The leftist Greek government was scrambling on Sunday to find “off-set” measures after tabling an amendment on Friday freezing so-called “special wage” categories in the wider public sector until 2018, a measure that would also affect law enforcement and military pay scales.
The amendment, which was included in a draft bill loaded with indirect tax hikes and a wholesale privatization program of state-owned companies and properties, would defer whatever wage hikes were due to special categories of professionals in the wider public sector: judicial officials, officers, diplomats, physicians etc.
A relevant Cabinet meeting on Sunday was scheduled in order to try and find money from other sources in order to avoid the specific wage freeze, an austerity measure, which if approved, would be a negative development for the government’s rightist-populist coalition partner, the AN.EL party (Independent Greeks).
In an attached report on the amendment, the government had said it was necessary in order to achieve fiscal readjustment, similar to the period 2016-2017 when civil servants’ pay increases – due to seniority or specialized position – were frozen.
