Austerity & Fascism In Greece – The Real 1% Doctrine

[Phil Dragoo]

Yiannis appeared in the endnotes of Henrik Kruger, The Great Heroin Coup, for his writing on CIA Activities in Greece. He is a classmate from college whose work is insightful. Here's some background from one year ago this month:

http://www.euractiv.com/socialeurope/aus...sis-508476

A feeling of doom hovers over Greece as the debt crisis worsens and Greek society is losing faith both in its leaders and their ability to overcome the ever-increasing possibility that in the end the country will not be able to deal with its sovereign debt, argues Yiannis Roubatis.





Yiannis Roubatis is a former member of the European Parliament and now heads EurActiv Greece.


February 2012:http://www.euractiv.com/euro-finance/vic...sis-510703

The Vicious Cycle of Greece

Whatever the solution in the tug of war between the Troika and the Greek authorities, it is ordinary Greeks who will be punished for the collective mistakes of their leaders and the mistakes of their colleagues in the other European states, argues Yiannis Roubatis.





Yiannis Roubatis is a former member of the European Parliament and now heads EurActiv Greece.

[Jan Klimkowski]

The, ahem, curiously international language of torture:

Greek anti-fascist protesters 'tortured by police' after Golden Dawn clash

Fifteen people arrested in Athens says they were subjected to what their lawyer describes as an Abu Ghraib-style humiliation

Maria Margaronis in Athens

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 9 October 2012 13.08 BST


Fifteen anti-fascist protesters arrested in Athens during a clash with supporters of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn have said they were tortured in the Attica General Police Directorate (GADA) the Athens equivalent of Scotland Yard and subjected to what their lawyer describes as an Abu Ghraib-style humiliation.

Members of a second group of 25 who were arrested after demonstrating in support of their fellow anti-fascists the next day said they were beaten and made to strip naked and bend over in front of officers and other protesters inside the same police station.

Several of the protesters arrested after the first demonstration on Sunday 30 September told the Guardian they were slapped and hit by a police officer while five or six others watched, were spat on and "used as ashtrays" because they "stank", and were kept awake all night with torches and lasers being shone in their eyes.


Some said they were burned on the arms with a cigarette lighter, and they said police officers videoed them on their mobile phones and threatened to post the pictures on the internet and give their home addresses to Golden Dawn, which has a track record of political violence.

Golden Dawn's popularity has surged since the June election, when it won 18 seats in parliament; it recently came third in several opinion polls, behind the conservative New Democracy and the leftwing party Syriza.

Last month the Guardian reported that victims of crime have been told by police officers to seek help from Golden Dawn, who then felt obliged to make donations to the group.

One of the two women among them said the officers used crude sexual insults and pulled her head back by the hair when she tried to avoid being filmed. The protesters said they were denied drinking water and access to lawyers for 19 hours. "We were so thirsty we drank water from the toilets," she said.

One man with a bleeding head wound and a broken arm that he said had been sustained during his arrest alleged the police continued to beat him in GADA and refused him medical treatment until the next morning. Another said the police forced his legs apart and kicked him in the testicles during the arrest.

"They spat on me and said we would die like our grandfathers in the civil war," he said.

A third said he was hit on the spine with a Taser as he tried to run away; the burn mark is still visible. "It's like an electric shock," he said. "My legs were paralysed for a few minutes and I fell. They handcuffed me behind my back and started hitting and kicking me in the ribs and the head. Then they told me to stand up, but I couldn't, so they pulled me up by the chain while standing on my shin. They kept kicking and punching me for five blocks to the patrol car."

The protesters asked that their names not be published, for fear of reprisals from the police or Golden Dawn.

A second group of protesters also said they were "tortured" at GADA. "We all had to go past an officer who made us strip naked in the corridor, bend over and open our back passage in front of everyone else who was there," one of them told the Guardian. "He did whatever he wanted with us slapped us, hit us, told us not to look at him, not to sit cross-legged. Other officers who came by did nothing.

