Collective Bargaining is a European not only Greek issue: Tsipras

Greece’s PM Alexis Tsipras accused political forces within Europe of trying to prevent collective bargaining from the labour market across the Union and were starting with Greece under the pretext for reform.

Tsipras made the comments at a Party of European Socialists meeting held before the EU leaders' summit where he also suggested that reforms carried out during the years of crisis have kept Europe at an economic and social standstill while increasing the political influence of the extreme and populist right.

The Greek PM also said that restoring collective bargaining in Greece was an issue that concerned the whole of Europe, since some hoped to use Greece as a starting point to remove this entitlement from Europe.

"The Rome Declaration cannot present an idyllic picture of Europe - that everything is going well," Tsipras noted.

"A discussion on a Europe with different degrees of integration is interesting in the sense that the process of deeper [integration] can proceed but with two provisos: firstly, that it does not entail a change in European treaties without the people of Europe and, secondly, that any strengthened cooperation will be open, without exclusions and exceptions," he said.