West Asia, US, and Obama’s Statesman-like Legacy

Ranjit Gupta

The US has been the main architect and central pole of the West Asian security landscape since World War II. It has sought to maintain security through a web of bilateral and regional military alliances and militaristic solutions to political problems and issues – including direct military interventions of its own. The US’ unconditional patronage and protection of authoritarian Arab regimes has acted as a major disincentive to domestic economic, political or social reform. This pervasive American dominance and the abject subservience of the rulers of Arab countries to the West has been a major factor in the growing public anger and frustrations among the Arabs at large.

The standout hallmarks of the US’ past policies in West Asia – the unconditional patronage of and support to Israel; the fallout of the exceedingly shortsighted creation of the modern jihad in Afghanistan; the demonisation and sanctioning of Iran for decades; the utterly and completely unjustified invasion of Iraq; and the even more foolish wholesale disbanding of the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s army and government, have been major contributors to the rise of phenomena such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State in addition to the hugely destructive and rampaging spread of militant Islamist extremism throughout the Arab world.

The surge of hope and optimism that swept through the Arab world in the winter of 2010-11 – which swiftly felled two longstanding dictators – was subsequently brutally suppressed by autocratic rulers and compounded by self-serving foreign intervention, plunging the Arab world into the worst ever period in its long blood-soaked history.

US President Barack Obama had vociferously opposed the war in Iraq and sought election on a platform of withdrawing US troops from West Asia and Muslim countries. Despite intense domestic criticism and excoriation from allies – both European and Arab, particularly trenchantly from Saudi Arabia – and from all prominent figures within his own administration, to his great credit, Obama has had both: the intellectual perspicacity to recognise the hugely negative consequences of past US policies, as well as the political courage to refuse to get militarily involved in new military interventions in West Asia, even going to the extent of effectively reneging on a red line he himself had laid down.

In that context, Obama said “I’m very proud of this moment,” Jeffrey Goldberg quotes, in his April 2016 article in The Atlantic, ‘The Obama Doctrine’ – a must read on Obama’s West Asia policy. “The overwhelming weight of conventional wisdom and the machinery of our national-security apparatus had gone fairly far. The perception was that my credibility was at stake, that America’s credibility was at stake. And so for me to press the pause button at that moment, I knew, would cost me politically. And the fact that I was able to pull back from the immediate pressures and think through in my own mind what was in America’s interest, not only with respect to Syria but also with respect to our democracy, was as tough a decision as I’ve made—and I believe ultimately it was the right decision to make....any thoughtful president would hesitate about making a renewed commitment in the exact same region of the world with some of the exact same dynamics and the same probability of an unsatisfactory outcome…..What I think is not smart is the idea that every time there is a problem, we send in our military to impose order. We just can’t do that,” Obama added.

His prescription for regional security is clear: “[The Saudis] need to “share” the Middle East with their Iranian foes … and institute some sort of cold peace.” Obama believes that leaders in West Asia are “failing to provide prosperity and opportunity for their people” and that they need to “do more to eliminate the threat of violent fundamentalism.” Obama has had doubts regarding the value of the Washington-Riyadh alliance from before he became president. April 2016 saw his fourth visit to Riyadh, but the deep chasm that has developed between the two countries remained – there was no strategic congruence about Syria or Iran.

Had the US intervened in Syria, the nuclear negotiations with Iran would not have taken place. Obama reaching out to Iran and the nuclear deal are testaments of a particularly statesman-like and visionary approach that he has also exhibited vis-à-vis Myanmar and Cuba. Historians will judge him positively for his transforming US policy approaches towards and in West Asia.

Washington refraining from military interventions in West Asia is the first absolutely indispensable step that is necessary for new approaches to conflict resolution in that region. The most immediate consequence has been that Riyadh’s traditional calibrated, cautious, circumspect foreign policy has been jettisoned and replaced by completely uncharacteristic reckless assertiveness in Syria and particularly, in Yemen. Despite Turkey’s even more aggressive stance against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, they cannot militarily defeat and overthrow him; and if Assad has to go, it will only be via a negotiated settlement with Russia and Iran being on board.

Saudi Arabia cannot militarily trump Iranian influence and power in West Asia even in tandem with other Sunni powers such as Turkey and Egypt; and although bloodletting is likely to continue for some more time, ultimately, Riyadh will have to talk and negotiate amodus vivendi with Tehran, even if it is likely to take time and increasingly rising costs for this realisation to finally sink in.

History will give Obama great credit for forcing this to happen, ultimately.

North Korea’s 7th Party Congress: Context and Content

Sandip Kumar Mishra

After a long gap, North Korea is holding the 7th Workers’ Party Congress from 6 May. There are more than a hundred journalists from various countries who have been invited to report the event - but there is not much reporting about the actual context and reasons for the Party Congress. The Congress, which was supposed to happen every five years, has earlier been quite irregular after the third edition. The last three Party Congresses were held in 1961, 1970 and 1980 after an interval of ten years each. However, the current one is happening after a gap of 36 years.

The first concern is the reason for such a long gap. Generally, it is attributed to the decline in the North Korean economy, increasing isolation after the demise of socialist allies, the death of Kim Il-sung, natural calamities of the mid-1990s, political instability of the Kim Jong-il regime and so on. The consensus is that since North Korea was facing one crisis after another, the Workers’ Party Congress could not be held. The explanation is not satisfactory as there were many other state and party activities that continued during the period. However, it needs to be underlined among all other events, the Party Congress witnesses the largest participation and any mishap means a huge embarrassment for the ruling regime. Furthermore, in the Party Congress, the future policy orientation and leadership are decided. Since the North Korean leadership has not been very clear about their future orientation in these years, the leadership has normally avoided any such gathering. Also, Kim Jong-il’s political weakness warranted that he should bring together leaders in relatively smaller gatherings than in the Party Congress.

The next important issue is, why has North Korea decided to hold the Party Congress now when the situation is, if not worse, at least similar? Is there any shift in North Korea’s path, which might be announced in the Party Congress? These questions are not easy to answer since there is limited information about North Korea. However, it would be pertinent to flag a few points and predictions, which might be helpful in understanding the Party Congress.

First, Kim Jong-un wants to show his confidence and stability to both domestic as well as international audiences by having the Party Congress. Even if no big outcomes are announced, the very occurrence of the Congress means that the leadership has a strong grip on the country. By having a Congress, Kim Jong-un wants to project ‘normalcy’ in North Korea.

Second, there is optimism that North Korea through the Party Congress wants to announce some kind of a roadmap for economic reforms. Kim Jong-un has modified his father’s ‘military-first’ policy to byungjin policy, which means emphasis on both military and economy. North Korea has had two rounds of nuclear and several missile tests in the Kim Jong-un era and it is time to venture into the difficult but dire issue of economic reforms.