"All we could do was look at each other out of the corners of our eyes to give each other courage. He had us there for more than two hours. He would take phone calls on his mobile and say, 'I'm at work and I'm fucking them, I'm fucking them up well'. In the end only four of us were charged, with resisting arrest. It was a day out of the past, out of the colonels' junta."

In response to the allegations, Christos Manouras, press spokesman for the Hellenic police, said: "There was no use of force by police officers against anyone in GADA. The Greek police examine and investigate in depth every single report regarding the use of violence by police officers; if there are any responsibilities arising, the police take the imposed disciplinary action against the officers responsible. There is no doubt that the Greek police always respect human rights and don't use violence."

Sunday's protest was called after a Tanzanian community centre was vandalised by a group of 80-100 people in a central Athens neighbourhood near Aghios Panteleimon, a stronghold of Golden Dawn where there have been many violent attacks on immigrants.

According to protesters, about 150 people rode through the neighbourhood on motorcycles handing out leaflets. They said the front of the parade encountered two or three men in black Golden Dawn T-shirts, and a fight broke out. A large number of police immediately swooped on them from the surrounding streets.

According to Manouras: "During the motorcycle protest there were clashes between demonstrators and local residents. The police intervened to prevent the situation from deteriorating and restore public order. There might have been some minor injuries, during the clashes between residents, protesters and police."

Marina Daliani, a lawyer for one of the Athens 15, said they had been charged with "disturbing the peace with covered faces" (because they were wearing motorcycle helmets), and with grievous bodily harm against two people. But, she said, no evidence of such harm had so far been submitted. They have now been released on bail of €3,000 (£2,400) each.

According to Charis Ladis, a lawyer for another of the protesters, the sustained mistreatment of Greeks in police custody has been rare until this year: "This case shows that a page has been turned. Until now there was an assumption that someone who was arrested, even violently, would be safe in custody. But these young people have all said they lived through an interminable dark night.

Dimitris Katsaris, a lawyer for four of the protesters, said his clients had suffered Abu Ghraib-style humiliation, referring to the detention centre where Iraqi detainees were tortured by US soldiers during the Iraq war. "This is not just a case of police brutality of the kind you hear about now and then in every European country. This is happening daily. We have the pictures, we have the evidence of what happens to people getting arrested protesting against the rise of the neo-Nazi party in Greece. This is the new face of the police, with the collaboration of the justice system."

One of the arrested protesters, a quiet man in his 30s standing by himself, said: "Journalists here don't report these things. You have to tell them what's happening here, in this country that suffered so much from Nazism. No one will pay attention unless you report these things abroad."

[Magda Hassan]

Greek police collude with fascist Golden Dawn group

By Robert Stevens
9 October 2012

Greek police are ever-more openly colluding with the fascist Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi).
On an almost daily basis, Golden Dawn members and their supporters go on the rampage in the capital Athens and other towns around the country, attacking immigrants and political opponents with impunity.
Some of these attacks, often led by some of the party's 18 parliamentary deputies, have been filmed and photographed. Police have not only turned a blind eye, but they have encouraged or participated in the attacks.

