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

Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article

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

CONTENTS

[01] Athens public transport to participate in GSEE nationwide strike on Friday

[02] Karamanlis, Maystadt discuss EIB's funding to Greece

[01] Athens public transport to participate in GSEE nationwide strike on Friday

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.

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.

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.

A surprise strike by flight attendants with temporary contracts at the national carrier Olympic Airlines has caused severe problems to the airline's flight schedule on Thursday, when 64 domestic and foreign flights had to be cancelled.

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.

[02] Karamanlis, Maystadt discuss EIB's funding to Greece

Speaking to reporters, after the meeting, attended also by Economy and Finance Minister George Alogoskoufis, Maystadt said he discussed the cooperation of EIB with Greece and stressed that the bank was offering loans totalling 1.8 billion euros to fund major infrastructure projects in the country, such as parts of national road network in central Greece, Egnatia Road and the Thessaloniki Metro.

EIB's president said low economic growth rates in Europe affected smaller countries like Greece.

Economy and Finance Minister George Alogoskoufis said the meeting also discussed the supply of funding and know-how by EIB to support joint projects between the public and private sectors and noted that a draft legislation promoting such projects would be tabled to parliament in next few weeks. The Greek minister underlined that a draft law on banks' supplementary pension funds would not lead to more financial burdens. Commenting on Social Security Fund governor's forecast that a full introduction of existing laws on pension funds would burden IKA by around 9.0 billion euros, Alogoskoufis said he did not know of any study leading to this forecast.

Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article