Greece: Public Servants file against "Treason"

Greece's main civil servants' union announced today that it will file lawsuits against the nominally Socialist government over its €50 billion (£44bn) privatisation programme.

It branded the EU-IMF mandated fire-sale an act of "national treason."

Civil Servants' Confederation Adedy general secretary Ilias Iliopoulos said that members would make a final decision on the legal action at a meeting on September 22.

Prime Minster George Papandreou's governing Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok) announced plans in April to sell €50bn of state assets by 2015, including government stakes in the utility power company PPC, the telecom operator OTE and ATE bank.

"For us this is an act of national treason and those who attempt it will face the consequences accordingly," Mr Iliopoulos declared.

"We will use all means at our disposal to, of course, hopefully overturn the government, but mainly to file lawsuits against those who sign these privatisation agreements."

The union, which had previously supported Pasok, has already announced plans to launch a campaign of strikes against austerity measures mandated by the European Central Bank and the IMF in the autumn.

The government has been battered by months of union-led protests and a series of strikes as it pushed through successive waves of regressive cost-cutting measures that have seen unemployment rise to record levels.