It quoted "One victim of crime, an eloquent US-trained civil servant," who "told the Guardian of her family's shock at being referred to the party when her mother recently called the police following an incident involving Albanian immigrants in their downtown apartment block. They immediately said if it's an issue with immigrants go to Golden Dawn,' said the 38-year-old, who fearing for her job and safety, spoke only on condition of anonymity."Reports attest to the fact that the police have referred citizens asking for assistance to the fascists. TheGuardian newspaper recently reported on "mounting evidence that Athenians are being openly directed by police to seek help from the neo-Nazi group".
Active police support was critical to Golden Dawn making a breakthrough in the June general election. According to To Vima, 50 percent of police officers voted for Golden Dawn. Many police officers, particularly within the riot control department, are Golden Dawn members.
The racism exploited by Golden Dawn is whipped up by the government and the police. In August the coalition government led by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras began a mass round-up of immigrants, mobilising 4,500 officers. Many of the 1,400 people lifted off the streets were singled out entirely on the basis of their skin colour and for looking "foreign".
Last week police reported that 2,135 unregistered migrants were sent to their home countries between August and September. A total of 1,259 were deported by the Aliens Bureau, with most coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Albania.
During the election campaign Samaras scapegoated immigrants for the economic catastrophe being imposed by the Greek bourgeoisie and the European Union, referring to undocumented workers in Greece as an "unarmed invasion". The government has added more security to prevent entry into the country from its border with Turkey.
This was the backdrop against which on September 7 Golden Dawn parliamentary deputy Giorgos Germenis led 40 of his party's thugs on arampage through a night market in Rafina, north-west of Athens. They demanded that dark-skinned merchants showed their permits and destroyed a number of their stalls. Germenis bragged, "We told the police and then we did what Golden Dawn must do."
Another Golden Dawn MP, Panayiotis Iliopoulos, has also been linked to the attack.
After a public outcry, the police chief on duty at Rafina's main police headquarters has been suspended.
Another attack took place in Missolonghi, in western Greece. Led by deputy Costas Barbarousis, Golden Dawn members smashed fruit and vegetable market stalls owned by immigrants. A police officer reportedly took part in this attack and has been suspended pending an investigation.
Last year, a former police minister confirmed that Golden Dawn regularly collude with the police, admitting the fascists had carried out "joint actions and assisted Greek police."
One anti-racism campaigner told the Financial Times this month, "We get reports their members [Golden Dawn] are involved in protection rackets, sometimes in collusion with the police."
In June, Egyptian fishermen were severely beaten in Perama, outside Piraeus. One of the victims stated that one of the assailants wore a Golden Dawn T-shirt. Just hours earlier Golden Dawn MP, Ioannis Lagos, had stated in a speech, "Egyptian fishermen will be held accountable by the Golden Dawn, and by the Greek people for their activity."
Despite laws against inciting racial violence, Lagos escaped prosecution.
These are just a handful of the hundreds of racist attacks this year, which have nearly doubled from the same period last year. Some have resulted in killings.
The media have played a central role in bolstering Golden Dawn. Since the election, the fascists have been regularly feted on TV and radio shows, with party deputies becoming permanent fixtures.
An important element in this promotion is the attempt to oppose the development of working class opposition to the government's unprecedented austerity measures. One columnist in the right-wing daily Kathimerini stated, "Those of us believing in democracy owe a big 'thank you' to Golden Dawn," adding: "it is an opportunity for legality to confront the quasi-legitimate violence of the left."
On September 10, Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias was forced to announce that Greek police would withdraw state bodyguards granted to Golden Dawn MPs. After the attack on the Rafina market, Dendias called on the authorities to file charges against the two MPs. While a police statement agreed it would carry out the instruction, it noted that guards would continue to protect party leader Nikos Michaloliakos and Golden Dawn's offices.
Dendias' move is at most a thin cover for an on-going relationship between Golden Dawn and the police and the top echelons of the state.
Dendias has publicly stated that the problem of immigration is greater than Greece's financial problems, while Samaras said this month that those coming to Greece from Africa, South Asia and now Syria create "major distress". Asked about close ties between Golden Dawn and the police, he said of the latter, "I'm very happy with the way they've done their job."
It is not only the conservative New Democracy led by Samaras that is legitimising assaults on immigrant workers and youth. It is aided and abetted by its coalition partners, the social democratic PASOK and DIMAR, the Democratic Left party that split off from the bourgeois "left" SYRIZA coalition in 2010.
In scenes reminiscent of the Nazi occupation of Greece, the coalition decided last month to transport a group of 400 immigrants into a disused military camp on the outskirts of Corinth. Golden Dawn members in the city whipped up anti-immigrant hysteria, with Michaloliakos asking demagogically, "Why should Greek taxpayers subsidise a fully-catered stay in a holiday camp for people we don't want?"
Fully aware of the atrocious and inhuman conditions that faced the immigrants, the PASOK mayor of the city, Alexandros Pnevmatikos, also registered his party's protest at their arrival. He immediately ordered the camp's water supply cut off for several hours as a reprisal.
Pnevmatikos stated, "It was unacceptable for the ministry to send all these people here without even discussing it with the city authorities," adding: "There's a big backlash in the city because of fears of a mass escape by immigrants trying to get to the port and on to a ship for Italy ... They shouldn't be staying here."
https://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/oct20...-o09.shtml