Third, the pessimist may argue that since the Party Congress was not held for many years and North Korea had no option but to organise it now. Thus, expecting something dramatic or even important to emerge from the Party Congress would be over-ambitious. Generally, even the smallest moves by North Korea are over-analysed and debated but ultimately they do not result in any significant changes in North Korea.

Fourth, North Korea is going through its worse phase of international sanctions because of its nuclear and missile tests and the regime wants to convey that these sanctions have no effect and North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes are non-negotiable.

Fifth, it is also said that when North Korea announced last year that it would have its Party Congress in May 2016, there were possibilities that North Korea-China relations would improve, and a breakthrough in the inter-Korea relations was also imminent. During those months, North Korea was trying to reach out to as many countries as possible and the North Korean Prime Minister and Foreign Minister visited more than a dozen countries including India to diversify Pyongyang’s relations with the outside world. At that point, North Korea expected that after these important achievements along with its progress in nuclear and missile programmes, it could have a Party Congress that would consolidate regime. Even though all these calculations have gone wrong, North Korea has no option but to have the Party Congress as any withdrawal would show weakness.

Having enumerated these explanations for the timing and context of the 7th Workers’ Party Congress, it is difficult to say which one is more appropriate. However, the Party Congress must be seen at least as a search for future stability and confidence for the Kim Jong-un regime. The new leadership is trying to move beyond the Kim Jong-il era and establish an image of Jong-un similar to Kim Il-sung period, when the leader was considered to be supreme, confident and overt. In the past five years, Kim Jong-un has tried to achieve this objective by being bold in his moves, including punishing and rewarding military and political elite and also by incessant and aggressive nuclear and missile tests. It is hard to say whether he has been successful until now, but it would not be inappropriate to see the 7th Workers’ party Congress in the light of this objective.

Thousands of jobs cut in Australia as slump deepens

Terry Cook

One of the central issues in the 2016 Australian federal elections on July 2 is the right to a secure, full-time job. Amid a gathering world recession and slowing global demand, major companies are continuing to restructure their Australian operations, destroying thousands of jobs, cutting production and closing facilities. The implosion of the mining boom is being compounded by increasing numbers of workers throughout the country being pushed into insecure, part-time employment.

This reality finds no expression in the political and media establishment, with the Liberal-National government claiming that last week’s federal budget was all about “jobs and growth” and the Labor Party promising to generate “full employment.” Both are peddling far-fetched Treasury estimates that the Australian economy, now mired in deflation, will suddenly grow by at least 3 percent every year for the next five years.

According to the official figures published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for March dropped 0.1 percentage points to 5.7 percent. But that was primarily due to the growth of part-time work at the expense of full-time jobs.

Part-time employment increased by 34,900, while full-time employment declined by 9,000. As a consequence, working hours fell. Seasonally adjusted monthly hours worked in all jobs decreased 17.5 million hours (1.1 percent) to 1,632.3 million hours.

Moreover, the ABS data counts anyone who has worked for just one hour a week as employed. An alternative survey by Roy Morgan Research showed unemployment rose from 10.0 percent to 11.0 percent in March, with another 7.8 percent of the workforce under-employed, that is, seeking more work. By this measure, more than 2.4 million workers were unemployed or under-employed.

Major companies that have gone into administration this year include steel and iron ore company Arrium in South Australia, Queensland Nickel and electronics retailer Dick Smith. Between them, they employed more than 11,000 people.

Layoffs are continuing in the mining and resources sector as commodity prices remain at low levels because of reduced global demand, especially in China, Australia’s biggest export market.

After recovering slightly in recent months, the iron ore price dropped 4.1 percent last week to $US62.50. The Australian reported that “several commentators have earlier warned that iron ore’s rebound over the first months of the year is unsustainable, tipping the price to fall into the $US40s over the rest of 2016.”

On April 15, Linc Energy, which has oil, gas, shale and coal operations, went into administration. It had already shed 200 jobs over the past six months, amounting to a third of its regular workforce and three-quarters of its contract workers.

Also last month, Royal Dutch Shell announced cut jobs across its Australian operations, tipped to be around 250 from a 3,400-strong workforce. The cuts are part of a global restructure driven partly by falling gas and oil prices that will see the company shed 10,000 jobs worldwide. Oil prices, to which gas prices are aligned, have halved since last June.

British-based mining giant Rio Tinto announced it will eliminate 40 positions at its Weipa bauxite operation in Queensland. The company, which employs 1,400 staff and contractors at Weipa, cited falling aluminium prices and increasing competition.

In March, Rio confirmed it would shed around 170 jobs at its Western Australian Pilbara iron ore operations. Another 300 positions are expected to be cut at the company’s Perth office. Last year Rio, axed 800 jobs in the Pilbara region as it reduced its global workforce by more than 8 percent to 54,938.

These cuts are having a terrible impact on mining towns, where big companies have made super-profits for years by exploiting the labour of workers, only to abandon them as the crash has unfolded.

Pilbara Shire Council president Kerry White told the media that the towns of Tom Price and Paraburdoo have been “devastated” by the latest downsizing. “The roll-on effect is enormous, for businesses and for people’s well-being,” she said. “Kids lose their friends, families are just packed up and gone within a month, empty houses everywhere. What can they do? Nothing. There’s no other employment opportunities in these towns because they’re purely mining.”

According to a recent analysis of company announcements, 2,300 mining industry jobs had been axed across the country this year by the beginning of March.

At the end of February, base metal and coal mining firm South32, another spin-off from BHP Billiton like Arrium, announced it would axe 770 jobs nationally after posting a half year statutory loss of $US1.7 billion when impairments were taken into account.

Other job cuts in the mining and associated industrial sectors in March and April include:

BHP Billiton’s Mount Arthur coal mine near in the Muswellbrook in the New South Wales (NSW) Hunter Valley laid off 300 workers, reducing the mine’s workforce to 1,400.

Perilya announced it will cut 100 jobs from its 460-strong workforce at its Broken Hill Southern Operations silver, lead and zinc mine in far western NSW, along with 40 contractors’ positions.

Southern Operations, along with the CBH Resources Endeavour mine in Cobar, is the main source of employment for Broken Hill. Earlier this year, CBH announced it would shed 116 jobs at Endeavour.

Consolidated Mining and Civil (CMC), which contracts to Perilya, laid-off 22 workers in March.

Perth-based Engineering group RCR Tomlinson announced in April it will wrap up its engineering group’s coal services businesses, destroying 270 jobs across Australia and New Zealand in its fabrication division.

Many jobs have gone in associated industries, often without being reported. Peter Dyball of Pit Crew Management Consulting Services, noted: “[T]here are engineers and other professionals, typically in capital cities, out of work. The number of high calibre, experienced people that are out of work at the moment is probably the most substantial number I have seen in 30 years in the industry.”

