Yes to open shops on Sunday 28/12 (and every other Sunday too)

Liberal Alliance press release 26 December 2008

Liberal Alliance (Greek Liberals) supports for the recent measure to allow the shops in Athens to open for business, on Sunday 28 December 2008 (last Sunday of the year) and demands that this measure is extended for the rest of the country, and for the rest of the year.

Liberal Alliance will stand by any shopkeeper that will work this day, against the irrational and hostile behavior they experienced during the week from the Greek Government the opposition parliamentary parties of the opposition and the unions

The inalienable right to work, the contribution of businesses to economic growth and event the democratic process does not seem to be acknowledged from certain unions of shop workers. Some of them invaded the conference room of the Athens Prefecture during a meeting of the council of the prefecture on Wednesday 24 December 2008, and forcibly reversed the decision from the Greek Ministry of Development, and forced the Council of the Prefecture first to confirm that the shops would stay closed.
Then the Prefect Mr. Scouros, changed the decision again to allow the opening of the shops only within the borders of the Athens Municipality.

Liberal Alliance have repeatedly concluded that businesses in Greece is neither recognized nor rewarded but the there is a constant hostility against them and against any lawfully made profit. Within this negative climate for businesses, the damages from the recent riots, the 25% drop in sales, and the heavy taxation, opening the shops on Sunday is a matter for survival for the shops and the only rational course of action.

At the opposite end from anyone who demonizes any business activity, Liberal Alliance contents that the complete deregulation of the opening hours will revitalize the economy, and the market competition will reduce unemployment and inflation, will provide more negotiating powers for the employees, and improvement of quality of life for all.

Liberal Alliance's vision is a free market with simple but strict anti-cartel and public health laws, that will create rapid economic growth, and new jobs. Businesses are not alone any more, because Liberal Alliance will support them at their difficult effort to create wealth and to face the attacks from those who deny freedom.

Employment Protection: When the route to long-term unemployment is laid with good intentions.

Liberal Alliance press release 4 December 2008

Liberal Alliance (Greek Liberals) considers that following recent proposals by Mr. Mihalos (president of the Greek Chamber of Industry and Commerce), a broad debate should commence for the real causes of unemployment and the ways to reduce it.

It is disappointing that Mr Mihalos' proposals, were rejected without any dialog, from all the major political parties, despite the fact that serious economic studies (Alpha Bank, Financial Report), prove that the lack of flexibility of labor market in various countries create high and persistent unemployment.

In this context European Union, promotes of flexibility and security (Flexicurity) for Europe. This system, was applied, first in Denmark, and it has been recognized, even by Workers Unions, that it has significantly unemployment.

So if labour flexibility can be the main tool for reducing unemployment why, the political establishment, rejects any discussion even for the limited flexibility by Mr. Mihalos?

For Liberal Alliance it is obvious, that the political establishment, Government and opposition parliamentary parties, could not care less about the unemployed, instead, they only care about the preservation of work privileges, of few civil sector workers groups that believe that any flexibility no matter how small will jeopardize their comfortable life.

It is becoming more and more apparent that any muttering from the political establishment about ' employment protection', implies the protection of the privileges of a small minority that leaves more and more people to unemployment and poverty.

Liberal Alliance proposes the abolition of civil servants tenure, a minimum guaranteed income for every Greek citizen and more flexible labour markets which will contribute to the revitalizing of the economy, and reduce unemployment

Reforms are the only effective response to the crisis

Liberal Alliance press release 13 November 2008

Liberal Alliance (Greek Liberals) contents that the major political parties use the global financial crisis as an excuse dealing for populist stunts instead of dealing with it, seriously and responsibly. The Greek Government and the Opposition bid for the most spectacular spending splurge, and the most generous promises about redistribution of wealth to promote their supposed 'social sensitivity'.

Still none of those 'compassionate' politicians explains to the Greek people where the money will come from. It appears, that since they do not propose any measures to increase wealth and develop the economy, they are most likely to resort to their usual tactics of lending and sinking the government finances into more debt.

They are gravely misguided.

The disastrous mismanagement of the economy from the governments led by New Democracy and PASOK have accumulated a huge public debt the servicing of which, requires around 40 billion euros each year of new loans.

