Kerameos from Parliament: No cut to unemployment benefit — “matter closed”

Greek Minister of Labour and Social Security Niki Kerameos appeared on Monday in the plenary session of Parliament to answer topical questions from two PASOK MPs, Pavlos Christidis and Giorgos Nikitiadis, putting an end to speculation over the future of unemployment benefit, as Greek media report from today’s session.

“There is no issue of cutting or time-limiting unemployment benefit,” Kerameos declared, announcing the debate opened by the statements of government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis “closed.” Marinakis had expressed, according to Rodiaki, his “personal position” that unemployment benefit should not be paid for more than two months. The minister repeated that it was only the spokesman’s personal stance and that the matter had been fully answered from the first moment.

Kerameos also referred to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s interview on ERT a few days after Marinakis’s statement, in which the head of government guaranteed that “no benefit will be cut.” She stressed that unemployment benefit is not welfare assistance but an employee’s insurance right.

The minister cited the measures taken by the government: the benefit was raised to 560 euros gross in the first months, with a gradual reduction afterwards, and a work benefit was introduced — an initiative that, as she pointed out, was voted for by PASOK itself, the opposition that accused the government of a “hidden agenda.” Kerameos’s response was blunt: “The government has a coherent policy on work and no hidden agenda. We want a society of workers.”

“Our policy delivers results. Greece currently has the highest employment rate in its history, reaching 72.2%,” the minister added, noting that the fall in unemployment to 7.9% is the result of a coherent plan. She also denied any internal problem in New Democracy in the Northern Sector, countering MP Christidis’s claims, which attributed the changes of mind to open scores in that region.