Greece’s international lenders have reportedly agreed to allow the government to hire 1,000 new public workers – if it fires 1,000 problem workers found to have violated their oaths or faced disciplinary action for a range of issues such as falsifying credentials, not showing up for work or other reasons, the newspaper Kathimerini said.
There was no explanation how that would save money or whether the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) would persist in its demands to fire 25,000 workers this year. The agreement came during talks with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras at his office during an unusual Sunday morning meeting on April 7.
The dismissal of public workers is a condition the country must meet before the Troika agrees to release a delayed installment of 2.8 billion euros ($3.5 billion) that was due in March. The hiring of replacement workers will be conducted through the established system of ASEP.
On the subject of the merger between National Bank and Eurobank, the Troika appeared to be seeking guarantees from the Greek government that the recapitalization of the new group to emerge from the tie-up will not require any additional funds to those set aside for the two banks.
After the conclusion of talks with the Troika, Samaras also had a lengthy consultation with Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras who said that, “There is progress in various issues, but there are also some problems.” He was set to resume negotiations with the envoys later in the night.
Samaras, the New Democracy Conservative leader, consulted by phone later with urther had telephone conversations with coalition partners Evangelos Venizelos of PASOK and Fotis Kouvelis of the Democratic Left to brief them on what happened. They are opposed to the firings of workers outright.
The government asked for the disbursement of the March installment and then the release of the April tranche of 6 billion euros ($7.75 billion) deal with the state’s urgent needs, but the Troika reportedly them combined in May.
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