The President of Greece’s major party New Democracy (ND), Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced he would establish a Minimum Guaranteed Income for 800,000 citizens, during a speech at an event by the Konstantinos Karamanlis Institute of Democracy with the theme “The Fight Against Poverty and Social Exclusion”.

The leader of ND said his party would earmark 1 billion euros instead of the current 760 million annually for his plan. He underlined that his government would aim to distribute 0.5% of GDP to this end, adding he would attempt to combine the measure with financial initiatives, like issuing small loans similar to the one adopted in France. Mr Mitsotakis added that he would make the criteria for those eligible for unemployment benefit less strict to expand the number of recipients.

Mr Mitsotakis said that his party’s program was predicated on three layers: tackling “relative poverty”, alleviating extreme poverty and hitting social exclusion.