Job cuts in other areas continue to mount.

Retailer Target announced in April it will close its headquarters in Geelong, near Melbourne, destroying 900 jobs in the area. This is a further blow to Geelong, following Alcoa’s closure of its aluminium smelter last August at the cost of 500 jobs. Ford will shed the remaining 350 jobs there by October when it closes its Geelong manufacturing plant.

Communications provider Optus last month confirmed it would slash 500 jobs. As of last December, the company employed 9,235 people.

State-owned Western Power in Western Australia announced it will axe 215 jobs from its network planning and project management staff, on top of 153 jobs destroyed through attrition.

White goods manufacturer Electrolux closed its factory in the NSW regional city of Orange, axing the remaining 300 jobs and ending more than 70 years of production. At its peak in the 1970s, the plant employed some 2,000 people.

Employers are also exploiting the job crisis to lower wages and conditions. Office supplies giant Staples last month sacked 45 contract delivery drivers via SMS after they demanded increases in their pay rates, which are as low as $8 an hour.

Venezuela on the knife’s edge as economy collapses

Neil Hardt

The free fall of the Venezuelan economy has produced an explosive situation with widespread repercussions for the Latin American region.

The Venezuelan bolivar has lost 98 percent of its value versus the US dollar since 2013, with inflation rising to roughly 600 percent by the end of 2015. Inflation is expected to double to above 1000 percent in 2016, with the IMF expecting growth to shrink by 10 percent this year after last year’s fall of 8 percent.

Poverty has skyrocketed since 2013, increasing from roughly 35 percent to roughly 80 percent today. Fifty-one percent of the population is in extreme poverty, up from less than 10 percent in 2012. Food riots, malnutrition, and disease are becoming more common due to an absence of basic consumer goods.

According to a recent study from the University of Simon Bolivar, only 19 percent of the population had enough to meet their basic needs. In 2015, only 52 percent of the population could afford to buy vegetables, 46 percent could buy sugar, and 32 percent could buy cheese and coffee. Nearly 20 percent of Venezuelans cannot even afford to buy rice.

The country’s infrastructure is collapsing. A shortage of electricity led the government to announce forced electricity blackouts beginning in April, and state-run industries are now closed five days a week in an effort to save energy. Last week, Venezuela’s largest beer producer, Empresas Polar, was forced to shut down production due to a lack of supplies.

The worsening economic situation has produced widespread opposition to the “Chavista” government of the Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which has been in power since Hugo Chavez’s first term as president began in 1999.

The PSUV government’s shortsighted and unplanned economic model was based on using high oil prices to enrich a layer of what is known as the “boliburguesia” [Bolivarian bourgeoisie] while buying political stability through moderate increases in social spending. When this nationalist program buckled under the impact of the international collapse in oil and commodity prices, the PSUV cut social spending and relied increasingly on state violence against strikes and protests.

Last week, for example, President Nicolas Maduro deployed the military to the streets of Maracaibo along the Northwest coast to quell riots in which dozens of shop windows were smashed and blockades set up. In a March poll, Maduro enjoyed the support of only 26.8 percent of the population—a figure that has likely fallen in the last two months.

However, only 57 percent of those polled said they would vote to have Maduro removed, an indication that hostility to Maduro does not equate to support for the right-wing opposition. The CIA supported Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) is widely disliked by Venezuelan workers, who recall the role of leading opposition figures in murdering hundreds of workers and youth during the 1989 Caracazo protests, as well as for their support for the US-backed coup attempt of April 2002 in which dozens of demonstrators were killed.

The opposition recently launched its official campaign to remove Maduro from office. On May 2, they delivered almost 2 million signatures to the National Election Institute (INE), well above the 200,000 required, in a petition to call for a recall referendum against Maduro. Once the petition is accepted, the opposition would be required to collect 4 million signatures to force a referendum. If the referendum is held and if Maduro is recalled before the date at which Maduro completes the fourth year of his six-year term, new elections will be held. If a referendum is held and Maduro is recalled after the cut-off date, Maduro’s vice-president Aristobulo Isturiz would take power until the 2019 elections.

Setting the stage for a constitutional crisis similar to that unfolding in neighboring Brazil, this is further complicated by the fact that the commencement of Maduro’s term in 2013 is disputed. While Maduro began serving as acting president in January due to Chavez’s poor health, his official term arguably began after the March elections.

The opposition has denounced the Chavez government’s INE as filled with government sympathizers and has called for massive demonstrations if the recall process is halted or prolonged by the INE. In reply, Maduro stated he would call for large counter-protests to what the government describes as a “coup.”

Meanwhile, the Maduro government has significantly depleted currency and gold reserves and has prioritized paying off debt at the expense of consumer goods importation, which has produced scarcities for millions of Venezuelan workers.

There are increasing concerns that Venezuela will be unable to meet bond payments, triggering a domino effect with repercussions across Latin America and the world.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies published an article on May 2 titled “Venezuela’s impending collapse,” in which the US government-linked think tank noted that Venezuela must meet $10.5 billion in debt servicing costs this year. The article notes that the government will have to squeeze imports in order to service its debt, which “raises the question of whether the government could endure further shortages in basic supplies. Given the choice between default and political suicide, the Maduro government would likely choose default.”

In response to the crisis, the United States is engaged in operations aimed at removing Maduro without triggering a social explosion. Speaking in April, Secretary of State John Kerry told the Miami Herald: “We are prepared to help Venezuela get back on its feet economically. But we’ve got to have an executive authority in Venezuela which is ready to respect the people and respect the rule of law.”

Such “help” from the United States would have disastrous implications for Venezuelan workers and youth. After over a century of imperialist subjugation, South America is subject to a renewed pivot by the US to the region, aimed at eliminating Chinese influence and providing new exploitative opportunities for Wall Street and US corporations. Nothing, not the least military invasion, is off the table for US imperialism in its attempts at world domination.

The Berlin Senate’s inhuman deportation policy

Carola Kleinert

The solidarity of broad social layers with the refugees in Berlin remains considerable but the policy of the Berlin Senate of SPD and CDU is diametrically opposed to this sentiment. Refugees are being crammed into inhumane camps, bullied and brutally deported.

The latter is now to be massively expanded. In early April, the Berlin interior senator (state minister) Frank Henkel (CDU, Christian Democratic Union), welcomed the call by Chancellery Minister Peter Altmeier (CDU) to double the forced deportations of refugees and the number of those “returning voluntarily.”

Henkel believes this demand is “absolutely realistic,” and stressed, “Berlin is working consistently on increasing the number of deportations.” He identified himself completely with the demand from the Chancellery, saying, “This is consistent with our ambitions and, given the situation, is also called for.”

The interior minister, who was elected in April as the CDU’s lead candidate in Berlin for the House of Representatives (State Assembly) elections in September, has for months been agitating aggressively against refugees. He has repeatedly stressed that Berlin has to “significantly reduce” the number of refugees.