This annual borrowing is becoming even more unmanageable now, because of the recent increase to the spread of interest to 1.5 from 0.32 that it was at the beginning of the year. This means that whilst Germany is borrowing with an interest at 3.78%, Greece will borrow with an interest at 5.28% since October. This rate reflects the increasing unreliability of the Greek Government, to its creditors.
Greece's demotion to the countries with a high default risk combined with the limits set by the European Union's Stability Pact make the 'good intentions' of the 'compassionate' politicians impossible to fulfil.

Liberal Alliance believes that only economic growth through radical reforms can respond effectively to the crisis. Nuriel Roumbini, the economics professor of New York that became famous for predicting the global financial crisis, states that there is no alternative for Greece but to reform its economy.

Liberal Alliance proposes a different economic development model based in reforms implemented successfully all over the world. By applying Liberal Alliance proposals for the economy to the 'reforms simulator' of the World Bank, Greece's economy is placed at the ten most competitive economies in the world from the 100th position it is today.

Liberal Alliance proposes that the best protection of the citizens against this and future crisis is achieved by improving the competitiveness of the Greek economy.

Economy free from State meddling- for less corrupt free-riders in politics

Liberal Alliance press release 5 September 2008

Liberal Alliance (Greek Liberals) will join its forces and defend any citizens or politicians who with their actions of defiance and resistance, help the acceleration of the collapse of the current corrupt political establishment.

Prime Minister's threats for striking out of his party, and for calling early elections in case any MP votes against a Government bill, reveal the dire political situation that he is in, because of the corruption scandals that members of his cabinet see the light of publicity almost daily.

Most of these scandals involve politicians accused of getting richer by running State-owned Businesses and Funds, and by the entanglement of these with dubious private businesses, where the same politicians have an interest in.

For Liberal Alliance corruption will continue as long as the State maintains its business activities and as long as a political career means easy access to wealth but no guaranty of punishment.

It is becoming more and more clear that as long as State controls Companies, Pension Funds, Health and Education, holding public office will yield power that can be easily abused.

A career in politics attracts the populist and the free-rider resulting in the current penury of expertise and principles of today's Greek political establishment.

Liberal Alliance submits that the withdrawal of the State from every business activity it is currently involved with, will deprive the ulterior motives for any unscrupulous politicians currently found in all the political parties as the State will no longer possess this amount of wealth. A politician's reason to enter politics should not be to escape from poverty or to satisfy their greed.

Implementing Liberal Alliance's proposals for the Economy will redefine the role of the politician not as someone who serves his own career development and finances but as someone who serves public interest. It is only logical that as political activity drains on one's resources with out tangible benefit for one's shelf that a career in politics will result in someone getting poorer not richer.

EU Commission accepts Liberal Alliance's argument for free markets and more competition

Liberal Alliance press release 07.05.08

Following an appeal by Liberal Alliance (Greek Liberals), the European Commission, issued a notification to the Greek Government, stating that the Greek law no 3631/2008, forbidding Individuals or Private companies to acquire shares valued more than 20% in state companies without governmental license, does not comply with EU law.

In its letter, the Commission notes that 3631/2008 Act does not comply with article 56 of European treaty about free capital movement and article 43 about freedom of establishment. The Commission accepts the arguments stated in Liberal Alliance's appeal to the committee at 20th February 2008. Liberal Alliance acknowledges with satisfaction, the Commissions' position against this law, which obstructs the privatization of state companies and limit free markets in Greece.

Liberal Alliance will continue to campaign, taking legal action if necessary, for the overthrow of State-funded economic and the associated political system, which creates unemployment, corruption, and holds back investments, forcing young people to stagnation.

History

-7th December 2007:The Greek Minister of Finance submits the Act to the Greek Parliament, which forbids private companies and individuals to acquire more that 20% of state companies shareholdings without Government's approval.
-9th December 2007: Liberal Alliance issues a letter appealing to EU Commission for its intervention as the new act infringes upon the basic articles of the European treaty about freedom of Capital movement.
-15th January 2008: Greek Parliament votes in favor of 3631/2008 Act.
-6th February 2008: Commissioner McCreevy responds to Liberal Alliance with a letter noting “ I fully understand and share your worry about the consequences to the freedom of capital movements in European Union“.
-20th February 2008: Liberal Alliance submits additional evidence to the EU Commission, to support that the 3631/2008 Act constitutes an infringement of article 56 about freedom of movement but also breakage of article 43 about freedom of settlement.
-7 May 2008: European commissioner McCreevy contests the validity of 3631/2008 Act.

