Athens News Agency: News in English, 10-07-07

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

CONTENTS

[01] House passes in principle social security bill

[01] House passes in principle social security bill

Addressing the parliamentary debate just before the voting, Prime Minister George Papandreou gave a 'personal guarantee" for the improvement of the terms of the social security bill after the Greek economy's exit from the crisis and supervision.

Highlighting the slogan "solidarity, viability, social justice" for the future social security system, Papandreou stressed that this initial intervention secures viability "even in today's difficult conditions."

The prime minister added that this means that "when our economy stands on its feet we shall be able to improve pensions and provide better services for working people, the insured, pensioners. Because this is our target. For this reason we explicitly predict the adjustment of the 800 euros bonus. I personally guarantee that this will happen when we overcome the crisis."

Papandreou explained that "we are experiencing the end of the clientele state. This government will finish off the clientele state."

He further said that the government had to make drastic interventions in the social security scheme even without the troika since, among other things, "without our intervention, the expenditure for pensions would reach 26 percent of GDP, that would mean that the system would be blown into the air and we would have a country that paid pensions and nothing else."

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