Kostas Tsoukalas launched another harsh critique against the government and Prime Minister personally, prompted by the Prime Minister’s customary Sunday post. In his detailed statement, PASOK-Movement for Change spokesman emphasized that “the Mitsotakis vs Androulakis dilemma represents the choice between a Greece of the few who prosper and the many who are ignored, suffer, and deserve to live better.”
Fresh attack by Tsoukalas against government and Kyriakos Mitsotakis
Full statement by Kostas Tsoukalas follows:
“The Prime Minister, with today’s post, under pressure from the opposition exercised by PASOK regarding the failure of the ‘My Home II’ program, retreated and was forced to accept our proposal for extension until the end of August for beneficiaries with approved applications.
However, this is insufficient to address the housing crisis that in our country is more acute than in the rest of Europe. Against the government’s half-measures that act as spectators watching the housing problem undermine social cohesion and demographic balance, Nikos Androulakis has proposed the best European practices for addressing the problem: Social housing programs, disincentives and restrictions on short-term rentals, and incentives to open closed properties.
We would have expected, given Mr. Mitsotakis’s “anger” about high prices, to hear something about this major problem plaguing Greek society. Since he’s so “angry” about high prices, why doesn’t he proceed, as PASOK demands, with substantial controls across all links of the supply chain instead of exhausting his “anger” on bureaucratic controls only on supermarket shelves?
Why doesn’t he investigate multinationals for internal overpricing?
Why doesn’t he strengthen the Competition Commission? Why does he maintain high VAT rates on essential goods and not index the tax scale as Nikos Androulakis has proposed?
Probably because his “anger” is yet another communication stunt that didn’t work out.
He has consciously chosen for the country a model of cheap labor, low productivity, and uncontrolled cartel activity. He turns a blind eye to profiteering. He keeps wages and pensions below inflation increases to benefit the profitability of the interests his government represents.
His Greece is a homeland that becomes deserted with households being violently impoverished. Our Greece is the homeland of confidence and just society.
The Mitsotakis vs Androulakis dilemma is the choice between a Greece of the few who prosper and the many who are ignored, suffer, and deserve to live better,” Mr. Tsoukalas concludes.