In October last year, Henkel had already announced an “increase in the number of deportations,” and boasted that Berlin was at the top of the table compared to other federal states. The state government would increasingly encourage “voluntary return.” However, “If this did not happen voluntarily, then in the end it must come down to deportation,” Henkel told the dpa news agency.

According to official figures, 512 people have been deported in the first quarter of 2016. If this trend continues, it will be more than double the 806 deported in the previous year. In 2014, 602 were deported.

Henkel is using his attacks on the weakest of the weak to erect a veritable police state in Berlin aimed essentially against all workers. He allows the deportation of families that have lived in Germany for many years.

Without prior warning, the police turn up in the middle of the night or early morning outside the rooms of desperate people, who are given only a short time to get their children out of bed and gather their belongings.

This is intended to prevent refugees avoiding deportation. Also, it ensures they cannot access legal protections and support, nor lodge an appeal against their deportation.

The actions of the Berlin Senate have repeatedly led to protests by the population. School classes, teachers, neighbourhood and support organizations have tried to obtain stays of deportation for those classmates and families torn from their midst.

To avoid attracting attention and to enable the deportations to proceed as smoothly as possible, the police follow a so-called “sensitization strategy.” Accordingly, night deportations should be avoided whenever possible in order not to disturb people’s sleep! In addition, children should, if possible, not be taken out of school. However, in practice this strategy is not worth the paper on which it is written.

Currently, more than 10,000 people are at risk of deportation. These are mostly people from the Balkans whose asylum applications have been rejected in the past year and a half. The new package of asylum laws, combined with the intensification of the deportation law adopted in record time, means refugees live in constant fear of the police knocking on their door.

A recent example is the deportation of the Gambian Surakata C., who had just turned 18. He had arrived in Berlin, aged 16, and been housed in a youth facility supported by social workers. On March 16, in the middle of the night, he was seized from the hostel and deported directly to Gambia.

According to the Berlin Refugee Council, his roommates said the police suddenly appeared at the apartment and took Surakata away. He had been granted temporary permission to remain, had never had any trouble with the police and was studying German and taking other qualifications.

In mid-January 2016, the Berlin police deported eight-year-old Denica, who suffers from a heart condition, and her father back to Bosnia. For the eight-year-old, however, her father is more like a stranger because he spent several years in prison in Bosnia because of racist persecution. The desperate mother and Denica’s brother, who also has a heart condition, had received temporary permission to stay because of the severity of his condition, but then decided to travel back to Bosnia “voluntarily.” It is uncertain whether the children, or the father who had been tortured in prison, would receive proper medical treatment back in Bosnia.

At the end of March, the Berliner Zeitung publicised the case of single mother Ariane Demiri and her three children, aged 16, 14 and 6, from Albania. In autumn 2015 they had received a letter rejecting their asylum application demanding that they emigrate “voluntarily” by April 7, 2016. Mrs. Demiri had come to Germany in the summer of 2015 because there was “no hope of a decent education in Albania” for her children, which they could receive in Germany.

Classmates of the middle son, Glendis (14), at the Lichtenberger Manfred-von-Ardenne School, along with their teacher, launched a struggle against the imminent deportation of the family. But as part of the asylum package II laws, Albania has been classified by the German government as a safe third county, along with Montenegro and Kosovo. The danger is great that the family will be forcibly removed “quietly.”

“Glendis was quick to learn German,” said his teacher. “He is popular in class and was immediately integrated.” An Internet petition set up by the teacher, directed at Berlin’s immigration authorities, received 48,919 signatures within a short time.

Various aid agencies warn that the number of those “legally obliged to leave” could quadruple this year due to the restrictive policy of the Senate rejecting asylum applications.

The brutal deportations continue the policies of the SPD and Left Party-led state executive, which governed Berlin from 2001 to 2011. Even then, the capital was infamous for its for harsh deportation policy.

The current verbal opposition of the Greens and the Left Party in the state assembly is therefore hypocritical because, wherever they are in government, the same parties organise the detention and deportation of refugees.

Volkswagen board pockets €63 million in 2015

Dietmar Henning

Despite the company losing billions, and the exhaust emissions scandal, the members of the Volkswagen Executive Board have pocketed more money in 2015 than in the previous year. The nine members of the board received €63.2 million collectively, up from the €54 million they were paid in 2014.

The Executive Board’s remuneration is signed off by the Supervisory Board, in which representatives of the Works Council, the IG Metall union and the Social Democratic Party-led state government have a majority.

Their pay has risen even though the board members are responsible for the exhaust emissions scandal, which threatens thousand of jobs, and despite VW finishing the year with losses of €1.6 billion. The losses are the result of a provision of €16 billion for costs arising from the exhaust emission scandal. In 2014, the most successful year for the company, VW made a record profit of €12.7 billion.

The exorbitant salaries of the board members have clearly risen without regard to the negative impact of their actions, although the variable element of their remuneration is supposedly linked to the profitability of the company.

The long-standing VW boss Martin Winterkorn, who was forced to resign in September 2015 as a result of the manipulation of exhaust emissions results, received €7.3 million for his last nine months in office. Moreover, he will receive pension allocations worth nearly €30 million. For many years, Winterkorn was German’s top-earning manager.

His successor Matthias Müller received around €4.2 million. Before becoming VW CEO, he had headed the company’s Porsche division for five years.

The new Volkswagen brand boss Herbert Diess received €7.1 million for just half a year’s work (he moved to VW from BMW in July 2015). This includes a “transfer premium” of €5 million.

Doing even better was Andreas Renschler, who moved from Daimler to VW in February 2015, where he is now responsible for heavy goods vehicles. He received a golden hello of €11.5 million, giving him an annual income of more than €14.9 million. Renschler is thus the best-paid board member in the VW group.

The other board members received €3-5 million: Purchasing chief Francisco Garcia Sanz (€3.5 million), Jochen Heizmann, head of the company’s China business (€3.5 million) and Audio boss Rupert Stadler (€4.1 million).

The lowest earner was Frank Winter, the chief financial officer. He received “only” €900,000. But this was for just three months work, as he replaced Hans Dieter Pötsch in October 2015, who was paid €2.9 million for 2015.

Pötsch moved across to take on the post of Supervisory Board chairman, which is paid €1.5 million. He also received a sweetener to move of almost €20 million.

Since the VW workforce face sackings and pay cuts as a result of the emissions scandal, the VW Works Council chairman Bernd Osterloh and SPD state Premier Stefan Weil, who represents Lower Saxony on the Supervisory Board, called in the media for a cut in the Executive Board’s bonus payments.

