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24 hours strike in the public sector froze Greece today. All flights to and from the Greek airports have been canceled. The public institutions, municipalities, local governments are closed. The public schools and universities don’t have any classes and the hospitals are only taking care of emergency cases. This is only the first one from a series of strikes, which in the next few weeks will flood Greece.

The governmental employees are protesting against the policy of strict policy of budget cuts, which will not allow the increase of their salaries and against the introduction of new taxes which will additionally decrease their incomes.

“The government clearly stated that it will do everything in its powers the weight of this fiscal reform not to fall on the people with lower incomes. That is why we are looking for alternative ways for economic growth of the country”, said yesterday Georgios Papakonstantinou, minister of finance, at a press conference during which he presented also the new taxation policy of the government.

The syndicates are not happy with the up coming reform in the health care and pension security, which will practically lead to an increase of the retirement age. The unions stated that by tomorrow they will come up with the decision for a new strike in the beginning of March. The people working in the private sector are also not happy with the tax and security reforms and they will strike on February 24^th.