[Peter Lemkin]

Sad. One can only openly wonder if the US and NATO are behind this upsurge in fascism in Greece.....because it wouldn't be the FIRST time they were!!!! They were behind the period of the General's Coup that ran Greece - another earlier fascist period. While most in the West and USA have forgotten about that - or never knew, I've often been to Greece and found that almost everyone there knew all about who was behind the General's Coup. They have not forgotten and will not forgive a second such period being shoved down their throats. Expect quite a violent reaction from the usually mild-mannered Greeks if this continues and expands further!

[Magda Hassan]

Video

A senior police officer claims successive governments in Greece allowed the ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn party to infiltrate the country's police force. Victims of some brutal attacks by far-right thugs in Athens warn that immigrants are just the first victims in a long list of neo-fascist targets.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Greece is clearly the model for Fascist Shock Therapy in Europe:

Greek journalists warn over press freedom

Tension rises between Greek government and media after TV presenters are suspended over criticism of public order minister

Julian Borger
guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 October 2012 19.44 GMT


Greek journalists have warned that press freedom was under unprecedented attack, with critics being suspended or put on trial by a precarious coalition government struggling to push through an economic austerity programme as a way of attracting foreign funds.

The clash between the government and the press appeared to be nearing a crisis with a strike due to start on Tuesday on state television (ERT) over the suspension of two popular presenters for mild criticism of a minister. Meanwhile, the editor of an investigative magazine went on trial on Monday for publishing a list of some 2,000 wealthy Greeks with Swiss bank accounts who the government has yet to investigate for possible tax evasion.

Dimitris Trimis, the head of the Athens Newspaper Editors Union said the current pressure on press freedom was the most intense of his career. "This is a matter of democracy," Trimis said. "The government feels insecure. The only way it feels it can convince society of its policies is to try to manipulate the media through coercion.

"This is true of both state television and in the private sector of the media where there has been a large number of lost jobs and wage cuts and so it has become easier to manipulate in the interests of the government and the economic elite."

Marilena Katsimi and Kostas Arvanitis were summarily dropped from their morning magazine programme on ERT after discussing the reaction of the public order minister, Nikos Dendias to a Guardian report on claims by anti-fascist demonstrators that they had been tortured by the police. Katsimi said on air that Dendias had not carried out his threat to sue the Guardian over the article because the medical examiners report "shows that there was indeed a crime." She described Dendias's actions as "strange" but did not think he would resign.

"About an hour after the programme ended, the director of information called for a transcript. He didn't ask to talk to us. And it was then announced that two other journalists would present tomorrow's show. We were cut," Katsimi told the Guardian.

"The style of the programme is very informal. It is a morning conversation over a cup of coffee and it is very popular with high ratings. We have been critical of ministers in the past from all parties, and there have been complaints to the management before but this is new. This is threat to public and private media."

Katsimi said the journalists' suspension was one of several "peculiar things" to have happened at ERT recently. "Everywhere in media people are being fired, but at ERT they are hiring. The government want people who agree with their position and they want to hire their friends."

ERT journalists are planning an initial two-hour strike from 6am on Tuesday, to be followed by 24-hour strikes until the suspension of Katsimi and Arvanitis is revoked.

Aimilios Liatsos, ERT's general director for news issued a statement on Monday claiming that the two journalists had "violated the basic rules of journalistic practice". He added that they had made "unacceptable insinuations" against Dendias without giving him an opportunity to express his view, "while their comments appeared to anticipate the results of a court decision".

Another prominent journalist, Kostas Vaxevanis, went on trial on Monday for publishing a leaked list of about 2,000 wealthy Greeks with Swiss bank accounts, who may face investigation for tax evasion.

