Athens News Agency: News in English, 07-08-13

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

CONTENTS

[01] Brief holidays for party leaders this month

[02] Papandreou says PASOK ready to govern

[03] Party backs civil servants' demands

[01] Brief holidays for party leaders this month

Papoulias will go Wednesday to the Panaghia Soumela Monastery in the Vermio region of north-central Macedonia province to attend celebrations marking the annual August 15 Dormition of the Virgin religious holiday.

The President, who is presently on holiday on the Ionian island of Lefkada, will fly by helicopter to the area to attend a liturgy at the Panaghia Soumela, after which he will lay a wreath at the bust of War of Independence hero Alexandros Ypsilantis.

At noon on Wednesday, Papoulias will attend a luncheon in his honour hosted by the board of directors of the Panaghia Soumela Foundation before returning to Lefkada.

Karamanlis arrived with his family on Sunday on the Cyclades island of Tinos, where he will attend the August 15 celebrations, as he does each year, before returning to Athens on Thursday.

Main opposition leader George Papandreou is spending the second part of his holiday in the Ionian islands. Papandreou, as he arrived on Lefkada on Saturday night, although he was due back in Athens on Tuesday morning to chair a meeting of his party's campaign committee. On Wednesday he will attend celebrations at the Panaghia Soumela monastery.

Communist Party of Greece (KKE) leader Aleka Papariga will spend a few days at her summer home in Nea Makri, east of Athens.

Coalition of the Left (Synaspismos) party leader Alekos Alavanos will visit Irakleio, Crete where he will be a candidate for parliament in the next general elections.

[02] Papandreou says PASOK ready to govern

Moreover, the former foreign minister in successive PASOK governments, said the responsibility will be even greater as three-and-a-half-year long "New Democracy government has razed the country and overturned social conquests."

Additionally, the PASOK leader again charged that the government sported an array of political blemishes, which he claimed included the "blackmailing of consciences, efforts to buy-off votes and a petty partisan reasoning of the state as booty".

He also said that Premier Costas Karamanlis is "obligated, sooner or later, to declare elections".

The latter comment comes amid high-pitched local media speculation, even in the usually lackadaisical holiday month of August, claiming that early elections will be declared in late September of early October 2007. Elections are normally slated for March 2008.

His statements were carried in the Athens daily "Vima".

[03] Party backs civil servants' demands

Alavanos said the country was in a period of such pre-electoral benefits, many of which "lack commitment or are highly insufficient, but even those would not be feasible were it not for the workers' movement and their demands".

He warned that ND's benefits bait also contained the "hook of post-electoral policy which, if achieved, will mean changes to the social security system, an increase in the retirement age, reduced pensions, professional instead of social insurance, abolition of tenure -- which is provided for in the constitutional revision -- and a series of great problems for the employees in the civil service'.

Alavanos said Synaspismos supports the framework of demands put forward by union in all sectors, and stressed the need for upgrading the salary scale to 1,300 euros (minimum salary) and calculation of pensions at 80 percent of the active salaries, as well as other demands of employees in Greece's cavernous public sector.

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