Athens News Agency: News in English, 05-06-23

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Inner Cabinet approves bill to extend shop opening hours

[02] OA cancels flights due to surprise strike Thursday; more strikes on Friday

[01] Inner Cabinet approves bill to extend shop opening hours

Development minister Dimitris Sioufas told reporters after the meeting that the bill contains 14 measures designed to boost, modernise and develop commerce, including two EU-funded programmes budgeted at 200 million euros each.

He spoke of 'pioneering' measures and a new momentum that would have "benefit for everyone", since working people would increase their revenues, the unemployed would have more opportunities for employment, the consumers would have more opportunities for purchases, and the merchants would have an increased consumer traffic.

Sioufas stressed that shop hours would not be liberalised, noting that this might lead to abuses on the market, and that there was no questions of shops staying open on Sundays.

The minister said that the bill extended shop opening hours until 21:00 on weekdays and until 20:00 on Saturday.

Regarding tourist areas, Sioufas said that the rights of local prefectures to further extend shop opening hours would remain in force.

Earlier, Karamanlis had a working session with environment, town planning and public works minister George Souflias.

The government's plans for extended shop opening hours were rejected on Thursday, however, by Attica's four prefects, who demanded the continuation of existing shopping hours, while they added that a new regulation was taking away from them any powers in setting shopping hours in their prefectures.

Attica Prefect Fofi Yennimata said there was no reason to change the existing system, which had run since it was introduced in 1997. Attica prefects stressed that similar moves in other European countries failed to create new job positions or any significant increase in business.

[02] OA cancels flights due to surprise strike Thursday; more strikes on Friday

An OA announcement said that the contract-employed flight attendants requested verbally that their temporary contracts be converted into indefinite contracts, with pay equal to that of permanent staff.

The airline characterised the action as illegal, coercive and unconventional, adding that it was causing problems for the passengers.

Meanwhile, a recent wave of union mobilisations will culminate on Friday with a 24-hour strike announced by GSEE, the country's largest umbrella trade union, while the civil servants' union ADEDY will participate with a three-hour work stoppage from 10.00 to 13.00, protesting against government plans to reform the country's pension system.

Workers in public-sector enterprises will also participate in the 24-hour strike, causing problems in transportation. A protest rally in scheduled for 10.30 at Syntagma square in Athens.

Commuters on Friday will have to resort to either buses or taxis to get around, since the metro, electric railway, suburban railway and tram systems will shut down throughout the day. Athens buses will carry out work stoppages from the start of the shift until 8:00 in the morning and from 21:00 until 12:30 midnight. Trolley buses will run between 6:00 and 23:00 at night.

Also disrupted are Greek Railway services, with only 'emergency' trains running on Friday, while the strike has also disrupted the train schedule for Thursday for services that overlap with Thursday.

Airline passengers are expected to face more problems on Friday due to the participation of Olympic Airlines' staff in the 24-hour strike, when only one flight to each foreign and domestic destination will take place throughout the day.

OTOE, Greek bank workers' union, on Thursday announced a new 48-hour strike for next Monday and Tuesday delivering a further blow to thousands of pensioners and businessmen, already frustrated by a repeated bank workers' strike this week.

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