Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met this afternoon at Maximos Mansion with the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, responsible for Social Rights and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness, Roxana Mînzatu. The meeting was attended by Minister of Labor and Social Security Niki Kerameus.
At the beginning of the meeting, the Prime Minister, the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, and the Minister of Labor and Social Security made the following statements:
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Thank you so much for being here. I understand you already have had a very constructive discussion, but also visits to our vocational training programmes. I’d just like to make two introductory points.
The first is that we’re very happy about the overall performance of the labour market. When we came into power six and a half years ago, unemployment was about 18%. Now it’s around 8%, dipping under 8%, and I’m particularly happy about the improvement in women’s labour market participation, which was a key priority for this government, and we seem to be succeeding reasonably well. There’s still work to be done, but I’m overall very happy with the work that the Ministry has done.
Of course, I’m also happy about the fact that wages are improving. I think at a time when affordability is the number one problem for all governments in Europe, strengthening and supporting disposable income should also be our first priority. We’ve done so through both increases in nominal wages but also reductions in taxation.
And strengthening disposable income, especially in light of a new emerging economic crisis. I think it should be not just a national priority, but a European priority.
My second point is I’d like to express my great satisfaction about the collective bargaining agreement that was also ratified by Parliament. Greece was always a laggard when it came to collective bargaining, but I think we’ve made a great step forward, and I’m very much looking forward to the new sectoral collective bargaining agreements that will be signed.
This is the way to really improve wages and disposable income, but also to offer more support to our employees, but also to do it in accordance with what the businesses can actually afford, so they know better what they can pay their workers. The fact that we now have a framework in place, which was brokered but also ratified by the government, I think is a big step forward.
So I think all in all, we have lots of good news when it comes to the labour market, and I think it’s a good buffer, especially at a time when, again, the global macroeconomic situation seems to be problematic at best.
Roxana Mînzatu: Thank you, Prime Minister. It’s really a pleasure to be here in Greece. My intention was to somehow start my tour of Europe with Greece, but here we are one year later, still very happy to be in a very symbolic moment. I will emphasise as well, first of all, how inspirational it is for the European Union, I said it in the Council as well, that we have action on collective agreements, that a member state, and in this geography, is able to create this level of trust between social partners so that to reach such an historic moment.
I think that beyond the impact on the quality of jobs, on the revenues of workers in Greece, this for the European Union is an important signal that in complicated times, when we have so much polarisation, we have to struggle for competitiveness, for security. We need to understand that investing in jobs, in people, is possible through the collective efforts of our social partners.
I cannot not mention that this important agreement between the government and the social partners in Greece is very connected with the European directive, which is a directive that the ordinary people know, the directive on adequate minimum wages, which has this chapter, where normally member states, of course, can propose an action plan, and then they tell us how they expand their coverage.
But what Greece has done is really creating this space of trust, which will, I am sure, create in turn many benefits for workers and companies alike in all sectors.
My visit here is focused not just on labour, although we discussed with Niki (Kerameus) a number of important reforms that you’re doing so that we can modernise the labour market, but also protect the workers.
Again, very happy with the evolutions on women and persons with disabilities because these are two dimensions that we need to work on across Europe, this is untapped potential.
But I’m also going to meet the Minister of Education. We’re looking also, as I’m also Commissioner for Education and Skills, we’re looking closely at the alignment of the education and skills delivery with the needs of the labour market.
One very important topic of my visit is budget, of course. We visited two very interesting projects that support vocational training, bakers, future chefs, looking also at persons…
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: I hope you got a bag.
Roxana Mînzatu: Yes, I got a bag. I got also a beautiful sculpture that will be in the office in the Berlaymont. But what an important project that the bag was done by people with disabilities supported by ESF. And what Niki told me: “If I had 10 times more the resources, I still couldn’t cover the demand for these scaling programmes”. So the European Social Fund plus the social dimension of the budget is very important.
We’re working on the next MFF, so it is important that we all support the social dimension of the budget in a context where, of course, economy, competitiveness, innovation, security are equally important. But I’ve seen on the ground already what ESF can do. Again, Greece is inspirational. I’m looking forward to the next visit and to tomorrow’s visit in Thessaloniki as well.
Niki Kerameus: We are thrilled to welcome Executive Vice President Mînzatu. We’ve been working closely together for a number of years now, and we are truly thrilled for, I would say, the very close cooperation, and we’re grateful for the support of the Commission in our combined effort to enhance social dialogue. Social dialogue is a big thing for us. As the Prime Minister mentioned, it’s probably the most effective way right now to lead to an increase of wages. It’s something most needed.
On the quantitative front, Greece has almost 570,000 new jobs that we created during these past six and a half years. On the qualitative front, progress has been made, but we still have ground to cover, I would say, Prime Minister, as far as wages are concerned. I think that this new social agreement and the national agreement on collective bargaining is a most precious tool to assist in reaching, I would say, wages increases that are most needed for the Greek people.
