From Athens to Madrid, from Lisbon to Paris, Rome and Dublin, governments inflict Europeans populations with unprecedented austerity cures. The challenge is clear: making peoples, especially the young, kneel down while only a few still gets fatter.

Everywhere in Europe, we undergo the same logic and the same consequences : 300,000 young Spanish expelled from their housing ; 65,000 teaching appointments eliminated in France ; the soaring unemployment rate in Ireland that reaches 31,5% of those under 25 of age, more than 39% in Greece, youth unemployment higher than 28% in Portugal. In North America the peoples are also suffering these imperialists and capitalists’ policies.

Paying for them: NO WAY !

Since the beginning of “their” crisis, that they provoked themselves by their antisocial politics, the states of the European Union have lent the banks almost 700 billions euros, spoiling our money. Private debts became a public charge also aggravated by the numerous tax breaks granted to big companies and worldwide shareholders. Credit rating agencies and financial marketplaces now keep speculating on this very debt. This crisis is not a product of bad administration of the system or a bad moment of economy, but is deeply connected with the irrational and unfair nature of the capitalist itself.

Today, as capitalists lose their mind, governments impose us austerity in the name of bankruptcy: dismantling public services, calling for an increase in the working hours, contracting the national staff, reducing wages, breaking down the fair standards labor acts… Moreover, they want this austerity written in stone with the “Euro Plus” pact, elaborated behind our back. We blame them: they wish we never opposed and presented an progressive policy for our countries in Europe and North America. But we won’t be a lost generation!

The young people call for RESISTANCE !

Young Europeans and North Americans are mobilizing at the forefront, like across the Mediterranean, refusing austerity and demanding a better redistribution of wealth and public policies in such areas as education, employment, quality housing, for general policies in favor of the peoples’ interests, not of the bank and big corporation owners… Therefore, we, young people throughout Europe and North America call for the young people to participate in all the many and diverse struggles taking place in the coming weeks and months in each and every country, as the day of action on Saturday October 15th, with which WFDY stands in solidarity for peace, justice and revolutionary social transformation!

The World Federation of Democratic Youth condemns the European Union-India Free Trade Agreement as an imperialist plot in the interest of financial and pharmaceutical monopolies amongst others and to the detriment of the workers in both the countries of Europe and India.

The cynical ploy to re-introduce bonded labor to Europe whilst privatizing and handing to transnational monopolies the India economy, and all public procurement, will serve only to increase social dumping, damage collective rights and lower terms and conditions in Europe and to increase precarity and instability in India.

The FTA will see a reserve army of bonded labor, without enforceable employment rights, brought into Europe to be exploited and also further entrench neo-liberalism in the Indian economy

WFDY has received the news that the Greek parliament has decided to pass another austerity plan to take even further the process of privatizations, tax raises and rights withdrawing that the Greek people have been suffering for the last years.

Under the excuse of the national and international crisis, the Prime Minister Georgeou Papandreou and the Government of PASOK (Socialist Party of Greece) tried to blackmail the people, attempting to convince the workers and the youth that the refusal of this plan would lead to a situation “even worse” than the social catastrophe already lived today, because the international “assistance” would not be given to Greece.

Outside Greece, the international structures of the monopolies such as the International Monetary Fund and the European Union participated in this process of blackmail with the same arguments.

On this occasion, WFDY underlines that never the IMF and EU intervention in a country has brought prosperity. It only serves the interests of the capital forces both in national and international level, in cooperation with the bourgeois forces in each country by reducing the rights of the workers and youth, destroying the public services and deepening even more the already existing social problems. Furthermore, the money sent to Greece, not only will be paid with a high interest rate, as it is being distributed among the financial sector, to ensure that the bank owners and other big economic groups never face any problem.

Over the last 48 hours the Greek working class and youth have shown that they are willing to counterattack against these brutal policies. The general strike that involved millions of workers and the countless number of actions all throughout Greece are powerful sign of the peoples’ belief and strength and was only possible with the most valuable contribution of the class oriented trade unions rallied in PAME, WFDY member organization in Greece, KNE (Communist Youth of Greece) and its Party, KKE (Communist Party of Greece)

In this moment, even if the Government decided to ignore the express will of the people it should represent, WFDY sends a word of solidarity to the Greek workers and youth, encouraging them to continue struggling, since it is clearer than ever that only through the organized and militant struggle it is possible to resist and to win!