This was just a deceit. In the end, the Supervisory Board agreed to put aside 30 percent of the bonuses, to be paid later. A cut is not foreseen. It involves just €5.4 million euros, or around 8.5 percent of the remuneration of the Executive Board. Since the value of the bonuses that were set aside will be recalculated in 2019 on the basis of the share value at that point, they might walk away with even more. According to calculations by the Tagesschau, VW CEO Müller could expect an additional payment of up to €8.6 million.

The Supervisory Board was even more generous when it came to the pension allocations of former Executive Board members. The VW Group reserved €243 million at the end of 2015 for this purpose.

Among the main beneficiaries here, with €23.7 million, is the former IG Metall functionary Horst Neumann. He has used the union as a springboard to gain a rise in income, the dimensions of which even politicians and SME entrepreneurs can only dream. Since 1994, he worked as human resources director, a post usually granted to union officials—first at Rasselstein GmbH, a subsidiary of the ThyssenKrupp Group, then at ThyssenKrupp Elevator AG, then at Audi and from 2005 until his retirement last year at VW.

VW CEO Müller justified this enrichment of the top management at the press conference announcing the company’s annual results, saying, “The Executive Board remuneration had been agreed by the Supervisory Board.”

On the Supervisory Board, the union, Works Council and SPD control 12 of the 20 votes. In the Supervisory Board Presidium, which prepares all the company’s important decisions, sit six men: Supervisory Board chair Pötsch, Wolfgang Porsche, as spokesman for the owners’ family, Lower Saxony’s state Premier Weil (SPD), IG Metall leader Jörg Hofmann, Works Council leader Osterloh and his deputy Stephan Wolf.

While the Works Council, IG Metall and SPD support the Executive Board’s orgy of enrichment, they are simultaneously negotiating massive attacks on the workforce. Accordingly, productivity in the core VW brand will generally increase by 10 percent. In administration, 3,000 jobs, almost one in 10, are to go. Over 1,000 contract workers have already been sacked, and others will follow. Even the closure of two sites, one of them in Lower Saxony, is under discussion, possibly the engine plant in Salzgitter.

Apparently, they are considering selling off parts of the business: “The need for finances to cover the risks can lead to disposing of parts of the business dependent on the circumstances.”

For this reason, the current contract negotiations are stalled at VW, which has a company-wide contract covering its 12,000 employees in Germany, and also in the electronics and metal-working industries, where the contract covers the other large auto companies.

For both contracts, the IG Metall is calling for a rise of 5 percent. The employers association has offered 2.1 percent more pay in a contract with a two-year duration. At VW, the management made no further offer at the second round of negotiations last week.

IG Metall’s chief negotiator, Hartmut Meine, is the union’s district chief in Lower Saxony and Saxony Anhalt. The social democrat sat on the Supervisory Board for the union up to last November.

Meine warned the company that its “estimation of the mood of the people in the six Volkswagen plants was completely wrong. There are debates there: Why haven’t we had any bonus and why does the management get a bonus? And if no offer is forthcoming in the negotiations, that will make people really angry.”

Works Council leader Osterloh is currently preparing to negotiate with management regarding a “pact for the future.” Osterloh will negotiate with Personnel Director Karlheinz Blessing over jobs cuts, plant closures and a worsening of working conditions. IG Metall man Blessing welcomed the “negotiation stance” put forward by Osterloh at the beginning of April.

Austrian Chancellor Faymann resigns

Markus Salzmann

On Monday afternoon, Austrian government leader Werner Faymann announced his immediate resignation from all offices at a press conference in Vienna. As well as resigning as chancellor, he is also standing down as chairman of the Austrian Social Democratic Party (SPÖ).

Faymann’s resignation is the result of a long rightward development of the SPÖ, which has led to a dramatic loss of votes. The highpoint of this development was the presidential election in late April. The SPÖ candidate Rudolf Hundstorfer, a longtime union bureaucrat, won just over 10 percent of the vote and failed to reach the second round.

Although the SPÖ has been almost completely ruined under Faymann’s leadership, he said in his resignation statement that he was proud of his “work for the country.” In a display of smugness that is hard to beat, he said that despite “structural deficits” the “social force of the country” had been strengthened. He said that wherever he went in Europe he was asked, “How did you manage that?”

Faymann took over as SPÖ chairman in the crisis year of 2008, and was elected chancellor shortly after. In coalition with the conservative Austrian Peoples Party (ÖVP), he has pursued a strict austerity course at the cost of the working class. Under his government, the retirement age was raised, public jobs massively cut and wages curbed. Over the last five years, the number of unemployed rose from 300,000 to 475,000, meaning more than 10 percent are unemployed. At the same time, the wealth of those at the top of society has grown enormously.

Resistance to this policy has been expressed in one election defeat after another for the SPÖ. The Wiener Standard has shown that under Faymann, the SPÖ lost votes in 18 of 20 state, federal and European elections. A few days ago, Faymann was booed at the May Day rally outside Vienna’s City Hall. He only completed his speech with difficulty.

The right-wing policies that the SPÖ has pushed through with the ÖVP against all opposition have opened the way for the far-right FPÖ. This was particularly the case in immigration policy. After an initially liberal course, the Faymann government made an abrupt U-turn, sealed the borders to Hungary and Italy, imposed an upper limit for refugees, and eliminated the right to asylum, working closely with the right-wing government in Hungary and other Balkan states.

It was not only in terms of content that the Social Democrats have moved towards the right-wing extremists. In Burgenland, the SPÖ formed a joint state legislature with the Freedom Party last year.

Under these circumstances, the FPÖ candidate Norbert Hofer won 35 percent of the vote in the first round of the recent presidential election, and has a good chance of winning the runoff on May 22. For the first time since the founding of the second Austrian republic 71 years ago, an extreme right-wing ideologue could enter the presidential palace at Hofburg who advocates Islamophobic and xenophobic views, sympathises with the far-right Pegida movement and rejects the EU.

Faymann and the Social Democrats have responded to the electoral success of the far-right with a further shift to the right. In the meantime, for all intents they have abolished the right to asylum. The government can now impose a state of emergency if “public order and the protection of domestic security” can no longer be guaranteed due to high numbers of refugees. In practice, this means this takes effect when the ceiling of 37,500 immigrants per year set by the government is reached.

Faymann explicitly defended the right-wing course of the party when he resigned. It was right, he said, to end the “welcoming culture” and enforce a restrictive refugee policy.” It would have been irresponsible “not to implement our own actions,” he said.

With Faymann’s resignation, the SPÖ is moving even closer to the FPÖ. The main topic at yesterday’s meeting of the Federal Executive was the so-called realignment of the party. This outlines closer collaboration with the right-wing extremists.

At the end of April, Faymann had announced the creation of a “strategy group” regarding further dealings with the FPÖ. This is directed towards overturning a previously binding party decision from 2014 banning any coalition with the FPÖ. In practice, it has had no relevance for a long time. But ending the official ban on forming a coalition with the FPÖ would be a sign that the Social Democratic Party leadership is moving even further to the right.

