A. Scherzos: We study a mechanism for the absorption of increases in energy

“Window” for an additional mechanism for absorbing the increases in energy, within May, the Minister of State Akis Skertsos opened, in a radio interview with “Sky”.

“We have had, we have and we will have, but we are studying mechanisms to absorb energy market pressures and tariffs even more effectively. These are initiatives that are being planned and will be announced next month, in May,” he said.

Elsewhere in his interview, he said, “We are doing the best we can within our capabilities. The problem is big, it is not Greek, we know the mechanism that has caused it.” Reiterating that “in Greece we have been active for a long time, targeted benefits have started since the autumn”, he added: We cover 70-80% of the increases in the most vulnerable households and 50% of the increases in businesses. We can not cover all the increases, they are too big. The total cost of the burdens on the economy is close to 14 billion euros, the figures are huge. “So far we have given a significant amount of aid, we are trying to target the most vulnerable,” he said, while for businesses in particular, in April, retroactive relief is given from January.

Four reforms

At the same time, the Minister of State focused on all four key, as he characterized them, reforms that are planned and implemented in the immediate future.

The first that was already voted, concerns the transformation of the former OAED into a Public Employment Service with a main goal, as he described it: “To turn it into a mechanism that will give jobs, unfortunately OAED did not fulfill this purpose, it was mainly an organization unemployment benefits and acted as an unemployment trap “. In this case, “we give specific incentives, we give work allowance for the first time” he also stated, while given the “large percentage of undeclared work”, the government calls on the unemployed citizen, “to get out of the unemployment regime and we will reward him if he does it, with the work allowance “. For the long-term unemployed, A. Skertsos noted that they need more training, while he also underlined the allowance that will be given for the preparation of an individual plan (profile, skills, etc.).

At this point, however, he launched an attack against the official opposition: “SYRIZA’s positions are out of place and time, because the main problem of the time and the labor market is the lack of modern skills – and the state’s job is to empower the unemployed with new skills “. In fact, he continued, these programs, amounting to 1 billion, are funded by the Recovery Fund.

The second government reform met with the first in the acquisition of skills, he said, is the upgrading of higher education with a law that “will lead to modern, good public universities”. Specifically, opportunities will be given that exist in the rest of Europe but not in Greece, e.g. that a student can take courses from another Department or the double degree. “This means we will have graduates with additional skills,” he concluded.

A third reform is the “important bill” in primary health care with the upgrade of the family doctor, which “will answer the problem we saw during the pandemic: we have people who do not have a good picture of their individual health, do not have proper family counseling “They end up sick and go to the hospital with severe symptoms. This is the role of the family doctor, to regularly monitor the health of every citizen and to guide him.”

The fourth reform concerns the Justice, with the new code of courts, which will bring “significant changes in their operation”. On the occasion of the dismissal of two judges due to the long delays in the issuance of decisions, the Minister of State pointed out that “there is now a much stricter evaluation framework and judges, no one can work in a vacuum. A judge can not be promoted “If he has not attended and completed specific training and education programs. All these are important steps so that we can have better justice,” he stressed and added:

“The quality of decisions is a given, the problem is speed and it has to do with the control that is exercised in the operation of each court. Justice, like every sector of public administration, is its people.”

In addition to the above, A. Skertsos referred to the application of the mobile “panic button”, in the first phase as a pilot, to women who have already been victims of domestic violence. These mobile phones will be connected to the six special departments of the Greek Police.

Asked about the election scenarios, he reiterated that “the prime minister has made a clear statement on the timing of the elections”, adding: and legislative initiatives “.