An 'Olympian' condemnation of the governments of New Democracy and PASOK by the European Court

Liberal Alliance 14.02.08

Today's condemning decision from the European Court regarding the Olympic Airways, should bring sorrow and shame for this new humiliation for Greece, particularly since it is unlikely to be the last.

The illegal actions of successive Greek governments 'invited' the investigations of the EU commission since the early 90s. These were followed on by condemnations by the European Court as the early ruling C-415/03 and today's decision C-419/06 which confirm the unlawfullness of the state subsidies to the Olympic Airways by the governments of PASOK and New Democracy. The chronicle of the embezzlement of public funds for this purpose is explained in detail by today's press release from the EU Commision.

Whilst New Democracy stayed silent on today's events, the same did not happen with PASOK, whose members Ms Xenogianakopoulou & Mr Tsiokas accused the government that 'it did not negotiate effectively the case for Olympic Airways to the EU'. The new president of SYRIZA, Mr. Tsipras, as a consummate left wing statist went a step further and called for the taxpayers to pay more money to the Olympic Airways since the money already given is just a small part of the debt of the Greek Government to the company!

Neither Ms Xenogiannakopoulou nor Mr Tsipras mentioned the intra-party malign groups that pillage the state Airline Company for years. On the contrary they are attempting to convince the citizens that the state monopoly over the airline industry should be preserved in the name of …progress, and so continuing the illegal actions by the government and the covering of the damages and debts from the taxpayers.

Liberal Alliance alone and with no connection with special interests, points out to the obvious, that the illegal state subsidies result in the stifling of the competition in the airline industry. The longer this occurs, the lower the quality of services offered by the industry and the higher the cost will be to the taxpayer.

Preserving the state monopoly over the airlines will have negative consequences for the consumer, the state budget and the Greek tourism, will discourage investment by foreign airline companies in Greece and will delay the job creation, much needed by the young unemployed.

Liberal Alliance considers Olympic Airlines a blatant example of a policy that favoured the few against the interests of the majority of Greek citizens. Liberal Alliance supports the immediate privatisation of Olympic Airlines, as part of a full withdrawal of the State from every business activity and the institution of a free and fair competition to all the sectors of the economy.

An irresponsible Government faces an irresponsible Opposition over Social Security.

Liberal Alliance Press Release 11.02.08

The Greek Government 's proposals for the stabilization of the Social Security Funds, demonstrate the irresponsibility of its approach on a matter of utmost importance given the demographic developments.
The Greek Government appears to have decided to consolidate the multitude of Pension Funds to five or six, subsidize the most indebted Pension Funds with 10% of the reserves of the most profitable ones and the increase of the retirement age.

Liberal Alliance considers that these proposals will not even delay, let alone save from the financial collapse of the -merged or not merged-Pension Funds, as nobody explains why the merged Funds will manage the worker's contributions better than they did, decades until now.

Nobody explains why the consolidated Pension Funds will be better run, since they will be managed by the same Boards who are responsible for the desperate condition of the current Pension Funds.

No one points out that the Boards of the Pension Funds consisted and will continue to consist from party cadres appointed by the Government and from union leaders supported from New Democracy, PASOK, KKE, SYRIZA appointed from the General Confederation of Workers (GSEE) and the Public Workers Union (ADEDY)

More and more citizens understand that the new proposals and the intra-party support for state control over the Pension Funds are nothing more than a mockery: the only benefits of these proposals will be the consolidation of the pilfering of the many small Pension Funds to the looting of the few big Pension Funds.
The opposition parties PASOK, KKE, & SYRIZA, on the other hand, want to continue the plundering of the dispersed Pension Funds, as before…

Liberal Alliance supports the only proposal that will stop 'in their tracks' anybody who intents on pillaging the worker's contributions and this is the abolition of the state-run, defined benefit scheme to a defined contribution pension system managed by the private sector under supervision by a specialised government superintendency. With this system the citizens will be free to choose their Pension Fund (private or state-run) with the only criterion the best returns on their contributions, as they will be free to define the age of their retirement according with the pension contract, they will choose.

The thuggery of the Union Leaders of the Public Electricity Company (DEH) must be prosecuted and brought to justice.

03 February 08-Liberal Alliance press release

Liberal Alliance condemns the actions of the Workers Union of the Public Electricity Company (DEH) who having broken into the offices of the Company, and flanked by MPs from PASOK and SYRIZA they violently interrupted the company's board meeting.

So the governing board's meeting of DEH was postponed for the third time. When members of the board asked why the Union Leaders did not sumbit a motion for postponement, the president of the Union responded arrogantly that 'we did not ask for a postponement, we are imposing one…'

The thugs of the GENOP-DEH (the Workers Union of DEH) and the MPs of PASOK and SYRIZA, pretending to be the defenders …. of democracy and progress are breaking every sense of lawfulness and once more they go unpunished, whilst they vehemently claim that 'Law is what is right for the worker' actually meaning their own.

Liberal Alliance wishes to remind that DEH is a company listed at the stock exchanges of Athens and London and it belongs to the shareholders and not to the thugs of GENOP-DEH (the company's worker's union)
Liberal Alliance calls the shareholders of DEH to demand the presence of a District Attorney at the next meeting of the Board which is scheduled on the 5 February, so that anyone from GENOP-DEH who will attempt acts of violence, intimidation and coercion, will be arrested and brought to justice.

Liberal Alliance fights for the complete and full withdrawal of the state from any business activity and the complete privatization of the Public Benefit Companies (DEKO) so that the citizens will be freed from the tyranny of subversive groups , the union leaders being amongst them, which leech on these Companies for decades.

