Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 14-04-30

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

CONTENTS

[01] Parliament strips immunity of four Golden Dawn MPs

[02] Tsipras meets German Deputy Labour Minister in Athens

[03] No new cuts in wages and pensions, Labour minister says

[01] Parliament strips immunity of four Golden Dawn MPs

The four are the last GD MPs facing charges for participating in a criminal organization.

Addressing the Parliament ahead of the vote, they denied the charges against them and stressed that they were being persecuted for their ideology, alleging there was a scheme against their party.

GD parliamentary spokesman Ilias Kassidiaris lashed out at the minister of justice, saying that he is a liar and repeated his allegations that the minister has intervened in the GD case.

Earlier, Antonis Gregos had said that he was being persecuted for his ideas and spoke about a political prosecution, underlining that he is not mentioned in the GD case file as a culprit in any criminal act.

Polyvios Zissimopoulos and Artemis Mattheopoulos underlined that the prosecution is based on the absurd reasoning of collective responsibility.

On his part, Konstantinos Barbaroussis said that all political parties are responsible for the stance they adopted as regards the GD prosecution.

Caption: MPs of the Golden Dawn party in Parliament, during a debate on the Medium Term Framework of Fiscal Strategy on Wednesday.

[02] Tsipras meets German Deputy Labour Minister in Athens

Tsipras met with the German Deputy Labour Minister Joerg Asmussen and according to sources, the two officials discussed the issues of Euroelections and the labour market. Tsipras noted the high rate of youth unemployment as well as the failure of austerity programmes in Greece.

According to the same sources, SYRIZA leader reiterated his position on a Greek debt relief.

Caption: Main opposition SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras (R) shakes hands with German Deputy Labour Minister Joerg Asmussen during their meeting in Athens on Wednesday.

[03] No new cuts in wages and pensions, Labour minister says

The minister, who gave a press conference at Zappeio where the EU Health Ministers' Informal Meeting was underway, referred to the 3863/2010 insurance law, to be put in effect as of 2015, and stressed there would be no "abrupt adjustments or shocks in the relations of pensioners with the insurance system."

Regarding supplementary pensions and lump sum payments, he said the readjustments that have been made were necessary and fair. He added that due to those changes, pensions and lump sum payments have been secured for future generations while insurance funds will no longer record deficits.

On unemployment, Vroutsis said there have been "clear indications of de-escalation" especially during the last four months. He appeared confident that unemployment would fall to 15.9 percent by 2018 from 25 percent in 2014, based on the provisions of the new Medium-term Framework of Fiscal Strategy 2015-2018.

The EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Laszlo Andor referred to early retirement and said the Commission urged member-states to abolish any exceptions and increase age limits where necessary. He acknowledged, though, this process has taken more time than originally expected.

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