The drivers fulfilled their threat and blocked the Athens - Thessaloniki, Athens - Corinth highways and Vulyagmenis Boulevard with trucks when the Parliament voted the bill on the liberalization of their profession. This caused major traffic jams on the main roads to and from the capital. The drivers opened the roads after half an hour.
Currently trucks are parked along the highways, but left free lanes for the cars to move. Most of the drivers who spent the night in front of the Parliament returned to their vehicles promising blockades of the roads. Their protest in front of the Parliament continued this morning and about 1000 people gathered at Syntagma Square at noon. There they patiently listened to the parliamentary dispute on the bill that was voted at this time. The drivers have reacted violently during the speech of the Minister of Transport and Communications Dimitris Repas. Some of them rushed to the Parliament throwing bottles and oranges against the guarding policemen. The first two trucks arrived to the Parliament shortly after 2:30 pm making loud noise with their horns.
The law on the opening of the profession passed the first reading around 3:00 pm. The controversial Article 14, which refers to the transitional period for the market opening and the devaluation of the licenses, was approved through a separate roll call vote. 53 parliamentary members voted in its favour and 46 voted against it.
"The most important thing is to keep 35% of the value of the licenses," said a 30-year-old truck driver early in the morning. This was the main branch request. Drivers that have bought licenses in the past years and did not pay them in full yet will suffer most of the currently adopted law. Licenses worth hundreds of thousands of euros that were bought with bank loans will have to be paid but according to the already adopted law, they will have no value after three years (when the transitional period for the liberalization of the profession expires).
"My father would have to retire after two years. His pension will be 500 euros and he will not take efapaks* money ". He wanted to sell his license to be able to survive because his pension won’t be sufficient to take care of himself and my mother. This means that I will work to support my parents. The license devaluation means that you have been working a lifetime to pay 200,000 euros," said the driver. The 30-year-old driver is working for a private company. He said the employer has already reduced his salary by 20% but he doesn’t mind it just to keep his job.
He also agreed that wages in Greece should be reduced and this is unavoidable, because the opening of the market will make the companies prefer to hire drivers from Bulgaria, Serbia or Turkey for lower wages. He agreed that the profession should be opened - something that had to be done many years ago. But he strongly opposed the complete devaluation of the licenses, since according to him, this means that you have been working in vain your whole life. "Anyway, there is not enough work. The drivers in Greece are three times more per capita than in the other European countries," he said.
Nobody stops us to vote for a five year transitional period. If Greece is subsequently brought to the European Court it will be able to prove that the three-year period is insufficient for the market opening, said in brief Prokopis Pavlopoulos of New Democracy from the parliamentary rostrum.
The drivers are expected to decide in the coming hours what will be their next moves - whether they will continue to protest or will accept the facts. This directly affects consumers because they have already felt the lack of essential products. However, the boy that I spoke to confirmed that "Shortage of drugs is impossible, because pharmaceutical companies have their own transport. There is no lack of fuels as the deliveries are carried out by tanks of the petroleum companies and the supermarkets also have their trucks.” Nevertheless, the warehouses at the port of Thessaloniki are full of loads waiting to be allocated and the islands are worried about the supply of basic products.
* Efapaks is an amount which some civil servants and private employees receive separately from the pension when they retire. The amount varies according to their salary, length of service, paid contributions, etc.
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