Defending Statism in Greece is, to say the least, suspicious

1 February 2008 -Liberal Alliance Press Release

Liberal Alliance wishes to remind that since its foundation it has declared that the sole purpose of state control over various organisations, and companies is to perpetuate the intra-party incompetence and unaccountability and the unpunished looting of their assets from the known malign groups that have settled within them.

The international press which revealed information about SIEMENS bribing Greek political parties and officials of the Hellenic Teleommunications Organisation (OTE) , confirms the above mentioned conclusion and renders any support of state control as suspicious.

The motives of the Greek Governement which forbids private investors to own more than 20% of 'national strategic importance' companies, securing the control of the government is to say the least suspicious.

The motives of the opposition parties, PASOK, SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) and KKE (Communist Party of Greece) and union leaders that fight sometimes violently to retain the status quo is again suspicious.

It will be truly intriguing to see how all these politicians and unionists, will continue to persuade the Greek citizens that the real motives for keeping these companies and organizations within the grasp of the state is not because they want to keep their scandalous privileges.

At the opposite end of this absurdity, Liberal Alliance is the only Greek political party who immediately notified the EU Commission against the Greek Government actions which by law institutionalise the state control of the 'Social Benefit Public Companies' (DEKO).
Liberal Alliance is also the only Political Party which submitted all the information it had at its possession regarding the SIEMENS scandal, to the Public Prosecutor of the Hellenic Supreme Court.

Liberal Alliance will continue this fight to keep on revealing the real causes of the stagnation and corruption so after the collapse of the political duopoly (New Democracy-PASOK) will not be followed by the irresponsible populism of SYRIZA nor of the dangerous rhetoric of the Far Left and the Far Right.

EU Commissioner follows up on Liberal Alliance's notification

13 January 2008-Liberal Alliance press release

Liberal Alliance wants to express its satisfaction regarding the expedient action of the European Commission to check on the Greek Government's decision to forbid any private investor to own more than 20% of any organization deemed of 'national strategic importance'.

The European Commission issued a letter with 17 points to the Greek Government questioning the legality of this decision. The letter accepts the arguments that Liberal Alliance stated in the notification of this matter to the Competition Commissioner, Mr Mc Creevy.

This was not surprising given that Liberal Alliance's position is based on the legal precedents of the European Court and particularly to the condemning decisions against Germany, Holland, Italy, Great Britain and Spain.

But despite the abundance of condemning legal decisions, the Greek Government deceives the Greek citizens, pretending that this serious letter from the Commission, is nothing more than ' usual process of exchanging views between the Greek ministries and the European Commission' and denying that it is not because of Liberal Alliance's actions.
The Greek Government shamelessly claims that since the German government take similar protectionist action, there should be no problem with the European Court confirming the the theory that Greece 's humiliation is one of the prime objectives of the Greek governement.

It is now becoming apparent that state control of the sectors of 'strategic importance' currently exercised by the governement of New Democracy and the malign groups that act inside these sectors is indeed of 'strategic importance' to themselves and themselves alone.
Why so? Because as the press has revealed that the German Authorities now investigate accusations of Siemens bribing of members of PASOK and New Democracy and officials of the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE). Should this accusations proved to be true, it will explain to a great degree what is really at stake for the defenders of statism.

Liberal Alliance has already informed the Attorney of the Hellenic Supreme Court and passed every information it has on this matter and intend to issue further information to the European Commission.
Liberal Alliance intends to continue with every lawful and political mean to fight for the immediate and full privatization of all the State Organisations of Social Benefit as they are called, the opening of the markets which they control as monopolies, to Greek and foreign investors, and for the development of fair competition within a free economy.

Port privatization: What do the unionists and their masters really want?

17 January 2008-Liberal Alliance Press Release

Liberal Alliance supports the efforts to privatize the container ports of Peiraeus and Thessaloniki as this will benefit the Greek Economy.

The rapid development of World trade combined with the global domination of Greek shipping (3084 ships in 2007) could have many positive effects to the local economies of many Greek cities with port infrastructure.
But state ownership of the main Greek ports resulted in their inability to compete, mainly because of the inefficient management, leaving the advantage at this sector to neighboring Turkey.

The lost competitiveness of the Peiraius and Thessaloniki Port Organisations (OLP & OL.TH) is confirmed by the international list of ports that attract the greater volume of containers in the world. According to this list, Port of Peiraius held the 49th place until 2003. Thessaloniki was not on the list. From 2004 Peiraius stopped featuring too.

Still union leaders, flanked by their political masters sometimes violently fight for the continuation of state control on the ports.
Liberal Alliance condemns these practices and also condemns vehemently the regime of political cover and luck of punishment that the thuggery of state-brewed unionists of the ports and elsewhere, enjoys for decades.

Liberal Alliance submits that in this case what really is at stake is the power and 'privilege' of the port workers union leaders, to inflict great damage to the companies who export and import goods through the container ports, by unjustified industrial actions.
The president of the EBEA (Chamber of Commerce and Industry) was direct in his discussions with the Port Workers Federation, the latter seek nothing less than ensuring they will receive 'commissions' from the financial transactions between Port organisations and Businesses.

Liberal Alliance supports the freeing of the economy from the control of any malign group that leeches on it, benefiting from any business activities that the Greek government is involved with.
Liberal Alliance proposes the immediate privatization of the port infrastructure of Greece, which will lead to the regaining of their lost competitiveness and transform their host cities to international centres of shipping , transport and commerce.