ATHENS, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Hundreds of Greeks rallied in central Athens on Tuesday and doctors and teachers joined public-sector workers who walked off the job in protest at low wages and a cost-of-living crisis ahead of a vote on the 2026 budget.
Greece has recovered from the 2009-2018 debt crisis after slashing wages as part of an austerity drive in return for three international bailouts. Despite numerous increases in recent years, salaries still lag behind the euro zone average while food and housing costs have risen.
The centre-right government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis has announced income tax breaks and other aid worth 1.6 billion euros ($1.89 billion) that parliament was expected to approve on Tuesday as part of next year’s budget.
But municipal workers, school teachers and state hospital doctors walked off the job on Tuesday to join a 24-hour public sector strike over wages which they said were not enough to get them through the month.
“It’s a budget that cuts millions from public hospitals, where I also work, and funnels the money into military spending,” said Argyria Rotokritou, a doctor, who joined the protests outside the parliament in the Greek capital.
Protesters also expressed solidarity with farmers who have deployed thousands of tractors and trucks in dozens of blockades for a third week, disrupting traffic along major motorways and intermittently blocking border crossings to protest delays in European Union aid and other payments.
The delays were prompted by investigations into a corruption scandal in which some farmers, aided by state employees, faked land ownership to qualify for payouts. Ongoing audits have slowed subsequent disbursements.
Farmers have rebuffed a call by the government for talks, asking them to speed up payment of overdue EU farm aid, lower the cost for agricultural fuel and protect them from produce imports.
Stockbreeders also demanded quick vaccination of their livestock after an outbreak of sheep pox led to farmers having to cull hundreds of thousands of sheep and goats.
Some industries, retailers and tourism businesses have raised concerns over the impact of the farmers’ blockades on travel and the transport of goods during the Christmas holiday season.
($1 = 0.8488 euros)
(Reporting by Stamos Prousalis; Writing by Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
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