The Union of Cyprus Pensioners (Ekysy) held its annual conference on Thursday morning before staging a demonstration outside the finance ministry to push their demand for more support from the state. Ekysy represents the poor, second-class pensioners as opposed to the well-off, first-class pensioners of the public service, many who collect monthly pensions that are more than twice as high as the median wage. The latter, despite their strong sense of entitlement, did not participate in Thursday’s demonstration.
The second-class pensioners of Ekysy approved a memo with their demands which would be sent to President Nicos Christodoulides. They would then ask for a meeting with him to discuss their demands. “In the event that we discern there is an unwillingness to meet us and discuss the demands included in the memo, there is a decision for stepping up the measures of our struggle,” said Ekysy general secretary Costas Skarparis, ignoring his groups’ powerlessness. His members cannot threaten to cut the electricity supply or close hospitals as other groups of workers do.
Instead, they will have to depend on the president’s charity. He may be willing to offer an extra €50 per month as the government had done for three months this year, ostensibly to help them cope with the high prices, which nevertheless remained after the assistance was terminated in June. Now, the demands of the pensioners are for preferential treatment, such as 20 per cent discount on electricity bills, reduction in the price of fuel with re-introduction of the lower VAT, as well as the lowering of the tax on fuel and continuation of the electricity bill subsidy.
These are very similar to the demands made by Akel and would benefit the entire population and not just pensioners. This may be because Ekysy is a satellite organisation of Akel – its conference was addressed by the general secretary of Akel and the head of Peo union. The impression is that Akel is using the pensioners to promote its demands for everyone – a pensioner cannot go to the petrol station and not pay VAT or consumer tax on the fuel he buys. Some measures demanded were for pensioners, such as price-indexed benefits and an increase of the benefit for care.
It is a pity that the plight of impoverished pensioners has been hijacked by Akel and that they are being used for the party’s political agenda. Yet Cyprus’ impoverished, second-class pensioners have legitimate grievances against the state, which is providing them with small monthly pensions and very basic welfare support. If Cyprus was a poor state that could not afford higher pensions, nobody would complain. But when the public sector pensioners receive obscenely generous pensions, the state can afford to pay higher pensions to the second-class citizens. If, for example, public employee pensions were reduced by 5 per cent, the lowest pensions could be increased.
It is this inequality that Ekysy should be protesting about instead of promoting Akel’s agenda that will not improve their standard of living in a material way.
