Greek opposition parties slammed Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for granting 150 euros to the country’s youth as an incentive to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
Main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance accused Mitsotakis of attempting to bribe young people and asked him to stop dividing the citizens with privileges for the vaccinated.
In its announcement, SYRIZA said “Mitsotakis after turning the young people’s lives into a living hell in the last year and a half, is now attempting to bribe them with 150 euros. He treats them like fish that will take the bait and not as citizens with rights. To bite and forget the authoritarianism and the beatings in the squares and the unprecedented exclusion of thousands of pupils from the state universities for the sake of private colleges while constantly targetting them for spreading the pandemic”.
However, SYRIZA urges all people to get vaccinated in order to build a wall of immunity, “regardless of the insulting gifts and privileges”.
Criticism came also from opposition Movement for Change (KINAL/PASOK that said the PM’s announcement is an “admission of failure.”
KINAL’s announcement said that the government had failed to persuade people to get vaccinated and was now resorting to populism, with benefits for half of the country’s young people aged 18 to 25.
“The danger of the viral mutations demand high levels of participation by people in the vaccination, from which we are still far away,” underlined KINAL, noting that it has proposed a targeted campaign, mobile vaccination units, serious incentives and obligatory vaccinations for specific categories of employees. “They must finally be serious,” concluded the announcement.
See also: Greece grants 150 euros to youth to get vaccinated (POLL)
I think most of us over the age of 40 have forgotten what it’s like to be young. It is true I think that the young have been disproportionately affected by the long lock-downs and restrictions and for me, this €150 is not a bribe – it’s payback. It’s a small measure of what we, the rest of Greek society, owe to the young for playing their part in containing the virus, despite their greater need to socialise with one another and to party. As long as they continue to play their part and get vaccinated of course – because vaccination protects everyone.
I believe in equality, but that means equality of opportunity, not necessarily equality of outcomes. Everyone has an equal opportunity to be vaccinated and I support everyone’s right to choose. Choices have consequences however, so privileges for the vaccinated is not divisive at all it’s simply a consequence of your choice.
Choose wisely.
Abject nonsense! So the massive damage to young people’s lives and education over the last 18 months (primarily to protect the lives of the elderly, and make up for the underfunded Greek public healthcare system) is compensated by a mere 150 euros?! And even then, only if they agree to vaccination? What you have posted here is old-man drivel. Thank God I have avoided becoming a silly old fogey, and still think like a young person.
And if you want to know what young people think about the coronavirus response, the vaccines, and Mitsotakis’s 150 euros bribe — why not ask them? Perhaps KTG could publish a guest post from a few young Greeks — just to educate you and the other elderly, pompous foreigners living in Greece.
Its ok… these young people will pay this back in taxes 10x over their lifetime, that is of course unless they want a decent work life and decide to emigrate to other European countries that will be sure to take advantage of their free Greek education.
A rather insincere and hypersensive seeking blame game to score political; points by a breathtakingly challenged opposition.
Never mind a measly 150 euros, in the US they are offering millions of dollar by way of lotteries to take the vaccine!