The three-pronged package of interventions proposed by PASOK to address high fuel prices, with a reduction of the Special Consumption Tax on motor fuels and heating oil, a mechanism for returning to consumers the additional VAT revenues according to the Italian model, and systematic checks on profit margins from refining to the pump, was presented by Nikos Androulakis during his television interview on the program “Society Hour MEGA” with journalists I. Hasapopoulos and A. Voulgari.
“There is the Italian example: You take the VAT you have collected above what you had budgeted and channel it into reducing the Special Consumption Tax. That is what Italy does. Why shouldn’t Greece do it? You have raised 140 million more over the 8-month period. This measure I am proposing comes from the additional revenues the state received.
Obviously, these are not enough. We must also take 300 million from the budget so that both through the use of the additional VAT we have collected and through the budget we can dynamically reduce the Special Consumption Tax on heating oil and diesel,” he noted.
He added that “the refineries must contribute so that prices come down.”
“At the Thessaloniki International Fair we proposed that a permanent mechanism be established concerning all oligopolies and taxing excess profits. However, because this will happen next year, for prices to fall this year the refineries must also offer lower prices, because otherwise next year they will lose revenues that will be taxed. But the state must also reduce the Special Consumption Tax, why? Consumption will decrease; it is already decreasing,” he stressed.
As the President of PASOK-Movement for Change underlined, “the government has cut ties with society. When its ministers come out and say: ‘we represent the respectable householders and you represent the poor wretches,’ when its MPs come out and declare that ‘there is not such a big problem, because Alexandras Avenue still has traffic,’ when its ministers come out and argue that ‘wherever you go among the people, they tell you how well Greeks are doing,’ while Greeks have the lowest purchasing power in all of Europe, these people are out of touch with society, they have other priorities.”
Referring to the problems in the health sector and the chaotic landscape without checks and oversight in private structures that has recently come to the surface, Mr. Androulakis recalled that “the Greek people pay the highest private health expenditures together with Bulgaria in the entire European Union. The reconstruction of the National Health System requires a health map, checks on private structures. On the contrary, what is happening? Cartelization of private healthcare. Banks, insurance companies, private healthcare structures. Everything under absolute control. This is the work of the Mitsotakis government.”
As for the abolition of SEYYP, also known as the Health Rambos, by the law on the executive state, Mr. Androulakis stated:
“And afterward they come and acknowledge: ‘perhaps we made a mistake.’ Of course you made a mistake. Did a famous person have to die, when hundreds of Greek citizens who are not famous are victims of these practices?”
Against the backdrop of his own tour and that of PASOK teams on Aegean islands over the previous three days, Mr. Androulakis repeated his proposal for the creation of a special account to finance resilience infrastructure for insular Greece.
“In order to find money to invest in health, education, and daycare centers for the demographic issue on our islands, I proposed that there be a Special Account for each island, into which the additional VAT collected each year at the current rate compared to the minimum rate would be deposited. Do you know how many millions of euros that would be for Rhodes, for Santorini, and for other islands where the high rate currently applies?
Therefore, every year these islands will be able to have better health services and better education. I will submit it immediately as an amendment in Parliament. I expect the government to support it. What could be fairer? The government argues that ‘I am not going to the minimum rate, because we will lose the VAT from tourists.’ So let us agree, until these islands have the minimum rate, to have a bridge program so that the additional money is not lost, but goes there for education, health, and demographic infrastructure. So here is a proposal that answers where we will find money to support our islands.”
Asked to comment on the dilemmas “Mitsotakis or chaos” and “either us or no one”, Mr. Androulakis commented:
“Political change does not mean a political return to the past. We lived through these scenarios of arrogance and division and saw their results with both one and the other. We say: a positive vote for PASOK for its program, for its political personnel, for its political autonomy from interests, because without dependencies you can implement what you say. With dependencies you can do nothing.
Therefore, our political change unites people. It does not divide them. And I think that in the end the Greek people will choose it.”
And on this point he concluded:
“Our opponent is the government. Every official opposition has the government’s policy as its opponent and no one else. However, we have a duty to respond and to remind. Because Mr. Tsipras was also judged. He belongs to the past. The people gave him, as they did Mr. Mitsotakis, two opportunities, not one. We saw what he did. We remember.
Today he speaks about fair taxation and he was the Prime Minister who was fair only to the oligopolies. We had a 15% tax on dividends and he made it 10%. Did any troika pressure him? And Mr. Mitsotakis turned the 10% into 5%. Did anyone pressure him? Therefore, we had two prime ministers who, instead of keeping the 15% rate on dividends, which are mainly the billions earned by banks and oligopolies, one took it to 10% and the other to 5%.
At the same time, the citizen was going through a very difficult daily life. These are the things we must remember. The games with the institutions, what Mr. Mitsotakis was saying in previous years and what the citizen experienced. Therefore, our opponent is the government and we must remember the past. Because we are fighting so that the country moves forward and not backward. Because backward came with an expensive bill for the citizens.”
Finally, regarding the Wall Street Journal report, the President of PASOK-Movement for Change stressed: “There has been a discussion in recent days about a report in a foreign newspaper concerning Greece and the possible or alleged interventions of an embassy. Personally, I do not know whether everything the report writes is exactly as it writes it.
However, I do know that two years ago Mr. Mitsotakis was the only Prime Minister who signed an energy agreement with another European country and in the middle of the photograph was the U.S. ambassador. I think that this photograph does not do credit to Mr. Mitsotakis and makes us infer a great deal of what the report writes.”.