Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis requested that the members of the Cabinet and the MPs of the governing New Democracy (ND) party deposit half their salary, for the next two months, in order to support the special fund that has been set up to combat coronavirus oubreak.
SYRIZA, for its part, competing with the government in its efforts to impress, called for a mandatory, not voluntary, reduction in parliamentary salaries and benefits for all state and government officials.
Commenting on the ND and SYRIZA proposals for a reduction in MPs' and state officials' salaries to support the special fund to combat the coronavirus, the Press Bureau of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) states the following:
"If ND and SYRIZA and the other parties want to, they can adopt the long-standing proposal of the KKE for a permanent - not temporary, given the pandemic situation - drastic reduction in the MPs' and other high-ranking state officials' salaries and the abolition of the compensation for participation in Parliamentary Committees along with parliamentary benefits. This proposal has always been in place, and much more so given today's conditions where the people are suffering from the consequences of the pandemic, from the great deficits in the public Healthcare System, as well as from measures taken by the government and big business.
Whatever they state contains elements of hypocrisy and demagogy during these difficult times and their goal is to cover up the huge responsibility they bear for the under funding of the public Healthcare System.
We note, once again, that in terms of KKE parliament members, their parliamentary compensation is deposited in full to the Party for the organization of the popular struggle and the fight for people's rights".