The list was seized from a computer technician at HSBC bank in Geneva, who was suspected of trying to sell it, and was originally supplied to the Greek government in 2010 by the then French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, now head of the International Monetary Fund. However, the Greek finance ministry failed to act on the list for two years before it was leaked to Vaxevanis's Hot Doc magazine.

The case has triggered an uproar in Athens, where the speed of Vaxevanis arrest and trial within three days of charges being pressed has been contrasted with the many years it has taken the government to pursue rich Greek tax evaders.

On emerging from court where the trial was adjourned, Vaxevanis was greeted by cheers from a crowd of about 250, mostly journalists.

"I was doing my job in the name of the public interest," the journalist said. "Journalism is revealing the truth when everyone else is trying to hide it."

The Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe expressed concern about the Vaxevanis's brief arrest on Sunday. "I am relieved that Vaxevanis was released from custody after a brief detention, and trust that he will now be tried in a transparent manner considering the acute public interest in the case," OSCE media freedom representative Dunja Mijatovic said.

"It is the responsibility of media as the watchdog of democracy to disclose information in the public interest, even if it is considered sensitive by some."

[Magda Hassan]

Meet the Real Sons of Anarchy Greek Anti-Fascist Motorcycle Club Confronts neo-Nazis

by WILL POTTER on NOVEMBER 7, 2012
in ACTIVISM & ACTIVISTS' RESPONSE

Meet the real Sons of Anarchy. An anti-fascist motorcycle club in Athens, Greece, patrols the community, fighting neo-Nazis who attack immigrants.
From Athens Anarchist Anti-Fascist Motorcycle Club:

As of June 2012 the far right/neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn is officially represented in the Greek Parliament with support from the local media. As we have seen throughout history, in times of "economic" crisis, far-right ideologies tend to increase their influence dramatically.

The number of attacks on immigrants is rising every week, fuelled by the police's complicitly apathetic stance and refusal to do anything to stop the perpetrators. This has led to a need for anti-racist patrols, as it is the only way of protecting immigrants from racist violence.
On the nights of the 15th and 22nd of September, the first two antifascist motorcycle patrols took place, with fly-posting and protest chants against neo-Nazi attacks. A third motorcycle demo passed through down-town locations on the evening of Sunday, September 30th, where it encountered a group of neo-Nazis smashing up immigrants' shops. The antifa successfully attacked and stopped them, and were themselves attacked in retaliation by several motorcycle police units.

I wanted to share this because here in the U.S., anarchism is increasingly being linked to "terrorism" in the courts and in disinformation campaigns. There are currently two anarchists in prison for refusing to talk about their politics before a federal grand jury, and a third individual has been subpoenaed to appear today. Meanwhile, the Cleveland 4 are fighting a "terrorism enhancement" penalty that would officially reclassify them as terrorists in prison.

Minneapolis anarchist motorcycle rally supporting CeCe McDonald.

Of course, not all anarchists form motorcycle clubs. They also step in after natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy to provide relief and support that, in some cases, has been more effective than the government has been able to do. Check out Occupy Sandy Relief for more information.

There's video below. If motorcycles aren't your thing, there's also an anti-fascist scooter gang in Athens.
Meanwhile, if this club decides to start a US charter, I'll be the first to sign up.



[URL="http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/tag/anarchist/"]
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/gre...azis/6553/[/URL]

[Lauren Johnson]

What does it take to push a country into actual revolution? Pick a country, let's say Greece, push it as hard as possible and observe the results. Where is the breaking point and what does that look like? Is revolution provoked? What kind? How can fascism be the product? Could this literally be the case?

The Price Of "Collective Trauma": Greece At The Brink of Civil War

By Wolf Richter, San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Cross posted from Testosterone Pit.

"I'm wondering how much this society can endure before it explodes," said Georg Pieper, a German psychotherapist who specializes in treating post-traumatic stress disorders following catastrophes, large accidents (including the deadliest train wreck ever in Germany), acts of violence, freed hostages…. But now he was talking about Greece.

