Labour Minister meets with troika

The Minister of Labour Yannis Vroutsis will hold a 3-hour meeting today with the representatives of Troika.

The minister should present the following as part of the continuous evaluation:

– Proposals for the consolidation of funds and strengthening the link between contributions and benefits

– The schedule for the actuarial studies and interventions that will be required to the pension program based on the results of studies (September 2014)

– Changes in the system of collection of insurance contributions

-The first results from the reduction of social security contributions by 3.9% which will cost IKA (insurance fund) 900 million euros in total

-Schedule for the abolition of social resources

-Implementing a clause of zero deficit in supplementary pensions

In the previous meeting with Troika it was agreed that the changes in employment relations and trade union law (strike, trade union duty leave, funding) will be addressed to the discussions of September. Also, the leadership of the Ministry of Labour was left with the impression that Troika will not return to the issue of large-scale redundancies claiming to adopt a relative regulation.

During yesterday’s meeting between the representatives of Troika and the managers of funds the request for increasing the instalments under the regulation of the overdue debt was discussed again. According to the data, only 20,000 debtors out of 300,000 have settled down their debt within a year.