ATHENS – Main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Alexis Tsipras on Tuesday accused the government of having twice deceived pensioners, at a meeting with the heads of pensioners’ federations and associations.

Specifically, he said that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had pledged and voted to retain the 13th pension that the SYRIZA government had brought to parliament, but forgot his promise after he was elected. He also said the back payments issue was “the second major deception of pensioners by the Mitsotakis government”.

Tsipras underlined that the pensioners’ issue should not be viewed as a current one but as an issue of restoring justice with respect to the last decade. “It is true that there was a horizontal reduction of pensions and we believe that after the end of the memorandum ordeal these huge wounds must gradually heal”.