Subject: Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 17-03-09 From: "HR-Net News Distribution Manager" CONTENTS [01] PM Tsipras: Collective labour agreements in Greece are a European issue [02] ECB lowers borrowing ceiling for Greek banks [03] Private-sector salaried employment increased in February, based on Ergani figures --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [01] PM Tsipras: Collective labour agreements in Greece are a European issue The reforms carried out during the years of crisis have kept Europe at an economic and social standstill while increasing the political influence of the extreme and populist right, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Thursday at a Party of European Socialists meeting held before the EU leaders' summit. According to sources, Tsipras also said that restoring collective bargaining in Greece was an issue that concerned the whole of Europe, since some hoped to use Greece as a starting point to remove this entitlement from Europe. "The Rome Declaration cannot present an idyllic picture of Europe - that everything is going well," Tsipras noted. Commenting on the discussion underway on a Europe of "different speeds," the Greek prime minister warned that there was a real danger of slipping into a "conservative view of Core Europe that we must avoid." "A discussion on a Europe with different degrees of integration is interesting in the sense that the process of deeper [integration] can proceed but with two provisos: firstly, that it does not entail a change in European treaties without the people of Europe and, secondly, that any strengthened cooperation will be open, without exclusions and exceptions," he said. [02] ECB lowers borrowing ceiling for Greek banks The European Central Bank on Thursday approved a request by the Bank of Greece to lower the borrowing ceiling for Greek banks by 100 million euros. ECB's managing board did not object to the Greek central bank's request to lower the borrowing ceiling through the emergency liquidity assistance mechanism (ELA) for Greek banks to 46.2 billion euros until Wednesday, 22 March. This decline reflected an improving liquidity condition of Greek banks, taking in mind deposit flows of the private sector. [03] Private-sector salaried employment increased in February, based on Ergani figures There was a net increase in the number of private-sector salaried jobs in Greece in February 2017, based on figures released by the labour ministry's Ergani system on Thursday. There was a total of 138,242 hiring notifications submitted during the month and 113,304 notifications of job positions vacated, for an increase of 24,938 jobs in total. Of the job departures, 55,306 were voluntary and 57,998 arose from the termination of permanent employment or the expiration of fixed-term contracts. In comparison with February 2016, there was an increase of 10,501 job positions in February 2017. This is the fourth consecutive year that Ergani figures have recorded a net positive balance for private-sector salaried jobs in February, while the 2017 figures are the highest for any February since 2001. Of the new hirings in February 2017, 43.24 pct are full-time jobs, 40.01 pct are part-time jobs and 16.75 pct are for casual employment.