Being squeezed by international lenders to pare the workforce by transferring, suspending or firing civil servants, Greek Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has asked for an extension to the so-called mobility scheme until the end of the year.
The request was made to envoys of the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) who were in Athens checking progress on reforms before okaying the release of any more loan monies.
It was reported that Troika chiefs did not immediately respond to the request and that a new meeting with Mitsotakis had been scheduled for Sept. 27. The newspaper Kathimerini reported it was told by sources that the talks nonetheless went well and that the lenders acknowledged the effort being made by the government to cut costs.
Greece has pledged to put 12,500 employees into the scheme, which involves staff being put on 75 percent reduced pay ahead of their transfer or dismissal, by the end of September. Around 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside the ministry’s central Athens offices on Sept. 24 to protest the reform.
Mitsotakis had promised there would be a review of all those likely to be dismissed but reneged on that and fired whole sectors en masse, such as municipal police, crossing guards, janitors, school nurses and teachers while going along with the hiring of more unneeded workers for Parliament who have also been exempted from austerity measures.
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