Protesters clash with police in Frankfurt
"Our protest is against the ECB, as a member of the troika, which, despite not being democratically elected, is hindering the work of the Greek government. We want the austerity policy to end," said Ulrich Wilken, one of the protest organizers.
Reuters - Thousands of anti-capitalist protesters clashed with riot police near the new headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt on Wednesday, hours before the inauguration ceremony of the €1,3 billion building.
Several cars were set on fire and streets were blocked by burning tires and trash cans. At least one police officer was injured, police said.
Police used water cannons to try to clear a path through the crowd of protesters dressed in black to enter the building, which was surrounded by police barricades.
The organizers of the protest, a group called Blockupy – named after the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 – estimated that around 10 demonstrators were at the protest. Thousands traveled to the German financial capital from other parts of Europe.
"Our protest is against the ECB, as a member of the troika, which, despite not being democratically elected, is hindering the work of the Greek government. We want the austerity policy to end," said Ulrich Wilken, one of the organizers.
"We want a noisy but peaceful protest," Wilken told Reuters.
Frankfurt police spokeswoman Claudia Rogalski described the crowd as "aggressive".
"We had stones thrown, trash cans set on fire, seven police cars damaged, many of which were also set on fire," he said.
The Blockupy movement says it represents criticism of supranational financial institutions, including the "troika": the ECB, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund, whose inspectors monitor countries like Greece and Cyprus, which received international financial bailouts.
The ECB is also influential as a provider of finance for banks in crisis countries, and in recent weeks it sanctioned an extra tax on Greek loans.