Main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis referred to the specter of “hyper-taxation” in the still bailout-dependent country, during his meeting on Friday with visiting EU Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, according to party sources.
The same sources said the center-right and pro-reform ND president told Moscovici that Greek society is being “strangled by under the weight of ever increasing taxes and social security contributions, “while at the same time the government is again increasing the number of civil servants and the public sector’s payroll.”
Moscovici, who previously met with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and other top members of the leftist-rightist coalition government this week, on Thursday attended an event in Athens featuring his new book.
In touching on another sector that Mitsotakis has repeatedly cited as imperative for the country’s future, according to the same sources, he pointed to a “short-sighted and petty partisan” policy followed by the current, mostly radical leftist, government regarding education.
Mitsotakis reminded that ND wants a more concrete link between tertiary education in the country and the job market.
Greece is currently one of the very few countries in the western world where non-profit, non-state universities are essentially prohibited due to a constitutional article (XVI).
