Greek Labor Min. on wiretapping: I am not linking it to the prime minister

Kostis Hatzidakis spoke about the wiretapping, as one of the persons on the list presented by Alexis Tsipras in Parliament. “It’s not nice, no doubt about it. I never imagined that there would be a motion of no confidence for the government and I would be the protagonist”, said the Minister of Labor.

Speaking on the ANT1 channel, the Minister of Labor is said to be among the people who were under surveillance and when asked about it, he replied that, “we all know how the EYP works over time. We know the pathogens. It is obvious to me that there were some ‘Inspectors Clouseau’ who exhausted their espionage interest on me.”

“A very rich government project is wronged by this story”

The Minister made it clear that he does not connect the Prime Minister to the surveillance, noting that, “the Prime Minister reacted immediately and we immediately had resignations and then they made sure to leak information to harm the government.”

“I remain who I was, my integrity has never been questioned. I want to know and punish those responsible. I don’t want to associate the Prime Minister with this. I would very much like the Judiciary to investigate this very quickly. From this story a very rich government project is wronged”, he said and in the comment that these are obviously legal connections, he said that “justice will judge whether or not there was an abuse of power”.

“I haveno penchant for positions, I’ve been a minister for eight years. What I know is that the prime minister surrounds me with his confidence. And today I feel vindicated both for the rescue of the PPC and for the reforms”, he pointed out.

On Christos Rammos

When asked about Christos Rammos, he said that “the government has positioned itself on Mr. Rammos, I have nothing else to add. I want everyone to recognize that I’m in one position and I don’t want to be seen as throwing the ball out of bounds.”

Concluding on the issue, he emphasized two things: “I am not linking the prime minister. I want the matter to be investigated.”

On pension increases

The Minister of Labor spoke about the pensions, which from today are increased and said that, “the Katrougalos law was corrected to a large extent by Yannis Vroutsis. We’ve had raises since 2020. About 1.7 million pensioners will get the full raise. Most will get raises that are closer to 7.7%. And there are also 900,000 who have a personal difference.”

“The pandemic and the energy crisis prevented the abolition of the personal difference measure. We would like to give more, but it doesn’t work out”, he said and accusing Alexis Tsipras, he mentioned that, “what Tsipras is offering is in the order of 12 billion euros and it is beyond what can be afforded”. “We don’t want to be the ‘give it all’ government. We will measure the fiscal space in February and then we will make decisions”, he noted and added that, “of the 910,000 who have the personal difference, 460,000 received support at Christmas and last Easter”.

Regarding the increase in the minimum wage, he said that “it will be a brave and significant increase. There are no workers without businesses, nor businesses without workers” and concluded that, “the Prime Minister said that they do not need to apply for the main pensions”.