Chancellery Minister Josef Ostermayer had already indicated the lifting of the ban at the weekend. “It could go in the direction that the various levels—municipalities, federal states—decide themselves whether cooperation makes sense,” Ostermayer told the Österreich newspaper.

The Burgenland Social Democrats, who already govern together with the Freedom Party, had spoken out before becoming aware of Faymann’s resignation, saying it made sense to end the “exclusion” of the FPÖ at the federal level. Faction leader Robert Hergovich said on Monday in Eisenstadt: “We do not believe in leaving a strategic advantage to the ÖVP, by saying that we will work with no one but the ÖVP.” He said the time was “now ripe to formulate these pragmatic positions.”

Governor Hans Niessl (SPÖ), who has governed together with the FPÖ since last year, told the broadcaster Ö1 that it concerned the future of social democracy. Not everything was sorted out by changing one person, he said. It also concerned the future attitude of the SPÖ towards the FPÖ. Something had to change there, he said. The Social Democratic mayor of Steyr, Gerald Hackl, also stressed the “points of intersection” with the FPÖ, and called for cooperation.

Those calling most vehemently for a further sharp shift to the right are the trade unions. Erich Foglar, head of the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB), pleaded expressly for collaboration with the ultra-right. He told news magazine profil that a “government coalition with the FPÖ could not be ruled out.” According to Foglar, there was “nothing objectionable” in an alliance with a party that advocates an openly xenophobic and nationalist programme.

In a guest commentary for profil, Josef Muchitsch (chairman of the construction workers union) railed against “left-wing dreamers” in the SPÖ and demanded Faymann’s resignation in order to facilitate moves towards the FPÖ. “The policy of exclusion towards the FPÖ is a mistake,” he wrote. “Demarcation where it is understandable, but general exclusion, no. If there are reasonable people at the municipal and state level in the FPÖ who support us in implementing our policies, that should not be prevented.”

The resignation of Faymann and the closer collaboration of the SPÖ and FPÖ heralds the final stage in the decline of the Austrian Social Democrats.

Fascistic candidate Rodrigo Duterte wins Philippine presidential election

Joseph Santolan

Rodrigo Duterte, mayor of the southern Philippine city of Davao and long-time head of the city’s death squads that have executed over 1,400 people in the past 20 years, was elected president of the Philippines yesterday.

With over 75 percent of the votes tabulated last night, Duterte had received more than 15 million votes. His nearest contender, Mar Roxas, had obtained just over nine million; Grace Poe, 8.5 million; and Jejomar Binay, five million.

Poe has already conceded Duterte’s victory, staging a televised press conference after midnight to announce her concession.

While neither Binay nor Roxas had conceded as of press time, Duterte’s victory is being acknowledged universally in the Philippine media as a foregone conclusion. Duterte will thus become president having received approximately 38 percent of the vote.

The vice-presidential race is the tightest in Philippine history. Leni Robredo, closely associated with the outgoing Aquino administration, and Ferdinand Marcos Junior, son of the late dictator, are polling within a percentage point of each other. It is likely to be some time before this race is finally resolved.

Elections in the Philippines are violent and corrupt affairs. The 2016 election was no exception. An estimated 50 people were killed in election-related violence from January 10. The reports vary, but an additional 13 to 18 people are estimated to have been killed in poll violence on election day.

The past six years of outgoing President Benigno Aquino’s administration have been shaped above all by Washington’s drive to war with China. Under its so-called “pivot to Asia,” the Obama administration has escalated tensions in the region to the brink of war.

Under Aquino, Manila has functioned as a leading proxy of Washington in this confrontation. Under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), the Aquino government arranged for the restoration of US military bases in the country. Manila filed a legal case in The Hague, which was drawn up by Washington, against China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. With the full support of Washington, Aquino has staged repeated military provocations in the disputed waters.

In the face of explosive social tensions and the threat of global war, elections around the world have become exceedingly volatile affairs. The political representatives of the bourgeoisie are moving sharply to the right.

Duterte is the embodiment of this trend in the Philippines. War and dictatorship are on the agenda of the entire bourgeoisie. Not a single candidate presented any alternative to this. Duterte, however, gave this drive within the ruling class its most openly fascistic expression.

Duterte repeatedly pledged that he would launch a campaign to kill alleged criminals throughout the country upon his election. He declared he would “dump” 100,000 corpses in Manila Bay. If workers in an export-processing zone attempted to form a union, he asserted he would kill them.

Washington has no objections to Duterte’s fascistic politics, but Duterte is also an unstable and volatile figure. He has alternated between calling for bilateral negotiations with Beijing to solicit massive investment from China, to calling for mandatory military service for all youth in preparation for war with China.

Of the rival candidates, Washington would have preferred either Roxas, the former investment banker from a long-standing political dynasty, or Poe, whose husband was recently revealed to have been a contractor for a private intelligence firm based in the United States working for the CIA.

Binay represented sections of the Philippine bourgeoisie who are concerned that Washington’s drive against China is bad for business. Binay was not opposed to the basing of US forces in the country, but did seek a more conciliatory approach to Beijing and looked to scaling back Aquino’s confrontational moves. He was polling well ahead of his political rivals until a series of corruption scandals undermined his campaign.

Washington sees Manila’s legal case against China as a bellwether for the political allegiance of the new administration. The elected president will assume office on June 30. The International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is expected to hand down a decision before that date. Washington intends to use the ITLOS verdict as a legal pretext to dramatically escalate pressure on China in the South China Sea. The US government will expect its proxy in Manila to lead the charge in this matter.

Duterte will toe Washington’s line or his presidency will not last long. In an early indication that Duterte intends to follow Washington’s dictates, he announced today that problems in the South China Sea should be resolved through multilateral negotiations, which should include Japan, Australia and the United States. China has long insisted that problems should be resolved through bilateral negotiations, while Washington has demanded multilateral negotiations to which it would be a party.

Washington is already carefully eying Duterte’s intended cabinet. Ernie Bower, senior adviser for the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told Reuters on May 9: “If he selects technocrats with experience, good track records and strong networks, it may not be as bad as the campaign rhetoric suggested.” Drawing a parallel between Duterte and US Republican presidential aspirant Donald Trump, Bower stated: “The fear and anxiety come from the fact that we just don’t know—and neither Duterte nor Trump seem to know—who they would include in their cabinet teams if elected.”

Duterte gave an initial sense of his intended administration in an interview on election day. He told the press he would staff his cabinet with “military men.” He also said he intended to revise the constitution to ease rules limiting foreign ownership in the country. “I will open investments. If possible, in every region, I’ll have economic zones. And the foreigners can come, and they’ll have the same protection. I guarantee them profits that will be swiftly returned to them.”

