"Cut 200 euros from the minimum wage!"

The Labour ministry will continue to give a battle to the end until Tuesday to persuade the heads of the Troika that wages have been reduced quite a lot and further reductions will lead the economy into deeper recession.

The Troika is demanding that wage cuts reach an average of 15%. SEPE official figures show that through the business contracts, labour costs decreased by 12% during the past quarter. Furthermore, IOBE research estimates that the business contracts, the 3-year wage freeze and a non-wage costs reduction by 10% in the coming years will take the total reduction of labour costs to over 15%.

The excessive burden will be reduced for minimum wages too, now at a 966-euro monthly cost to the employer, of which 415 euros are non-wage costs, that is contributions and the tax of paid services, while employees get no more than 550.27 euros in their pockets.

However, lenders insist that the minimum wage, including shared benefits and bonuses, amounts to 863 euros and should be reduced even by 200 euros to reach the level of Portugal (566), Spain (748) and the Eastern European countries (even lower) for the benefit of competitiveness.

Minimum wages and the 13th and 14th salaries are key points in the negotiations handled by Papademos, who seems to be moving along the same lines as the political leaders.

Those who followed closely the weekend negotiations estimate that it will be a success if the PM manages to rescue one of the two, and they say he is more likely to salvage the 13th and 14th salaries since the Troika representatives would like minimum wages to squeeze below 600 euros.

And if this issue remains to be negotiated, the Troika is calling for immediate legislation on all the other issues, which are the freezing of maturing salaries, cuts in supplementary pensions, wage cuts and layoffs in state enterprises and banks, as well as a reduction of prices by professionals.