“Last year, the demands that were raised, after the protests and the farmers’ meeting with the prime minister, were 3 issues: to have cheap rural oil, cheap rural electricity and to give compensation. The government has done this: for the first time, we have legislated to return the VAT to 100%. No one has ever done this before. Farmers are coming forward today that the facts of the past have changed, and that’s what we’re hearing and that’s what we’re going to see. How the VAT is refunded depending on the crop or depending on the type of crop is something that has been agreed between the farmers and the Ministry of Finance,” Minister of Rural Development and Food, Kostas Tsiaras said, referring to the farmers’ protests.

“Regarding rural oil, we said that we will ensure a low electricity price, locked for the rural world for 2+8 years,. This means that based on the fact that the price of electricity changes, we managed to lock the entire rural world into a fixed price of rural electricity. The primary sector is not a sector to be valued in terms of numbers, but we assess its contribution to social cohesion. The reduction of production costs is one of the main objectives of government policy. It was not easy to regulate electricity but it was a brave step. We always have the door open to the rural world to see what can be done. There are various invitations at this time that help the rural sector to develop and incentivise the primary sector and engagement. We have the rural roads that will reduce the cost of production, we have the call for greenhouses, etc. It is not easy for someone to go and become a farmer,” he continued.

Furthermore, Tsiaras pointed out, “For Daniel, 680-690 million euros have been given to farmers alone. All this is not done in the logic of a horizontal approach but based on rules and regulations and other criteria. There is very little money left to give as compensation. There is money outstanding to the farmers about 100 objections that need to be dealt with, we are talking about more than 35,000 people who are each a different case. The ELGA has paid, with an addition of more than 800 million euros from the state budget. At least for this year and with what has gone before, my feeling is that the mobilizations are not helping in a meaningful direction that keeps the door open for dialogue. Do our best to support the agricultural sector. Just yesterday I put before the general committee the real need to set up a mutual fund to compensate for the disasters of the wave crisis and that is what is needed.”