ATHENS — "New Democracy should set aside speculations and lies and admit that they have left businesses and employees to fend for themselves," main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance's sector-head for finance, Effie Achtsioglou, said on Monday.

She noted that the direct and temporary measure of subsidising labour, which was proposed by SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance, among other measures, "obviously concerns only the affected companies, not all companies in the private sector," and pointed out that this had been suggested in two programmes already unveiled by the main opposition.

Achtsioglou said that "this measure, which includes full coverage of insurance contributions and coverage of 40 pct of the salary by the state, costs 350 million euros per month," and that "the duration of this temporary measure, as (SYRIZA leader Alexis) Tsipras has already explained, concerns the period until the country returns to growth." She added, finally, that "the total cost of the temporary measures presented by Alexis Tsipras amounts to 8.5 billion euros and the permanent ones to 3 billion per year."