Economou: We are taking all necessary measures to meet the citizens’ demands

“We are taking all the necessary measures with seriousness and responsibility to meet the demands of the citizens,” government spokesperson Yiannis Economou said on Friday during a press briefing, held for the first time in the city of Thessaloniki.

Economou said that the government foresaw the crisis ahead of time and, through its interventions, succeeded in mitigating the effects of successive crises without endangering public finances.

The measures, he said, are targeted and not horizontal and aim to support the weakest citizens, while they are in line with fiscal policy. “We will not jeopardise fiscal stability. All assistance will be given without endagering public finances. Citizens know where irrational fiscal policies can lead,” Economou said.

He noted that the government policy included measures for farmers, businesses and households, but added that they did not eliminate the effects of the crisis, which is impossible because “no state can deal with this crisis alone. We need a common European response and for this reason the prime minister is developing proposals at a European level.”

Tsipras: Measures announced by PM the ‘greatest mockery’ of pensioners in post-junta era

Main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Alexis Tsipras criticised the support measures announced by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakos as “a major deception” and the “greatest mockery pensioners have had to contend with in the post dictatorship era,” during his meeting on Friday with the Unified Network of Pensioners. 

The president of the Network Nikos Hatzopoulos, on his part,  said that Mitsotakis bears ‘sole responsibility’ for the explosion in prices and the shrinking of pensioners’ incomes.

People shouldn’t have to pay the overcosts of energy price hikes, says KINAL’s Androulakis

It is unfair that people should have to pay the overcosts of energy price hikes, while large energy production companies earn extra profit, Movement for Change (KINAL) leader Nikos Androulakis pointed out in a statement on Friday.

He was commenting on the premise of Friday’s Rome meeting of prime ministers of four southern European countries, including Greece, who discussed ways of tackling the unfolding crisis in energy costs for households and businesses.

The apparent need for common European tools against the energy crisis is indeed important, he added, but “it does not in any way lessen the Greek Prime Minister’s responsibility, whose choices for the country’s energy strategy managed to increase dependence on natural gas in the midst of a crisis by 25% in electricity generation.”

KINAL’s answer, noted Androulakis,”is to set a price cap on the retail price adjustment clause, so that citizens know how much they will pay on their electricity and natural gas bills, and to also set an extraordinary tax on the profits of companies that generate electricity, as proposed by the European commission and the European parliament last week, and which has already been implemented by the leaders of Spain and Italy with whom Mr. Mitsotakis spoke today,” he observed.