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Victoria Mindova 

"Not a step back. What the vast majority of people think is to refuse to pay unjust taxes, they refuse to be put against the wall. Therefore, this must be done. We will make their life hell. That will follow from now on." This was the short speech of the leader of the Communist Party of Greece Aleka Papariga. This time, the leftist opposition took the slogan of the "I do not pay" movement and called for collective blocking of the payments of the new property tax, which the Minister of Finance Evangelos Venizelos announced a week ago.

The tax had to be included in the monthly electricity bill in order the government to guarantee its payment. Thus, the collection of revenue in the treasury is facilitated, but the national electricity company in Greece turns into a kind of racketeer, comment citizens.

In a sign of disagreement with the new measures of the government, trade unionists from the Greek Communist Party PAME held a protest rally on Syntagma, which in recent years has become an arena of every discontented Greek. Words like the slogan "Forward, people, to the revolution again" can now be recited by every marble stone in front of the Greek Parliament, not excluding this rally of the discontented Communists.

"Our call to block the government policy is gaining strength and it is going beyond our movement. The people in Greece are not ready and they will not accept an unjust tax. It is not possible to continually raise taxes, reduce wages and pensions and people to look indifferently to this robbery," said particularly for GRReporter George Skeatiotis, a member of the communist trade union PAME.

"We will not pay because we have no money," said a young student, who complained from the floor of the protest rally that the wages of both her parents were reduced. The money of the household cover only the most necessary costs and the government does not offer the young people an alternative.

At the same time, the trade unionist explained that Greece is experiencing events unknown to its modern history, which requires innovative methods of protest. "We need to create a new organized disobedience of workers from all over the country," called the communists. Asked where the revenue for salaries and pensions will come from in the budget, they replied "from the rich" without specifying who they are.

About the new methods of protest, PAME representatives say that the employees in an enterprise could agree not to pay the new extra tax on real estate. Under the law, however, the representatives of the national electricity company DEH will have to cut off the electricity of the house, if the electricity bill and the additional property tax included in it are not paid on time.

"Some discontented citizens in some neighbourhoods may meet the dawn at the regional tax office. We may not allow the representatives of the electric company to cut off the electricity of the families unable to pay. Expect surprises. We no longer rely on old methods of protest," they said from PAME.