Friends and comrades,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to Athens.

I wish the best of successes to your two-day conference, organized by our own Nikos Choundis—who is going to lose this privilege of singularity when joined soon by a greater company of SYRIZA European parliament members—along with our group in the European parliament, the European United Left / Nordic Green Left(GUE/NGL).

I welcome you in a pre-election Greece, where the departing Samaras-Venizelos coalition government is fighting its last desperate rearguard battles to stay in power.

But Greece is ready today not simply to turn a page—Greece is ready to read from a different book.

The memoranda of austerity have failed miserably and have done so on all indices.

They have dismantled the country’s productive core.

They have sent unemployment to incredible heights.

They have created circumstances of a humanitarian crisis.

You are today visiting in a country that has been left to die a slow death because the leadership of Europe has chosen it to play the role of a guinea pig.

And has imposed on it the kind of medicine which has brought about worse results than the illness itself had originally generated.

This way, while the country’s foreign debt was at 125% of GDP in 2010, something that constituted the pretext at the time for putting Greece under the memorandum, today, after almost four years of memorandum enforcement the debt has reached 175% of GDP.

Plus, the forecasting is that it will go up to 205% of GDP in 2015.

That’s the “success story” of the Greek government and the troika in Greece.

They have truly left a country in the hands of the butcher, as the Spanish MEP Alejandro Cercas has observed.

They have led an entire people to the slaughter house of the memorandum. And today, instead of admitting their mistake, of apologizing, and of correcting it they insist on the continuation of the same mistake, while they are preparing a third installment of the memorandum series. Only they are just looking for another word for it in order to fool us.

And, please, allow me at this point to remind people once again: the departing Samaras government has no claim on any political legitimacy for binding this country and this people to yet another Memorandum, regardless of the name it will bear.

Instead, it has the obligation to put to the Greek people’s judgment its decisions as well as its commitments.

By the same token, our partners in Europe should also be well advised that we are not going to accept pre-election faits accomplis of this kind.

Friends and comrades,

Developments in Greece are exceptionally instructive but also critical for the trajectory of all of Europe.

Because, if Greece was chosen as a guinea pig, it was for this reason, namely to find out how much a people can bear the harsh austerity so as to use it as measurement for the other countries too.

Therefore, the extent to which the guinea pig will react and so cancel the experiment is critical not only for the Greek people but for all the peoples in Europe.

In that sense, the upcoming political change in Greece will be significant for all of Europe. And, reversely, the various balances of political forces that will be created in Europe should prove critical for the outcome of the political change in Greece.

Because no change can be sustained within a context of isolation—you see, the small Gaulish village bears it all out only on the pages of Goscinny and Uderzo, not in a monetary union.

It is for that reason that we are seeking, and that all of us together can make it real, the political change in Greece such that it will inspire a political change in Europe. And that’s a realistic plan.

We have daily, live evidence of it in our campaign for the presidency of the European Commission.

People are hungry for change. It is in their hands to force it into existence.

Especially the peoples of the South, trapped as they are by the austerity memoranda.

To mobilize against austerity and to demand from their governments to come together all of us for a change in policy in Europe. Because we are struggling for a breakthrough that is both inspired by solidarity and viability covering all the over-indebted countries in the South in Europe.

With the European debt conference.

This coming May can and will be the month of the peoples.

It’s going to be very critical because the people’s vote will form the new balance of political forces in Europe for dealing with the crisis.

Friends and comrades,

We are not being irrelevant when we are demanding a change of policy in Europe.

On the contrary, those who are being irrelevant are the ones trying to prevent the change from happening, all the time looking for ways to be useful to Ms Merkel.

The ground is indeed fertile for a change of policy.

Even at the level of the European parliament, which has started an inquiry into the role of the troika in the countries under a memorandum.

We have said from the start that this effort is incomplete. Especially in Greece, it disregards the political leaders during the time period of the two memoranda.

We have also said that it is a delayed effort, and during a politically suspect time—a pre-election time.

Irrespective of our plausible misgivings, however, it remains an inquiry that has managed to scare in its guilt the Greek political establishment.

To say nothing about the political wounds it has managed to open in Europe, and which will prove hard to heal, if they do heal.

It is in the citizens’ hands to force the next Commission to take seriously into account the report of the two co-rapporteurs and to change policy.

That is why these European elections are critical.

That is why it shouldn’t be one more lost opportunity.

Friends and comrades,

In every corner of Europe. In the north and the south. I believe that the basic political message of the candidacy by the Left for the presidency of the European Commission: to end austerity and to regain democracy.

Every citizen in Europe, as time goes by, realizes that the Left is the only democratic option against neo-liberalism. That the extreme and the populist right-wing is but a replacement force at neo-liberalism’s disposal.

Friends and comrades,

Allow me at this point a reference concerning the tragic events in Ukraine. The eruption in violence in the last few days has brought the country to the brink of civil war and carnage.

This development is threatening the peace and the stability in the region.

Blind violence represents no solution.

Which is why it is unthinkable when it is being indirectly applauded on the part of the European leadership as a solution.

It has been Europe’s cultural treasure and legacy, namely democracy combined with a peaceful accommodation of differences.

The only factor relevant for deciding on the future of the Ukraine is the very same Ukrainian people. And do so under conditions of sovereignty and democracy.

The European Union should avoid any inflammatory actions, such as the imposition of sanctions, and instead contribute to defuse the violence and the reaching of a peaceful and democratic arrangement.

Friends and comrades,

In view of the critical electoral battle in May,

We are all together like co-passengers in a fascinating as well as difficult voyage for change in all of Europe.

But in this voyage we are carrying in our luggage the precious load from the struggles, right on history’s rails, made by thousands of European workers, intellectuals, plain people, and, more important, by the youth of all past generations.

For the Europe of peace and democracy.

For the Europe of solidarity and justice.

For the Europe of labor and of culture; of ecology; of human and social rights.

This is how we envision a better future.

By changing the present.

Because at no other time after the war has Europe been fallen to such depths if darkness.

Never before, have fear, insecurity and pessimism burdened so heavily people’s expectations about the future.

This Europe we do not want.

This Europe we will change.

The Europe of the conservatives, the neo-liberals and the social-democratic leadership is currently re-distributing an income for the few and only fear for the many.

Our Europe guarantees life lived in dignity.

Economic and social security.

Individual liberties and individual rights.

Protection of private life and of the personal data of every citizen.

Our Europe guarantees Democracy.

The return of democracy, primarily at the place of its birth, Greece, but also throughout Europe.

I wish to you a successful conference in Athens,

Successful and noble struggles.

We will do well.

We will exceed expectations.

We will be the positive and pleasant surprise in the European elections.

Goodbye and to victory!

(The press bureau)