Five Parliamentary Parties-One Policy: Statism

19.03.2008- Liberal Alliance press release

Liberal Alliance salutes Commissioner's McCreevy response to SYRIZA's MEP Papadimoulis' parliamentary question on how Governments of Member States of EU can limit private ownership of companies 'deemed of strategic importance' such as OTE (Greek Telecommunications Organization).

Commissioner MacCreevy outlines that the Commission cannot consent to any measures that may protect any state monopolies and whenever such measures are taken by Governments of Member States, the Commission must act to ensure compliance with what EU law states.

It is not widely known that the same answer for this matter, Commissioner MacCreevy and the President of the Commission Mr Barroso gave to Minister of National Economy Mr Alogoskoufis and the Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis respectively.
This happened during the most recent EU summit, where the Greek Government attempted cunningly to pass an amendment to bring EU law in line with the Greek law, limiting private ownership of 'Public Benefit State Companies' (DEKO) to 20%!
This preposterous attempt was, of course, unsuccessful.

The Government of the 'conservative' New Democracy supported by the 'left wing' SYRIZA and all the other Political Parties represented in the Parliament, are currently struggling to keep control of the DEKO, re-affirming that the five parliamentary parties are not interested in any policy other than pursuing an increasing control of the state over the economy and the society.

At the opposite end of the political spectrum, Liberal Alliance proposes the worldwide accepted position, that state protection of monopolies and lack of competition in economy will further undermine the quality of the provided services whilst increasing their cost.
Maintaining the state control of DEKO will have grave consequences for the consumer and the government budget, will obstruct foreign and domestic investment in Greece, and will postpone the job growth for young people who are particularly vulnerable to unemployment.

Enough is enough! Time for the citizens to resist those who treat them as hostages

7 March 2008-Liberal Alliance press Release

Liberal Alliance (Greek Liberals) follows the current events with disappointment, as once more the Greek society is held hostage to the few powerful groups.
Greek society is held hostage again from the union leaders of the civil sector, who instead of serving the citizens, they deliberately withhold basic services and obstruct uses of infrastructure, from them, extorting with this unacceptable manner the achievement of their demands.

Liberal Alliance considers as antisocial and unlawful, every form of protest, for right or wrong reasons, that inflicts intentional damage to innocent citizens.

Liberal Alliance declares its solidarity to the anonymous citizen of this country who endures daily the actions of civil sector unionists. It stands shoulder to shoulder with the immense hardship caused by the power cuts, as well as the businesses who suffer financially, for the same reason

Liberal Alliance calls on all the citizens of Greece to react to these small but powerful vested interests that consider the Public Electricity Company, the ports, the Greek Telecommunication Organization or the Athens Stock Exchange, their own feuds and they can 'pull off the plug' whenever they decide, and to bring charges against anyone who use their public authority to blackmail them, demanding ransom, provoking great damage to the country.

Liberal Alliance fights for the emancipation of the society and the economy from the chains of the state-fed groups that perceive the intra-party immunity, provided to them, as a weakness on behalf of the society to respond to their extortions.

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.

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.

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.

State Intervention can seriously damage your health

10 January 2008-Liberal Alliance Press Release

Liberal Alliance states its opposition to a recent law that obliges gyms in Greece to stay closed on Sundays. According to the Law passed by the ministries of Health,Culture and Planning (FEK 221 13/10/2006) 'Gyms and Fittness centres should be open on weekdays from 6 o'clock in the morning to midnight and on Saturdays from 6 o'clock in the morning to 8 o'clock in the evening. On Sunday, they should be closed.'

It is more than obvious that this action harms mainly private sector workers who could work-out only on Sunday and now have to cope with overcrowded gyms during Saturdays

It also harms the gyms that were keeping their facilities open 24/7. Given that it will be difficult for the government to enforce the opening times and that it is very common to disobey the law in Greece without punishment, the gyms that will not obey the law, will compete unfairly with the gyms that will observe the opening times.

Liberal Alliance believes that once more the Greek government intervenes in an irrational manner at a business activity, at a time when Greece tops the tables of obesity and unhealthy lifestyle.

Liberal Alliance is against any limiting intervention by the government to the opening hours of private businesses and supports the freeing up of the opening times. This will serve best the consumers, will increase business profitability and create more jobs in the process.