A general strike in protest against the high cost of living largely paralyzed Greece on Wednesday. Ships and ferries remained in the ports, trains in the depots. Bus and taxi drivers also joined the strike call by the trade union umbrella organization GSEE. Road traffic came to a standstill in the capital Athens as hundreds of striking workers marched outside parliament to demonstrate for higher wages that still lag behind wages in other EU countries.
High inflation and protests are putting the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, which was re-elected last year, under increasing pressure ahead of the European elections in June. Unions criticize that the wage increases are not enough to keep up with rising food and housing costs. “The high prices are eating up any minimum wage increase,” senior GSEE representative Nikos Kioutsoukis told Reuters. “We cannot pay for another crisis, we cannot continue like this, we want real wage increases.” Mitsotakis has promised to increase the monthly minimum wage to 950 euros by the end of the legislative period in 2027. The average wage is expected to rise by more than 25 percent to 1,500 euros during this period.
During the severe debt crisis in Greece from 2010 to 2018, wages were massively cut amid painful austerity measures in return for international aid packages. Since then, the Greek economy has recovered and grown almost twice as fast as that of the euro zone. The minimum wage was also raised this month by 6.4 percent to 830 euros, the fourth increase in five years. But the upswing is not reaching many people. The Greek average salary of 1,175 euros per month is still 20 percent below the level of 15 years ago, and the unemployment rate, still over ten percent, is the second highest in the European Union after Spain.