A former labor minister in a previous center-right government on Thursday stepped up the opposition’s burgeoning political attack on the leftist-rightist coalition government, months before another round of social security sector cuts are scheduled to be implemented.
The looming austerity measure has already been agreed to by the Tsipras government with institutional creditors, as part of negotiations after the third memorandum was signed in August 2015, and in order to ensure that annual fiscal targets are met.
ND deputy Yannis Vroutsis, a former minister, in comments to a radio news program said retirees from the public sector will be the ones hit hardest by the coming pension cuts. Vroutsis claimed that roughly 490,000 public sector pensioners will lose three monthly payments, per year, after 2019.
A further “hit” on pensioners’ pocketbooks will come from the lowering of the annual tax-free income threshold, another austerity measure set for implementation in 2020, although creditors have in the past pressed for implementation as of Jan. 1, 2018.
