Professor of Political Economy, University of Cyprus, member of the international "Committee of Truth on Greek Sovereign Debt" (debt auditing committee) created by the Greek parliament

Vanaik Achin, India
Retired Professor of International Relations and Global Politics, University of Delhi

Xydakis Nikos, Greece
Minister of Culture

Zachariev Zachari, Bulgaria
President of the Slaviani Foundation

Zdanoka Tatjana, Latvia
Member of European Parliament

Contact email: the.delphi.initiative@gmail.com

The conference on the internet : The Delphi Initiative - YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnzRNIZ79dczuuJStgo3tFw