The opposition attributes yesterday's new “vague” announcements by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, as well as his assurance that the “personal opinion” of his spokesman, Pavlos Marinakis, on a two-month unemployment benefit does not constitute government intent, to the low expectations from the prime minister's appearance at the TIF.As for the announcements, PASOK identifies a “glaring contradiction” in the government's policy on high prices.
“On the one hand, Mr. Mitsotakis claimed that there is no fiscal space for substantial additional support for citizens against the rising energy cost. On the other hand, when asked about taxing the excess profits of the refineries, he replied that he is not considering such a measure, arguing that the money should be returned directly to consumers.”
As the party's competent Energy and Finance sectors note, when it comes to citizens the fiscal space is not sufficient, but when it comes to the excess profits of the powerful the government chooses not to increase it.
Beyond that, however, Char. Trikoupi points out another parameter as well: that the increase in prices “creates additional tax revenues for the state through VAT.” Therefore, this fiscal space cannot be ignored when the government talks about high prices and asks citizens to bear the cost.
In essence, PASOK puts forward its proposal: taxation of the excess profits of the refineries and return of the revenues to society.
“A policy choice that is, moreover, at the center of the European discussion, as six European countries are now requesting corresponding interventions, while Portugal has already imposed an extraordinary 33% tax on the excess profits of the refineries,” as it notes.
ELAS: Communicative arithmetic
For ELAS, Mr. Mitsotakis did not announce measures for energy, but announced that… he will announce measures.
“He first mentioned a scenario with heating oil at 2 euros and then presented as a success the price below 1.75 euros. He did not explain, however, how these prices arise, what the state intervention will be and how the reduction will be achieved,” Amalias stresses.
With the observation that Mr. Mitsotakis announced a “horizontal increase” in the heating allowance, without saying either the amount of the increase or the beneficiaries and its duration.
Especially regarding the participation of the refineries, ELAS raises the question whether their contribution will be “like that of the supermarkets” which, as they say, supposedly responded to the gentlemen's agreement for reducing shelf prices but “we see the results both on the shelf and in the pocket.”
They also stress that the prime minister presented the reinstatement of a cap on profit margins as a possibility and referred all details to the following week.
“This is not energy policy. It is the government's familiar communicative arithmetic: first it constructs a hypothetical reference point, then it christens the smaller high prices as ‘support’ and in the end leaves the bill empty,” it concludes.
And it describes the attempted handling of high prices (by Maximos) as a “fiasco,” with the winter expected to be difficult.
SYRIZA: What brought the prime minister down to earth?
“Mr. Mitsotakis discovered high prices tonight and at the same time discovered that even the Special Consumption Tax on fuels can be reduced, as SYRIZA has been insistently proposing for some time now, when just a few months ago he was rejecting the reduction of both the SCT and VAT citing the fiscal cost.”
With this position, Koumoundourou criticizes the prime minister's interview, with the observation: “Perhaps in reality what brought Mr. Prime Minister down to earth was inflation, which in August reached 3.8%, housing costs increased by 9.7%, heating oil by 53.2% and gasoline by 15.3% compared to last year.”