He'd spent several days in Athens to give continuing education courses in trauma therapy for psychologist, psychiatrists, and doctorsfor free, this being a country in crisis. He was accompanied by Melanie Mühl, an editor at the daily paper Frankfurter Allgemeine. And in her report, she decries how "news consumers" in Germany were fed the crisis in Greece.

It was "no more than a distant threat somewhere on the horizon," defined by barely understood terms, such as bank bailout, haircut, billion-euro holes, mismanagement, Troika, debt buyback…. "Instead of understanding the global context, we see a serious-faced Angela Merkel getting out of dark limos in Berlin, Brussels or elsewhere, on the way to the next summit where the bailout of Greece, and thus of Europe, is to be moved forward another step" [also read... The Curse Of The "Irreversible" Euro].

But what is really happening in Greece is silenced to death in the media. Pieper calls this phenomenon a "giant feat of repression."

And so they report their findings that cannot be dressed up in the by now normal euro bailout jargon and acronyms. There were pregnant women rushing from hospital to hospital, begging to be admitted to give birth. They had no health insurance and no money, and no one wanted to help them. People who used to be middle class were picking through discarded fruit and vegetables off the street as the stands from a farmers' market were being taken down.

[I have seen that dreary activity even in Paris; if Mühl spent some time looking, she could see it in Germany as well. It's not just in Greece where people, demolished by joblessness or falling real wages, are deploying desperate measures to put food on the table. And the largest consumer products companies are already reacting to it: The "Pauperization of Europe".]

Heart-breaking, the plight of the Greeks. There was an old man who'd worked over 40 years, but now his pension had been cut in half, and he couldn't afford his heart medication any longer. To check into the hospital, he had to bring his own sheets and food. Since the cleaning staff had been let go, doctors and nurses, who hadn't been paid in months, were cleaning the toilets themselves. The hospital was running short on basic medical supplies, such as latex gloves and catheters. And the suicide rate doubled over the last three yearstwo-thirds of them, men.

"Collective trauma" is how Pieper described the society whose bottom had been pulled out from under it. "Men are particularly hard hit by the crisis," Pieper said, as their pay had been decimated, or their jobs eliminated. They're seething with anger at the utterly corrupt system and a kleptocratic government that have done so much damage to the country; and they're furious at the international bailout politics whose money only benefits big banks, not the people.

These men take their anger to their families, and their sons take that anger to the street. Hence the growing number of violent gangs that attack minorities. The will to survive in humans is enormous, Pieper points out, and so humans are able to overcome even incredibly difficult situations. To do that, they need a functioning society with real structures and safety nets. But in Greece, society has been hollowed out for years to the point where it is collapsing.

"In such a dramatic situation as can be observed in Greece, the human being becomes a sort of predator, only seeing himself and his own survival," Pieper said. "Sheer necessity pushes him into irrationality, and in the worst case, this irrationality transcends into criminality." At that stage in society, he said, "solidarity is replaced by selfishness."

And so he wondered, "how much this society can endure before it explodes." Greece is on the brink of civil war, he went on, and it seems only a question of time before the collective desperation of the people erupts into violence and spreads across the country. A ricocheting indictment of the euro bailout policies.


As the Eurozone flails about to keep its chin above the debt crisis that is drowning Greece and other periphery countries, and as the EU struggles to duct-tape itself together with more governance by unelected transnational eurocrats, Sweden is having second thoughts: never before has there been such hostility toward the euro. Read…. Sweden's Euro Hostility Hits A Record.

NOTE Lambert here: I'm leery of Pieper's simple schema of a deterioration from solidarity to selfishness; I think that people, and history, run in more complex channels. Not to deny the brutishness of austerian policies everywhere, which this post effectively describes, or the shape of things to come. I think of Ian Welsh's policy prescription, "default to kindness," which I wish somebody would write on Angela Merkel's bathroom mirror so she sees it, first thing in the morning.

Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/12/f...ScDpeKm.99

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/12/f...-wave.html

[Jan Klimkowski]

What does it take to push a country into actual revolution? Pick a country, let's say Greece, push it as hard as possible and observe the results. Where is the breaking point and what does that look like? Is revolution provoked? What kind? How can fascism be the product? Could this literally be the case?

