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Greeks protest as poverty deepens

Helena Smith

Athens: Attempts by Greece's conservative government to slash public spending and unravel two decades of socialist rule are set to unleash a wave of strikes as Greeks protest over growing economic hardship.

Union leaders meeting said walkouts by bank workers and seamen this week would be just a foretaste of the industrial turmoil set to grip the country.

With prices soaring since the introduction of the euro four years ago, ever more Greeks are finding it difficult to pay the bills. The National Centre for Social Research estimates that 21 per cent of the population live below the poverty line, compared with 19 per cent in Portugal, which had long held the last place in the E.U. wealth scales. Runaway profits in banking and shipping have also helped the gap between rich and poor to grow.

``There are bigger social inequalities in Greece today than any of the 15 E.U. members [before the 2004 enlargement],'' said Yiannis Papagopoulos, senior official at the 2 million-strong Confederation of Greek Workers, the country's largest labour organisation. ``We are heading for more strikes, more social conflict and really big clashes between the haves and have-nots.''

Under pressure to cut a budget deficit that ballooned to 6.6 per cent of GDP — almost twice that permitted in the eurozone — last year, the centre-right Government has enacted a series of unpopular Thatcherite measures. Since their election in March 2004, the New Democrats have sought to end the jobs-for-life deal in the bloated public sector, privatise state utilities and liberalise once sacrosanct labour laws.

A controversial incomes policy foresees below-inflation wage rises for civil servants, which trade unionists say is testimony to the Government's ``austerity programme" encumbering workers while benefiting business. Growing anger has been reflected in a string of attacks on government buildings. In December, a militant group calling itself Revolutionary Struggle bombed the Finance Ministry in Athens to protest at ``economic terrorism.''

Similar assaults were staged against the Labour Ministries.

The group said the Finance Ministry attack was a response to the ``growing wretchedness'' of thousands of workers. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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