Deputy Labour Minister Yiannis Plakiotakis said that a Greek programme using EU funds to provide training and apprenticeships for youth will be submitted to the European Union on July 17.

Mr. Plakiotakis made the announcement jointly with Manpower Employment Organisation (OAED) manager Theodoros Abatzoglou, at the staff’s regular congress.

Greece is expecting a 340,000,000 euros in funds from the EU up to 2020 for youth employment, in the programme, which has been referred to by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.

At the meeting, staff representatives said that the Social Security Foundation’s (IKA) outstanding debts to OAED came close to 8 billion euros, while they claimed that organisation’s activities had been cut short and services, such as providing jobs, turned over to the private sector.

Dimitris Stratoulis, MP of the main opposition party SYRIZA, in an intervention, said that real unemployment is over 34%, while official data shows that it has tripled from 2009 to the present (from 9.7% to 27.6%).

He also pointed out that among registered unemployed, 70% are long-term unemployed, or a million people in absolute numbers.