Labour Minister Katrougalos: Cuts in minimum wage not on table of talks with IMF

National pension fairer than EKAS, he says

Speaking to TV channel ‘E’, Greek Labour Minister George Katrougalos said all pensions would be re-evaluated since 2002 and after that there would no further cuts. ‘Abolishing EKAS was a bad thing, we had no way to maintain it’, said Katrougalos. He claims that no main pension had been slashed, in contrast to previous years where they had been cut 11 times. ‘We managed to save 80% of ancillary pensions’, he argued. Katrougalos said that the government had established the national pension, which was a fairer and more effective system than EKAS. On the matter of whether there would be any further cuts to the minimum wage in talks with the IMF, he underlined that the government’s goal was for employees and workers to conclude on the level of the wages.