George Katrougalos

The new Greek government was announced by spokesperson Olga Gerovasili, Friday at 10pm. Minister of Education Nikos Filis was left out of the new government, paying the price for his open disagreement with the head the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop of Athens Ieronymos.

Pensioners have scheduled a demonstration at the National Resistance square (Ethnikis Antistaseos) in Athens, at 10am Thursday, protesting against the cuts they suffered in their supplementary pensions due to the new law introduced by Minister of Labour George Katrougalos.

Despite reassurances by Greek Labour Minister George Katrougalos that the social security issue had been decided upon with Greece’s creditors and no more cuts were planned, a letter by Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem revealed that the issue would be on the November 7 Eurogroup meeting agenda.

Greece's labor minister says negotiators from the International Monetary Fund have adopted "extreme neoliberal" positions at the start of a new round of bailout talks in Athens, pressing to aggressively scale back union powers and employment rights.

The first meeting between the institutions and Greek Labour Minister George Katrougalos ended on Sunday, and despite its exploratory nature it became apparent that the two sides remain entrenched in their positions on the issues of mass layoffs and minimum wage.

Greece will tell its creditors it cannot comply with labor reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund as a condition of its support for the country's third bailout, its labor minister told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

The start of talks between the Greek Labour Minister, George Katrougalos and the country’s creditors (Troika) on Wednesday, are highly anticipated, as the Greek Minister has made it explicitly clear that Greece would not budge on the issues of massive layoffs, lock-outs, defending the right to strike and wages.

Despite the Greek PM Alexis Tsipras’s claim that he had managed to ’square the circle’ during his speech at the Thessaloniki International Fair, Sunday, the numbers paint a different story regarding the cuts in pensions. Half of the Greek pensioners (1.2 million) saw a cuts in their meagre incomes ranging from a few Euros to 230 Euros (abolition of the EKAS benefit).

Following the uproar caused by revelations that thousands of ancillary pensions were in danger of totally disappearing as a result of retroactive deductions in three instalments, the government has backtracked and plans to place a limit on the deductions.

Labour Minister George Katrougalos admitted that ancillary pensions were slashed by 40% during an interview on state broadcaster ERT, Wednesday. Katrougalos explained that this came about as a result of an imbalance between contributions and benefits.