Kyriakos Mitsotakis: We will continue to fight for income support – Targeted and not unreasonable measures in the “basket” of ITH

The commitment that the ND government will continue to fight their support is expressed by the Prime Minister in the established Sunday post for the weekly review. “We will continue to fight the fight of supporting income against inflation that has stabilised at lower levels in recent months since the beginning of the year and close to the 2% target we have set,” says Kyriakos Mitsotakis, noting that ITH’s “basket” contained targeted measures rather than unreasonable benefits. He adds that “Greece changes year by year and in several fields the results of this transformation are already visible.” More specifically, Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ post reads: “Good morning! The imposed summer rest and the ITH kept us for a while away from our established Sunday meeting, but from today I return to our weekly account. I have a lot to tell you that changes for the better the everyday lives of citizens and brings us as a country closer to European levels. Last weekend at ITH I referred to this double leap that we need to make to reduce the still long distance in income from the rest of Europe and at the same time eliminate the inequalities that keep the country’s regions in a growing position compared to Attica. We’re not where we were in 2019. Greece changes year after year and in several fields the results of this transformation are already visible. However, we know that we need to move faster, fairer and more effectively to gain the lost time of the super-decade crisis. We’re not another government. We’re another government. And proof of that is the 45-point plan I presented to this year’s ICU. It was not a “basket” with reckless benefits and unterritorial promises, but targeted measures that transform the economy, increasing its productivity and extroversion, and on the other hand support many social groups and, first of all, the younger generation. A plan characterised by realism, vision and responsibility, within the financial framework set by the EU, so that we never get into adventures again. The economic policy of 2025 includes 12 wage increases (for employees in the public and private sectors, for pensioners and vulnerable groups) and 12 reductions in taxes, with a more significant reduction in one more unit of insurance contributions. Strengthening disposable income is also an answer to the problem of the accuracy that households test. That is why, in addition to income “embankments” and salary and pension increases, we actively support the household income in other ways, such as free digital tutorial for 120,000 Third High School students, free afternoon surgeries for our 37,500 fellow citizens, our policy on cheap housing loans for 20,000 couples or individual households and the uninterested energy savings and upgrade program of at least 20,000 old apartments. We will continue to fight for income support against inflation that has stabilised at lower levels in recent months since the beginning of the year and close to the 2% target we have set. Especially for medical and nursing staff of the National Health System, in addition to last year’s wage payments and an increase of 20% in compensation for their on-calls, since 2025 there will be an independent taxation of the NSO’s medical services at a rate of 22%, thus satisfying a standing request. The monthly net benefit is estimated at EUR 150 and in many cases exceeds EUR 200. Moreover, we give an increased incentive of 200 to 600 euros per month, depending on the specialty and the area, to attract and stay doctors in troubled and barren areas. I would like to announce one more thing, very important, which aims to strengthen Primary Health Care: from 1/1/2025 it will be provided to doctors who choose pathology or general medicine as a specialty, an economic incentive of 30,000 euros once, in addition to their salaries as residents. So we look forward to increasing the available number of Pathologists and General Physicians in the NSS, which account for only 6% of all specialties, when in the rest of Europe it is 20% of the medical population. I’m going into our family support policy. It is perhaps the most important concern of the government that becomes most imperative under the spectrum of demographics. That is why we are setting up a special observatory for demographics, which will allow us to monitor developments and take action. Apart from this, as I announced in ITH, we are moving on to the lifelong recognition of the third-rate property in nearly 200,000 families certified through the gov.gr platform. Thus, the quota for recruitments in the public sector is increased in order to reach the same percentage as the many children, from 12% to 16% in all the posts declared. While there are already provisions on the many children in terms of their participation in favourable housing programmes. Other measures: The three main OPECA grants (Minimum Guaranteed Income, Housing and Child Grants) are being reformed and increased, the “Dandades of Neighborhood” project, amounting to 100m euros from the NSRF, will now be valid nationwide, while allowing the municipalities of the country to add 20,000 new places to municipal and