In Wednesday’s Government council meeting for social policy, the Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras presented the seven pillars for restoring the welfare state and to mediate the effects of the abolition of the EKAS benefit.
“The old political establishment left a social majority unprotected in the vortex of economic crisis. We received a bankrupt and socially looted country” argued the Prime Minister before presenting the seven pillars, which are as follows:
- Healthcare: Protecting coverage of the uninsured, upgrading primary healthcare, reorganizing the EOPYY and introducing a new contract policy with private doctors
- Social Insurance: Protecting pensions, establishing the national pension and paying lump sums to new pensioners
- Humanitarian crisis: Providing the social solidarity benefit, offering free electricity to 90,000 households, water to 58,000 households, extending the school meals program
- Worker rights: Aiming to restore collective labor agreements, oppose collecting dismissals and lock-oouts, offering benefits to redundant employees
- Unemployment: Redesigning programs for the unemployed so that they are more efficient, securing full employment rights for these programs, extending municipal welfare programs from 5 to 8 months
- Housing: Protecting primary residences from housing loans and introducing settlements for housing debts
- Education: Introducing schools for the handicapped and students with special needs across the country, recruiting more teachers, offering greater support to students and integrating refugees into the public school system
The Prime Minister also announced that a series of measures will be taken to support pensioners affected by the abolition of the EKAS benefit
