Military personnel unions and the defence ministry have finally reached a deal on working conditions, having previously agreed a 1% pay rise, news agency ANP reports.

The working conditions agreement includes a new social plan for staff who are losing their jobs because of spending cuts.
Some 12,000 out of 69,000 defence ministry jobs will go as part of a package of measures to cut the budget by €1bn. Of them, around half are likely to be compulsory redundancies.