Following the recent declarations on last EU summit, European Left is enduring the fight and showing an ample opposition to reductions of workers’ rights and the rescue of banks. The European struggle must happen together with all mobilized social actors, for stable employment, decent salaries and pensions, and guaranteed public services.

The recent announced measures are an attempt for the demolition of social rights in Greece and very soon for all Europe. The Greek Government has decided to cut down lay-off compensations by 50%, increase the legal threshold for monthly lay-offs, initiate wages lower than the minimum wage for young employees, terminate legal refereeing in the process of collective agreements, reduce the compensation for overtime work and allow the overriding of the General Collective Agreements through sectoral agreements.

All these measures were decided without any discussion and voting in the Parliament and will be officially approved through an “express-process”: Through a series of Presidential Decrees, signed by the President of the Republic in the next 10 days.

Members of European Left made an official statement and are promoting an appeal (inside a European Parliament initiative) during this week that has been designated as a "Week of Protest and Solidarity" across Europe.

Explaining the need for united action across Europe, Nikolaos Chountis, MEP for Syriza in Greece, declared: "Greece is the guinea pig for imposing very harsh austerity measures to achieve not only fiscal discipline imposed by the Stability Pact, but also to achieve competitiveness with "Chinese terms", ie to drop the labour costs and reduce labour and social rights. " But the people won’t give up of their fight: "In Greece the mobilisations are taking place with different demonstrations and actions in all the cities across Greece. For example, on Wednesday evening, 23 June in Athens and other cities, there are going to be massive demonstrations and rallies to fight the neo-liberal reform of the social security and pension system. On Friday night, there will be a public rally in Athens with trade unionists, MPs, MEPs and representatives of the movements and civil society. On Sunday there will be major demonstrations across the country against the privatisations of public services and in particular against the privatisation of the rail network."

Miguel Portas, MEP for the Left Bloc spoke about the actions taking place in Portugal this week: "The Left Bloc will widely distribute 200,000 copies of a newspaper about the crisis of the sovereign debt in Greece and the answers of the Left to the Stability Programmes in the different countries, including Portugal. In our country we have answered the Second Package of Stability Measures with very concrete answers in relation to fiscal justice, reduction of military expenditure and the end of public-private partnerships."

 Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Sweden will also be on the stage for protests and actions.