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Panagiotis Karkatsoulis, who was declared a public worker of the world in 2011, said that if the process were not accelerated, the government would be forced to cut public workers en masse. "If this happens, it will be like the mass cuts in wages and pensions, without any criteria. In all cases, it will be wrong because the closure of any number of services alone will not solve the problem. It is impossible to put things in order, if the actual needs of the public administration are not considered."

Professor Haridimos Tsoukas said that the constitutional ban on dismissals of public workers was typical only for Greece and possibly for other countries in the European South.

"I am aware of the situation in the UK, but I guess things are not different across Northern Europe. There is no statute of permanent employment until retirement as a constitutionally protected right. There is a core of public functionaries, who cannot be dismissed. But in Northern Europe in general, what we call the ‘public sector,’ is subject to disciplinary law. This means that a government employee can be dismissed if he or she breaks the rules or systematically fails to perform his or her duties.

Things are different here, because the status of public workers is overexposed. On the one hand, is the fact that an article of the constitution establishes it. On the other, it is part of the culture of the modern Greeks: when you are a public worker, you are absolutely secure. From the first approval of the ban on dismissal of public workers in the 1930s to today, it has been one of the most basic informal rights. It is just that the people themselves expect and know that when employed in a public service they will not leave it until the end of their working life.
  
"It is time to change that," the teacher said, stating that despite the constitutional ban, there are categories of employees in the public sector who may be dismissed under certain conditions. "The same should apply for those who are found to be unsuitable for the job. Even the current Minister says that employees who have committed a fraud and those who do not actually go to work should be dismissed as well as the unsuitable employees. Pay attention to the terms. We had to be close to bankruptcy to remember that there are such people in the public sector."

"The reasons are political. The Minister of Administrative Reform was proposed by and sympathizes with the Democratic Left. Generally speaking, the Greek left has always had a statesmanlike vision of the country and society. They define the ban on dismissal of public workers as an "achievement of the labour movement in Greece." It is their position that poses serious obstacles to the probability that their opinions will change. This does not surprise me, although I would expect a modern left to learn more from the experience of Scandinavian countries, where social democratic parties have been governing for decades and where dismissals in the public sector are not prohibited. This is the European South."

The talks about the expected cuts sparked many discussions in the social media. Here are some of the most typical of them:

"If you steal money from your employer’s till, you are an ordinary thief. However, if your employer is the state, you're just an "employee who has broken his oath."

"I just want to make it out. Are we negotiating with the Troika about whether to dismiss offending public workers?"

"Look, they may close several government offices, but there will be no dismissals. Why is that? It is because they have the right to vote in elections."