private nursery stations. We have already raised this year’s budget for day care and Centers for Creative Employment for Disabled People, which means an additional 6,300 vouchers (5,000 for infants and infants and 1,300 for people with disabilities over 22 years of age, total speaking of 173,364 places). In addition, the private health insurance of children up to 18 years old and voluntary benefits and vouchers from businesses to young parents will be tax-free. An important measure is the free screening of fertility in women aged 30–35. From the support of the family, I will come to Housing, a problem that afflicts many large cities in Europe. After hard negotiations with the European Commission, the second Home Programme, amounting to EUR 2 billion, is immediately launched, with resources from the Recovery Fund, which will enable young people and couples up to 50 years old to have a home at an interest rate of half the commercial. The mortgage payment would be lower than they would pay if they rented a home of corresponding standards. We are doing one more thing: we have secured 400 million from the Recovery Fund for loans of up to 20,000 euros, at zero interest rate, with the aim of only the energy upgrading of nearly 20,000 old houses, a programme running alongside the “Renovation-Rent” and the other actions of the Ministry of Energy. At the same time, in response to fixed requests from the owners’ associations, a three-year tax exemption is introduced for the owner who rents the apartment which is currently closed. They are estimated at over 700,000 closed apartments, of which about 250-300,000 are only in Attica. With regard to short-term leases linked to the problem of accurate housing, we are introducing new incentives and unincentives to balance the right to profit from one another’s right to housing. However, we do not abandon our plan for social housing, using idle state properties, such as the area of CHOPIE, 18 acres, where hundreds of apartments can be built. Corresponding properties, smaller area but important in good areas, exist throughout Attica and the rest of Greece. There will also be an amendment to legislation to make the framework of the so-called social contribution more attractive. I will write you about it when we hear from you. This year began with 11 significant changes in Primary and Secondary Education, which I believe will contribute significantly to improving the everyday life of students, teachers and parents. I will stand by strengthening the permanent teaching staff with 10,000 new permanent teacher appointments – record number – that we held this year. Quadruple in relation to 2023, appointments in the special education and eight times the Special Educational and Special Assistant Staff posts in all specialties. As of this week, a major innovation, the digital tutorial for nationwide courses, will be put into pilot application, which will be completely free for all students with live afternoon traditions for the whole subject examination. I am glad that he found great acceptance, not only from the parents, but also from the students, the “cell phone in the bag” initiative. Another very important state intervention is the 250m-euro Marietta Giannakou programme for the renovation of hundreds of schools throughout Greece. The funds will come from the Public Investment Programme, but here is a national offering for wealthy individuals. With regard to the labour market, the pilot implementation of the digital work card is now extended to the tourism and catering sectors. The measure is already successfully applied to around 750,000 workers employed in banks, large supermarkets, insurance companies, security companies, ECI, with the total number of businesses estimated at 73,000. With an expansion in tourism and food, it is estimated that they will total about 1,500 000. The aim of the digital work card is to ensure full protection of workers’ rights and to protect them against abusive policies of undeclared overtime and illegal changes and over-work time. Its effectiveness is confirmed by significant increases in declared overtime in the registered sectors, such as supermarkets for example, where from the start of the measure to the end of 2023, a cumulative increase of +61.2% was observed. Last issue for today, sport, as the new league began, with new rules on security inside and outside the stadiums, for the first time and in terms of running the Fan Clubs. We were committed to a fan club per FC and we do it. In seven Clubs of Fans, corresponding to equal numbers of Super League FC 1 -AEK, ARIS, Olympiacos, OFI, Panathinaikos, Panseraikos, PAOK, as well as the amateur of IRAKLE- was granted by the Ministry of Sports the required certificate for the timely submission of their data in order to receive their annual operating permit after the scheduled on-the-spot checks. The process since this year is digitally managed through the Digital Register of Fan Club Members on gov.gr, which facilitates the valid and quick search of the necessary data for public security reasons. State, citizens and sports players need to be on the same page to preserve sport from the violence of the few. So that’s it for today. As you can see, we’ve come back dynamically, and so will we continue. Date next Sunday!”.