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Victoria Mindova

The National Bank of Greece donated the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs 1.5 million euros to introduce a unified electronic system for prescribing. The introduction of this technological "miracle" is a priority of the Socialist government since it came in power in the autumn of 2009. The system is expected to significantly decrease pharmacies’ free drugs abuse thus reducing the budgetary costs of health insurance funds.

The government started up a program that connects pharmacies with one of the health insurance funds still in October 2010. Electronic prescribing facilitates the flow of information between health funds, pharmacists and GPs. This allows every stage of the process to be tracked as well as effective control to be exercised from the prescription of medicines to their receipt and to what extent it relates to the condition of the patient. The results of the pilot program of the government showed that free drugs prescription costs have fallen by 45% between October and December 2010. This difference is significant in absolute terms as the budget costs of medicines have fallen to 620,000 euros for the last quarter of 2010 from 950,000 euros for the same period of 2009.

The information program has three stages of introduction. Tthe first stage was the pilot project of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs at the end of last year. The second one started in January 2011 and will end in May the same year. Through it the unified information system will connect pharmacies in the country with the largest health insurance fund which serves employees in the private sector and the health insurance organization for public sector employees.

The third stage is connected with the introduction of this unified system in all public hospitals, which, according to the program of the Ministry, will take at least five years. It is known for now that 1.5 million euros donated by the National Bank of Greece will cover only the costs for completing the second stage. Official representative of the Labour Ministry said in an informal conversation with GRReporter that there was no budget for the third stage and it was not yet clear how much it would cost the state to introduce the system in all hospitals working with the Greek health insurance funds.

At a press conference for the official announcement of the donation, the Chief Executive of the National Bank of Greece Apostolos Tamvakakis said that the institution presented by him had the social responsibility to support the introduction of innovations and changes in the public sector. He appealed to the Greeks to become part of this and to responsible planning and said: "The serious hardships before the Greek society due to the development of the crisis will pose new challenges to us. All together – the citizens, the business and the state – we can meet these challenges with plan, determination and will for dialogue."

The appeal for solidarity and will for dialogue quickly shifted the topic and the competent minister Louka Katseli had to explain what she intended to do with the pending collective agreements. After long and tough negotiations in the summer of 2010 the social partners in the country have agreed on working conditions in the next three years while the contract for financial support of Greece is in force. Employers and unions have reached to an agreement with reluctance because none of the parties was fully satisfied with the outcome. The newly signed national collective agreement established that the increase of salaries of workers in the private sector will be equal to the weighted average inflation rate in the eurozone countries which is expected to be around 1.7 percent for 2011.

This decision is contrary to the recommendations of the supervisory Troika and the Memorandum of financial support where it is said that salaries and pensions if they are not reduced should be frozen for three years. While Greece is being supported by the International Monetary Fund and the euro area countries and receiving the amount of 110 billion euros in tranches, increase in salaries and pensions could lead to unwanted rise in inflation. The government tried to resist local trade union forces more than half a year and to cancel even symbolic increases but it finally accepted them and four of the five collective agreements will be signed to the end of February this year.

The collective agreement for the security companies staff, however, will not be signed and will be sent to the Supreme Council for Employment to revise it. The reason is that the unions of Greek guards had agreed with their employers in some weird way to receive wage increases of 5% this year. An amount that is significant even in a period of positive economic growth and almost unbelievable in times of recession. Minister Katseli refused to explicitly state that she completely rejected this proposal and sent the ball in the court of the Supreme Council for Employment to state whether the wishes of the guards could be fulfilled and to what extent. Labour market analysts comment that the outcome of this battle is already clear but the Ministry is obliged to act in due order before rejecting the agreement between employers and employees in the security sector.