Shock Therapy in Greece is deliberately destroying the material life of that country's citizens:

- mass unemployment with wages slashed for those who still have some sort of job;
- pensions destroyed and looted;
- health and school systems decimated;
- international bank profits protected.

Greece is the testbed for how this financial meltdown will play out in "First World" Europe.

Greece's cops and military have a long history of fascist sympathies, and a significant proportion of most populations can be conned into accepting a "Martial Law" and "Anti-Immigrant" agenda.

European history has proven that bankers are perfectly prepared to use Fascism to achieve their goals.

The photograph shows who the cops really work for:

[Jan Klimkowski]

A collapsing state at the heart of Europe.

Big Pharma denies all.

Panic in Greek pharmacies as hundreds of medicines run short

Pharmaceutical companies accused of cutting supplies because of low profits and unpaid bills

Elizabeth Sukkar and Helena Smith in Athens
The Guardian, Wednesday 27 February 2013 16.54 GMT
Jump to comments (89)

Woman at state health fund office in Athens
A woman gestures at the state health fund office in Athens. Chemists say patients have been going from pharmacy to pharmacy in search of prescription drugs. Photograph: John Kolesidis/Reuters

Greece is facing a serious shortage of medicines amid claims that pharmaceutical multinationals have halted shipments to the country because of the economic crisis and concerns that the drugs will be exported by middlemen because prices are higher in other European countries.

Hundreds of drugs are in short supply and the situation is getting worse, according to the Greek drug regulator. The government has drawn up a list of more than 50 pharmaceutical companies it accuses of halting or planning to halt supplies because of low prices in the country.

More than 200 medicinal products are affected, including treatments for arthritis, hepatitis C and hypertension, cholesterol-lowering agents, antipsychotics, antibiotics, anaesthetics and immunomodulators used to treat bowel disease.

Separately, it was announced on Tuesday that the Swiss Red Cross was slashing its supply of donor blood to Greece because it had not paid its bills on time.

Chemists in Athens describe chaotic scenes with desperate customers going from pharmacy to pharmacy to look for prescription drugs that hospitals could no longer dispense.

The government list includes some of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca. Pfizer, Roche and Sanofi all said a few products had been withheld. GSK and AstraZeneca denied the claims.

"Companies are ceasing these supplies because Greece is not profitable for them and they are worried that their products will be exported by traders to other richer countries through parallel trade as Greece has the lowest medicine prices in Europe," said Professor Yannis Tountas, the president of the Greek drug regulator, the National Organisation for Medicines.

The regulator has investigated 13 pharmaceutical companies that have reduced supplies and has handed the names of eight to the ministry of health so they can be fined. Tountas did not disclose the names of the companies, saying this was the responsibility of the ministry of health, but added that they were "big multinational companies".

The body representing pharmacists, the Panhellenic Pharmaceutical Association, confirmed the shortages. "I would say supplies are down by 90%," said Dimitris Karageorgiou, its secretary general. "The companies are ensuring that they come in dribs and drabs to avoid prosecution. Everyone is really frightened. Customers tell me they are afraid [about] losing access to medication altogether." He said many also worried insurance coverage would dry up.

"Around 300 drugs are in very short supply and they include innovative drugs, medications for cancer patients and people suffering from clinical depression," said Karageorgiou. "It's a disgrace. The government is panic-stricken and the multinationals only think about themselves and the issue of parallel trade because wholesalers can legally sell them to other European nations at a higher price."

The Hellenic Association of Pharmaceutical Companies said the picture was more nuanced. Its president, Frouzis Konstantinos, said there were "probably a very few companies" that were not supplying the Greek market, and only for very specific products "the reasons being a combination of Greece's low medicine prices and unpaid debt by the state", he said.

In Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece's second city, chemists say they are often overwhelmed by people desperately trying to find life-saving drugs. Oscillating between fury and despair, the customers beseech pharmacists to hand over medications that they frequently do not have in stock.