Responsibility for Duterte’s successful political career, which has now culminated in his election as president, rests with the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), a nationalist and anti-working class organization.

From his early days as mayor of Davao and the head of the Davao Death Squads, the CPP’s New People’s Army (NPA) consistently provided Duterte with support. Duterte’s campaign manager was a former high-ranking member of the CPP.

Duterte has repeatedly styled his fascistic politics as “leftism.” The CPP has endorsed these phrases. In the weeks leading up to the election, the NPA on two occasions staged ceremonies, turning over captured police officers to the Philippine government in the person of Duterte, providing him the chance to pose with the NPA in front of a hammer and sickle flag.

Jose Ma. Sison, founder and head of the CPP, staged a meeting over Skype with Duterte, which was then published on the Internet. Sison stated how excited he was at the prospect of peace talks between the NPA and a Duterte administration. He announced that if Duterte were elected, he would return to the Philippines after 30 years of exile in the Netherlands.

Sison was the first public figure to hail Duterte’s election. He issued a statement within an hour of the closing of the polls, which was published in the Inquirer, the leading Philippine daily paper. Sison extended his “warmest congratulations” to Duterte. Sison said he “now looked forward to further conversations with President Duterte to arrange an immediate ceasefire, release of all the political prisoners, my return home and acceleration of the peace negotiations. Let us have as goal a government of national unity, peace and development.”

Carlos Zarate, representative of the CPP’s front organization Bayan Muna, likewise endorsed Duterte’s victory, hailing it as “phenomenal” and stating that it “changes radically the politics in the Philippines.”

UK prime minister invokes militarism and war to argue for EU membership

Julie Hyland

In a speech pledging to ensure “peace”, Prime Minister David Cameron’s argument for Britain remaining in the European Union (EU) was all about preparing for war.

Speaking at the British Museum Monday, the Conservative Party leader set out what he described as a “big, bold patriotic case” for voters supporting continued UK membership of the EU in the June 23 referendum. While claiming to “respect” their views, he made a bellicose attack on supporters of a Brexit (British exit)—especially those within his own party—for endangering not only Britain’s “national interest” but the future of NATO and the security of the West.

Cameron made clear that he was speaking not only on behalf of the UK, but for all the major imperialist powers. Referencing President Barack Obama’s public intervention in favour of a Remain vote during his visit to London on April 22, Cameron said the US leader had made “plain” the standpoint of “our principal and indispensable ally, the guarantor of our security…as only the oldest and best friends can.”

Support for a Remain vote was the “clear view” of all the UK’s “allies”, he warned, from Australia, New Zealand and Japan to Britain’s “major new trading and strategic relationships—China and India. …”

The secretary-general of NATO had said that a weakened and divided Europe would be “bad for security and bad for NATO,” he continued. Over the weekend, former UK intelligence chiefs Sir John Sawers, (MI6) and Lord Jonathan Evans (MI5) had added their voices to the calls by Britain’s former military chiefs for a Remain vote. UK membership of the EU was “not just about the day-to-day cooperation, it’s about the wider stability of our continent,” Sawers said.

These military considerations dominated the prime minister’s remarks. The economic arguments made by his opponents in favour of a Leave vote were dealt with more briefly, with Cameron accusing them of taking a “leap in the dark” by failing to answer what would replace UK trade relations with the EU.

Despite arguing against the risk of turning the clock “back to an age of competing nationalisms in Europe” by a British exit (Brexit), Cameron’s presentation of UK-European relations centred entirely on glorifying past national conflicts.

The UK had shaped European history for 2,000 years, entirely—according to his account—through war. “From Caesar’s legions to the wars of the Spanish Succession, from the Napoleonic Wars to the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Britain had helped write the history of Europe, he said, before listing military battles against France and Germany from 1704 through to the Second World War.

Evoking Churchill, Cameron spoke of the “character of the British people”, this “island nation”, “our island story”, as being “special, different, unique” especially for not having “been invaded for almost a thousand years.”

“[M]y heart swells with pride”, he continued, “whenever I hear the tell-tale roar of a Spitfire engine” that had done battle with the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War.

Cameron’s extolling of British patriotism and militarism was not purely for domestic consumption. It was intended to reassure Washington that the British bourgeoisie remains its most valuable asset in ensuring that the EU continues to toe the US line—especially regarding militarism and war.

The years before the UK joined the then-European Economic Community in 1973 had seen British governments preside over “a steady retrenchment of our world role, borne of our economic weakness,” he said. In 1956, the Suez crisis—an attempted British/French intervention into Egypt—saw Britain forced to beat a humiliating retreat under US instruction while it also abandoned “our aircraft carriers”.

“[Starting] with the transformation of our economy by Margaret Thatcher” in 1979, “we have turned around our fortunes”, he said. As a result, the UK had waged wars in Iraq, the Malvinas, Afghanistan, and Syria, was “building permanent military bases in the Gulf”, “flying policing missions over the Baltic states”, renewing its independent nuclear deterrent, and building two new aircraft carriers—”the biggest warships the Royal Navy has ever put to sea.”

It was UK membership of the EU, alongside NATO, the Commonwealth and the Five Power Defence Agreement with Australia and New Zealand that enabled the “amplification” of British power, Cameron said.

This was the preamble to his warning of a fresh existential threat to the European continent. He asked rhetorically, is “peace and stability on our continent” assured “beyond any shadow of doubt?”

Although he cited the terror threat posed by Islamic State to justify a further European-wide assault on democratic rights, he made clear that the main danger was what he described as a “newly belligerent Russia.”

It was barely 20 years since war in the Balkans, he said, and, more recently, “we have seen tanks rolling into Georgia and Ukraine.” Such threats require a “shared approach by the European democracies,” he continued, evoking the Cold War and NATO’s formation, under US auspices, against the Soviet Union in 1949.

British exit from the EU would mean abandoning “the Poles, the Czechs, the Baltic States and the other countries of central and eastern Europe which languished for so long behind the Iron Curtain.” These nations “view the prospect of Britain leaving the EU with utter dismay. They watch what is happening in Moscow with alarm and trepidation.

“Now is a time for strength in numbers. Now is the worst possible time for Britain to put that at risk. Only our adversaries will benefit.”

Cameron’s presentation turns reality on its head. The liquidation of the Soviet Union in 1991 by the Stalinist bureaucracy was the signal for a scramble by the major powers—led by the US—to regain access to territory, raw materials, labour and markets that had been lost to them due to the October 1917 revolution.

The break-up of Yugoslavia and the Balkan wars of the 1990s were precipitated by the NATO powers—foremost the US and Germany. Under the banner of “humanitarian intervention” and “national self-determination”, they encouraged intercommunal conflict and carried out the bombing of Serbia—aimed at transforming the Balkans into a de facto NATO protectorate.

