Athens News Agency: News in English, 07-05-14

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

CONTENTS

[01] Papandreou meets Austrian president

[01] Papandreou meets Austrian president

Papandreou outlined, during the weekend, his party's targets and policies for families, addressing a party-sponsored conference entitled "Family and Child."

Papandreou said the family is the focus of PASOK's programme, while at the same time accusing the government of lacking a policy on the family during the three years it has been in power. He also accused the government of "dissolving structures of the social state" and of harming family income. As he said, a family's cost-of-living during the New Democracy party's tenure in government has increased by 250 euros a month, while borrowing has more than doubled.

Papandreou promised that if elected premier he will oblige local banks, the most expensive in the European Union, as he charged, to invest in development and employment because, "all families have an unemployed person."

He further said that mistakes can take place "but it is one thing to err in struggling for the public interest, for the people, and quite another to make mistakes deliberately, in an organised, planned fashion in order to loot the wealth of the Greek people."

Papandreou outlined three basic principles of PASOK's policy for family protection of every type of family -- "single parents, three-child families, large families, families of Greeks, immigrants, young or old." He also said children will be a priority in the political agenda and that policy measures must be flexible.

Furthermore, the one-time foreign minister listed his party's commitments as a future government:

It will support young couples in starting a family with a lump sum of 2,000 euros for the birth of each child. Additionally, he promised that over a period of four years, the number of pre-schools and kindergartens will be doubled, with the aim of providing full coverage for child care needs for eight years. The cost of children staying at nurseries will be subsidised by the state and municipal budgets, he said.

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