Kyriakos Mitsotakis has turned his attention to the issues of the economy and especially to those that concern citizens in their daily lives, as the post-election initiatives he is undertaking, following the reshuffle of the government a week ago, show.
The Prime Minister set the tone with yesterday’s announcement that the 300 million euros to be raised from the taxation of the refineries’ “excess profits” will be directed to support pensioners and other vulnerable social groups, with the well-known emergency aid given during the Christmas holidays. At the same time, the government decided to make permanent the reduced VAT rate on taxis and takeaway coffee, while during his visit to the Ministry of Development the day before yesterday, Mitsotakis announced a six-month extension of the existing measures for reduced prices on supermarket shelves, which have begun to yield some results.
For PM Mitsotakis, however, the major issue is the substantial reduction of shelf prices, hence the responsible Minister of Development, Takis Theodorikakos, started yesterday to meet with market players and supermarket owners, seeking “gentlemen’s agreements”. ‘I am not only interested in reducing inflation. I also want to see reductions in shelf prices. We saw them for the first time last month and obviously we want to see them at a much higher intensity,” Mitsotakis said meaningfully yesterday while speaking to Real FM.
The “thorn” of farmers
Today, however, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is continuing his contacts with the new leadership of the ministries, will be at the Ministry of Rural Development. An “electric” ministry, where Kostas Tsiaras took over in an attempt to “heal” the wounds opened during the days of Lefteris Avgenakis. It is well known that the former minister had open fronts with the agricultural world, but the situation within the ministry was also electric. Given the peculiarities of this ministry, two executives from the wounded Thessaly, Kostas Tsiaras from Karditsa and the Larissa deputy minister Christos Kellas, were recruited in the reshuffle.
One of the critical stakes is the normalisation of the flow of money to producers, as there have been many irregularities in the past months. At the same time, the aim is to lower the tones with the agricultural world, which have risen very high, especially during the period of the agricultural mobilizations. More broadly, one of the priorities that Mitsotakis has already set in Europe is the interventions that need to be made in the CAP, as many producers have suddenly found themselves in a “vacuum”. Indicative of Mr Mitsotakis’ interest is the fact that one of the portfolios “at stake” for our country is that of agriculture, currently held by Poland.