"Lines will form in the early morning or late at night when you're on duty," said Karageorgiou, who is based in Thessaloniki. "And when the drugs aren't available, which is often the case, people get very aggressive. I'm on duty tonight and know there will be screaming and shouting but in the circumstances I also understand. We have reached a tragic point."

Greece's social insurance funds and hospitals owe pharmaceutical companies about €1.9bn (£1.6bn), a debt going back to 2011, with companies expecting payments of €500m this month.

Some companies admitted they were not supplying some medicines. According to the government list, Pfizer had not supplied or would not be supplying 16 medicines. A company spokesperson disagreed with the total but confirmed four medicines had been withdrawn "because alternatives were available and because of the parallel trade [reselling] situation in the country". The products are the two leukaemia treatments Zavedos and Aracytin, which were withdrawn last year, and the analgesic Neurontin and the epilepsy therapy Epanutin, which were withdrawn last month.

Roche stressed it had not halted supplies of medicines to Greece, but said it had withheld supplies to public hospitals that owed the company €200m. Daniel Grotsky, a spokesman, said: "We are insisting that they [the public hospitals] fulfil their contracts and this is something we do in any country … We are withholding [medicines] until they meet their obligations."

Roche could not say how many hospitals were affected but said it was still supplying public hospitals with "critical medicines", which included treatments for HIV and transplantation. Grotsky said patients could still get their medicines through pharmacies.

Angeliki Angeli, spokeswoman for Sanofi Greece, said it was supplying public hospitals with medicines considered life-saving, unique or irreplaceable. "Non-unique products are supplied based on hospitals' outstanding obligations and overdue status," she said. Non-unique products are medicines for which either a generic exists or a therapeutic alternative option is recommended by treatment guidelines.

She said most Sanofi medicines on the government list remained available on the market with the "exception of a couple of dosages/forms where alternatives exist".

GSK Greece said it had never halted the supply of any product in the Greek market. "This is a joint decision taken not only at local level but also at corporate level. Equally, GSK has maintained the uninterrupted supply [to] Greek public hospitals with all its products irrespective of the accumulated debts," the company said.

Vanessa Rhodes, of AstraZeneca, said the company had not halted the supply of any of its medicines to Greece. "Our priority is to ensure patients have access to the medicines they need. Furthermore, we have an emergency 'directto-pharmacy' supply system in place should pharmacies find themselves out of stock of any of our products."

Zeta Chatziantoniou, of Boehringer Ingelheim in Greece, stressed it "has not halted any of its medicine supplies in Greece in the retail sector and in the public sector". Novartis said it was not halting supplies to Greece.

The pharmaceutical industry says many shortages are because of products being exported through parallel trade, and has urged the government to address set drug prices. Under EU trade rules, the free movement of goods is allowed. So for example, while a pharmaceutical company may sell a medicine to a wholesaler or pharmacist in Greece, the wholesaler or pharmacist can sell these medicines on to wholesalers in other countries. Parallel traders do this to make money on the price differences between countries.

"The government needs to correct these wrong prices to avoid a surge of exportation. Greece's drug prices are 20% or more lower than the lowest prices in Europe," said Konstantinos, who is also the general manager of Novartis in Greece.

The industry wants the health ministry to bring in a new pricing system so that Greece uses a basket of eurozone countries to calculate prices. At present, medicines are priced at below the average of the three lowest prices in 22 EU countries.

The regulator has introduced export bans for nearly 60 medicines to try to tackle the problem and is looking at 300 more products. It is also investigating 10 wholesalers and 260 pharmacists who it believes have broken the export ban. The ministry of health will decide any punishment, which is likely to be fines ranging from €2,000 to €20,000, said Tountas.

This month will be crucial as Greek officials and Greece's creditors the European commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank must agree the 2013 public pharmaceutical budget, which has fallen in recent years. More cuts would put patients at a "critical level", said Tountas, who will be one of the key players at the negotiating table. The budget was €3.7bn in 2011 and fell to €2.44bn last year. Tountas is concerned creditors may cut it to €2bn for 2013.