THE new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made his first speech to the Vouli (Greek parliament) last Sunday night saying he would carry out the promises he made to stop the humanitarian crisis in Greece.
Tsipras insisted that his government would not continue with the Austerity Accords.
He said that they wished to negotiate a reduction of the huge unsustainable public debt that has reached 180 per cent of GDP.
He said that the Greek government was looking to agree with the EU an initial bridge plan of financial support.
Tsipras said that he is going to a battle at the Eurogroup and at the EU leaders’ summit in the next few days.
He emphasised that he wants a fresh mandate of the Greek people in these negotiations.
The first step of his national salvation government would be to provide free food and electricity to the 2.5m Greek people who live in poverty.
The sacked Finance Ministry women cleaners, the sacked school guards and the sacked universities’ administrative staff would be re-employed.
The ERT state tv and radio network is to be refounded and all sacked workers reinstated.
Also families who earn less than 1,000 euros a month would not pay tax and the hated unified property tax would be scrapped.
The minimum wage is to be 751 euros a month and young workers would be paid the same as elder workers, to be implemented over the next two years.
Old age pensioners who receive less than 700 euros per month will get a 700 euros aid at the end of each year.
Tsipras promised that there would be no mass sackings and that his government would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the next four years through a programme of state investment.
Free collective bargaining and national labour agreements are to be reinstated as well as civil service workers’ rights.
He stated that there will be no more sell offs of state corporations.
Profits from state corporations would finance the collapsed social security.
He also stated that the government would assert the state’s rights on the Greek banks which have been recapitalised with tens of billions of euros from the EC-IMF bailout programme and announced the founding of a state Development Bank.