Likewise, in Ukraine, it was the US and the EU that instigated the 2014 right-wing putsch in Kiev to install a virulently anti-Russian regime.

This drive to encircle, weaken and ultimately dismember Russia is resulting in the greatest remilitarisation of Europe since the Second World War. Only last week, Washington used the change of command at its European Command HQ in Germany to step up its provocations against Moscow—including plans to deploy a third US armoured brigade combat team near the Russian border and more funds for “war fighting equipment.”

Describing a “resurgent Russia” as a greater threat to American interests than terrorism, newly installed Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti said the 60,000 or so US troops deployed in Europe must be prepared “to fight tonight if the deterrence fails.”

Cameron has solidarised fully with these threats against Russia. In doing so, he warned that without Britain’s membership of the EU, there was no guarantee that Washington and NATO would be able to count on future European backing for its provocations. There had been a “real risk of a feeble European response, and of a split between the United States and Europe” in response to the Ukraine crisis, he said. But Britain had injected “steel into Europe’s action,” ensuring effective sanctions against Russia through the EU and thus ensuring “crucial unity between Europe and the US in the face of Russian aggression.”

The UK had played the same role in pushing “hardest” for the implementation of an EU oil embargo against Iran.

Although he did not state so explicitly, Cameron’s claims were directed against France and Germany.

Without UK membership there would be no one to prevent Europe from “becoming a protectionist bloc” or “pushing for political union,” Cameron said.

If the Leave vote went through, the UK would be left “outside the room” while the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, “the Maltese, the Slovak, the Czech, the Polish, the Slovene” took the decisions that would “have a direct bearing on Britain”—the implication being that none of them could be trusted.

EU plans decades of austerity for Greece

Alex Lantier

After the unanimous vote by Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) parliamentarians Sunday to impose a new package of €7.2 billion in pension cuts and tax increases, the euro group of euro zone finance ministers met yesterday in Brussels to discuss plans for restructuring Greek debt.

The meeting came after a three-day strike by broad sections of the working class in Greece against the austerity measures imposed by Syriza and the European Union. Anger is growing against Syriza, which has time and again betrayed its election promises to end EU austerity. After the latest cuts, which boost regressive value-added taxes as well as income taxes for low-paid workers and small businesses, the minimum state pension will fall from €450 to an even more miserable €382 per month.

Initial reports of the plans being discussed in Brussels show that what Syriza is trying to negotiate with the EU is a framework for imposing decades of harsh austerity on Greece. In exchange for extending Greece’s debt maturities and capping interest rates and yearly debt payments, the euro group is demanding that Syriza adopt “contingent measures” to automatically impose more austerity if it has any problem meeting its debt repayment schedule. Moreover, the euro group will not fully engage the debt restructuring process until the end of the current bailout scheme in 2018.

These austerity measures are apparently intended to continue for decades in order to bring Greek debt from over 170 percent to 74 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2060.

EU officials made clear that there would be no final deal reached Monday on restructuring Greece’s unsustainable debt. “Today we will only have a first discussion on what, when, if and how the debt sustainability or debt relief measures could take place,” Dutch finance minister and euro group president Jeroen Dijsselbloem said as he arrived at the meeting.

Nonetheless, EU officials indicated that Syriza had largely agreed to “contingent measures” prescribing new austerity to ensure that Greece continues to service its debt. European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Pierre Moscovici said, “A deal needs to address three issues: reforms, we are there; the contingency mechanism, we are almost there; and the debt issue, we are starting the discussion.”

Syriza also reportedly abandoned its objections to EU demands that it run a massive budget surplus to raise funds equivalent to 3.5 percent of Greek GDP to service its debt. Though this measure is so harsh that even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) objected that it was unrealistic, Syriza plans to abide by it.

Syriza officials tried to present this deal as a victory for Greece. “We have an important opportunity before us for the country to break this vicious cycle and enter a virtuous cycle,” said Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos declared, “This was a very good euro group for Greece, and I think a very good euro group for Europe.”

In fact, under cover of restructuring Greece’s debt, Syriza is preparing for the imposition of lasting and drastic austerity to further impoverish the working class.

The French business magazine La Tribune wrote: “The vicious circle of unreachable objectives and endless austerity is not broken but reinforced by the ‘contingent measures.’ Behind Alexis Tsipras’ cries of victory, this worrying fact should not be forgotten… It is not certain that exchanging debt restructuring for intensified austerity and surveillance is a good deal, and the Greek government may prove to have obtained only a Pyrrhic victory.”

The close collaboration between the EU and Syriza to impose more austerity on the working class has once again vindicated the warnings made by theWorld Socialist Web Site about Syriza even before it came to power in the January 2015 elections. It is obvious to ever-broader sections of workers in Greece and internationally that Syriza is a reactionary bourgeois party, an instrument of the Greek ruling establishment committed to defend the EU and Greek capitalism. Workers can defend their basic social rights only in revolutionary struggle against Syriza and all its political allies and defenders.

A recent report in the German financial daily Handelsblatt underscores that the EU bailout of Greece was never a program to help the Greek working masses, who lost far more from austerity measures than any benefit they received, but rather a subsidy to the major European banks stolen from European taxpayers. The hundreds of billions that have been spent since 2009 went overwhelmingly to repaying Greek sovereign debt held by European—and primarily French and German—banks.

Of the €215.9 billion spent on the Greek bailout by the European institutions, only €9.7 billion (less than 5 percent) went to the coffers of the Greek government, Handelsblatt reported. Of the rest, €86.9 billion went to service debt, €52.3 billion to interest payments, and €37.3 billion to rescue Greek banks.

“The aid packages were first and foremost used to rescue European banks,” European School of Management and Technology President Jörg Rocholl told Handelsblatt. “The European taxpayers have bailed out the private investors,” he added.

Syriza’s unanimous vote to impose more austerity on Greek workers as part of this bailout scheme testifies to the utterly reactionary role of its brand of pseudo-left politics.

At a meeting of the Syriza parliamentary fraction on Friday, Tsipras unabashedly came out in favour of the austerity measures he came to power claiming to oppose, cynically arguing that this was the only way to discharge Syriza’s duty to save Greece’s welfare system from collapse. Calling the cuts “progressive changes,” he said, “Our goal is not simply to complete the review by the lenders—that could be, as in earlier years, easily achieved—but to stick to our own obligations in full.”

The so-called “Group of the 53” inside Syriza, which includes Tsakalotos, proposed that the Syriza government step down in a deceitful manoeuvre to pin the blame for its austerity measures on the next government. They are aware that one of the main dangers facing Syriza is its exposure to the explosive social anger in the working class. In a statement it issued, the “Group of the 53” proposed that Syriza “fall heroically resisting the internal or external troika, rather than humiliatingly at the hands of [Greek] society itself.”