"Today is a happy day for millions of our fellow citizens," Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Tuesday, in his address to Parliament during the plenary debate on the bill annulling prelegislated pension cuts.
"I am glad," he said, "that all deputies will be happy to vote for another positive social measure."
"Some do not understand that each step is part of a clear and specific plan. So they talk about promises and handouts," Tsipras said, referring to the main opposition.
"We do not give handouts. But we are correcting the injustices created by the harsh and unprecedented austerity of your [time in power]," he noted.
"We are gradually returning to those hurt by the crisis and the memorandums what they were unfairly deprived of for years," he said.
Regarding a measure for the abolition of the subminimum wage for young employees also tabled by the government, he noted that it was a "shameful" regime that had disrupted the labour market and led to wage discrimination against the younger generation.
Criticising a tweet posted by main opposition New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, he said it was "infuriating for a generation that your policies have forced to work for pocket money, without insurance or even basic labour rights" and noted that young people did not believe that they would ever qualify for a pension and for this reason chose to work uninsured.
Speaking of the draft law on the annulment of the pension cuts, Tsipras said that many, both inside and outside Parliament, cannot now believe their eyes, having staked everything on Europe's refusal to agree to abolishing the cuts. "We warned you at every opportunity and in every way to not rush to conclusions about pensions," he said.
When Mitsotakis went to Berlin, Tsipras added, hoping for a statement indicating that Germany will insist on the implementation of pension cuts, he had returned empty handed.
Source: ANA-MPA
