The meeting between ASPE and Minister Domna Michailidou provided a platform for discussion regarding the state of family and demographic policy in Greece
By: the ASPE Press Office
On Tuesday, October 21, ASPE, represented by its President, Mr. Thomas Gianniotis, Secretary General Ms. Dimitra-Ines Aggeli, and ASPE Director Mr. Charalambos Pavlos, held a brief meeting with Minister of Social Cohesion & Family, Ms. Domna Michailidou, and the Secretary General for Demographic and Housing Cohesion, Mr. Konstantinos Gloumis-Atsalakis.
During this meeting, the Minister announced that she had already signed the new joint ministerial decision on the beneficiaries of nursery vouchers and that the remaining procedures for its publication and submission to the EETAA were being finalized. As for large families who were initially excluded from nursery vouchers due to income criteria, they will not need to reapply, as their request has already been covered. However, the decision regarding K.D.A.P. has not changed, so that large families who were excluded are also covered by this provision. ASPE requests that this part of the decision also be changed so that proportionality in income criteria based on the number of children in each family is restored here as well.
ASPE also requested changes to various aspects of OPEC benefits (childbirth allowance, A21, housing allowance, LAE benefits). With regard to the housing/rent allowance, firmly focused on our obvious request that all children in a family be taken into account when calculating criteria and allowance amounts, we requested that the relevant decision be corrected, which has an income criterion of €12,000 with an additional €3,000 for each child up to the third, provided that the maximum family income does not exceed €21,000 regardless of the number of children. The Minister urged us to resubmit our positions to the Ministry of Finance for the approval of our fair request to maintain proportionality in the number of children for each benefit, as well as to readjust the amounts (income and payments) due to the increase in the cost of living, so that the above proposals can be implemented.
There was a common understanding on the issue of adapting the large family identity card to more modern circumstances in order to better serve large families, a topic that will be discussed further in the near future.
During the meeting, the Minister was asked to propose the removal of the luxury tax on multi-seat vehicles for large families in the upcoming tax bill because it provides, among other things, for new living standards.
Finally, there was an exchange of views on ways to make cooperation between the Ministry and ASPE, which is the government’s institutional social partner on family, children, and large families since 1931. To this end, ASPE proposed the appointment of an unpaid scientific advisor to the Ministry in order to ensure a continuous institutional channel of cooperation and communication on issues of large family policy, a proposal that the Minister has undertaken to examine.
The constructive dialogue of this meeting must be continued and produce visible results in order to provide further support for large families.