Greek Parliament should set up a committee to oversee the management of the upcoming Recovery Funds from the European Union, SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Alexis Tsipras reiterated on Tuesday, during a tour of NW Peloponnese.
In Amaliada, the main opposition leader said that the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis “should not be allowed to handle the 72 billion euros from the Recovery Fund” without transparency and accountability, and the party had filed a request with parliament for a committee to supervise the use of the EU funding package allocated to Greece.
“The energy crisis and the price hike crisis forces all of us to replan what the government tabled as its (development) plan with the European Commission, because it leaves out agricultural production and small to medium-sized businesses, since the government only supports the funds,” Tsipras said, noting that the party will “do whatever we can to support farm production.”
Tsipras called for an immediate political change and a progressive government with a revival plan for the national economy and rural Greece, during a chat he held with farmers and cattle breeders at the central square of Savalia, a community near the city of Amaliada. He called for the reimbursement of the special consumer tax on farm machinery gasoline so that production costs drop, and for a significant subsidy on fertilizers and animal feed. “If the state does not immediately support farmers’ incomes and create favorable conditions in production, then in six months rural areas in Greece will be abandoned and we shall experience conditions we have not seen since the 50s,” the main opposition leader said, adding that in his experience this is perhaps the worst time for farmers.
The energy crisis brought “a weighted average spike in energy bills of 20% to 25% in all of Europe, but in Greece the weighted average rise was 80%, and they are still climbing,” he said, pulling with it all other costs. The reason for the difference, he noted, was that “the so-called New Democracy golden boys at the Public Power Corporation are allowed to get excessive salaries of 360,000 euros annually and at the same time give themselves a bonus of 16 million euros when most Greeks can’t pay their electricity bills.”
SOURCE; AMNA