Main opposition New Democracy (ND) Kyriakos Mitsotakis “changed gears” during an address on Wednesday and promised that, if his party wins the next election, he’ll implement a program that foresees the establishment of a “minimum guaranteed income” for 800,000 citizens in the country, to the tune of an annual budget of one billion euros.
The pledge of a specific social spending measure by Mitsotakis raised eyebrows, as the latter usually burnishes distinctly business-friendly and pro-reform credentials, while advocating much tighter controls on an often profligate Greek public sector.
Mitsotakis made the statement during an address at the Constantinos Karamanlis Institute for Democracy, named after the Greek statesman and ND’s founder.
Among others, the former minister said that “relevant poverty” in the country will only be tackled when growth drags more citizens above the poverty threshold, which for Greece is an individual income of below 4,500 euros annually.
“No social protection system can essentially deal with the poverty when an economy under-performs, and when created jobs are at risk, or when they correspond to wages that are insufficient for even one’s basic needs … we want to avoid a recovery without (new) jobs or with hourly wage-earners who are paid very low salaries, such as the current ones,” he said.
