The General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), Dimitris Koutsoumbas, opened his speech in Parliament today, addressing the bill on the minimum wage by referring to the destruction caused by recent floods.

“In Lemnos, Rhodes—the so-called ‘tourism miracle,’ as you call it—Halkidiki, and Larissa, lofty words about the ‘improvement of citizens’ daily lives,’ as Mr. Mitsotakis stated in Thessaloniki, were buried under rubble and debris. Meanwhile, three more of our fellow citizens lost their lives, with the state limiting its response to sending messages to our mobile phones,” Koutsoumbas stated.

He continued:
“Members of the government, while you leave our cities and islands defenseless against phenomena we know will recur, you shamelessly hide behind the convenient excuse of the ‘climate crisis’ every time.”

“The real culprit and cause have a name: it is your policy, which labels essential protective measures for the people—such as anti-flood projects—as ‘costs’ and sacrifices them on the altar of bloody surpluses. It is the directives of the EU, which you implement today and your predecessors implemented yesterday, under which such projects are deemed ineligible for funding, unlike others that yield profits for large corporations.”

Koutsoumbas urged the government to act immediately:
“Stop your usual analyses of how much rain fell in how little time and your grim comparisons with Valencia. Act now to restore damages, fully compensate the victims, and take all necessary measures without delay so that we don’t end up as spectators of the same tragedy again, as is often the case.”