The Working Youth Committee of the WFTU expresses its solidarity to the Greek sailor Stavros Papadakis who protested against the participation of the Greek Frigate “NAVARINO”, in which he is serving his military service, in the NATO war games “Sea Guardian”, outside the Greek borders. This protest follows many other action taken by Greek trade unions so that their country doesn’t turn into a base of launching of wars.

The competition between large business groups, their hunt for more profit and larger market shares lies behind the deeper engagement of each country’s armed forces to missions and exercises across borders. It is the other face of the policies against the working youth at each country with measures taken against wages, collective agreements, Social Security and the youth’s rights in general.

Only insecurity and serious risks await the working class and the youth through these developments. We’ve already seen what all this have brought to the countries of the wider Mediterranean: poverty, wars and thousands of refugees and migrants driven away from their countries and drowned in the sea.

We call Workers Federations, Trade Unions to express their solidarity with the sailor Stavros Papadakis (who is also a trade union member of the PAME affiliated, PEMEN Maritime Union).

The WFTU Working Youth Committee