My dear friends, good day to you!
On the same day that Kyriakos Mitsotakis announces measures for heating and transport fuel, expands the 72 installments to 120 and foreshadows a stricter framework for servicers, he feels the need to remind his ministers that their words must be “measured, unified and precise.”
And he does not stop there. “We will all be judged by the citizens,” he says, “but until then, of course, it is my responsibility to assess the individual behavior of MPs and Ministers.”
A statement that can hardly be disconnected from the discussion of recent days and, above all, from the public intervention of Dora Bakoyannis, who had spoken openly about ministers’ arrogance and had called on them to “get off their high horse”. The prime minister’s message is clear: the evaluation of the government’s officials is done neither by MPs nor by party officials. He does it himself.
Rightly so. Except that this observation also has an inevitable second reading.
If the evaluation of these behaviors is the prime minister’s responsibility, then that responsibility was not born yesterday in the Cabinet. It existed when the “off-key notes” began to pile up. It existed when government officials gave the impression that they were treating condescendingly people who count their euros to make it through the month. And it existed when criticism of phenomena of arrogance began to be expressed publicly from within New Democracy itself.
Dora Bakoyannis called on ministers to “get off their high horse.” Dimitris Kairidis acknowledged phenomena of arrogance. Kostas Bakoyannis was even clearer: “everyone knows it and we act as if it were a hidden badge of honor.”
It is not, therefore, just another opposition complaint.
And then came the “poor wretches” and the “respectable householders.”
Haris Theocharis acknowledged that he used the wrong phrase. Fine. But words carry weight, especially when they are uttered by people who exercise power and even more so when the discussion concerns high prices and citizens’ financial difficulties.
Citizens do not need lessons on how they should perceive their financial situation. They know far better than any minister what it means to pay for gasoline, electricity, the supermarket or the installment at the end of the month. And they are not divided into “poor wretches” and “respectable householders” depending on the political camp being addressed.
A government cannot on the one hand acknowledge, through its own measures, that a significant part of society is under pressure and on the other hand have its officials create the impression that they do not understand that very pressure.
Because then one message cancels out the other.
And from the moment the prime minister declares that evaluating behaviors is his own responsibility, he also takes on the weight of that statement. Public admonitions certainly have their value. So far, however, there has been no, at least publicly, specific consequence for the incidents that fueled this discussion.
At some point, after all, “get off your high horse” must also acquire practical content.
Because the problem is not one more “off-key note.” It is its repetition and, ultimately, the message that it sends. Especially when the government is asking citizens for trust at a time when it is also calling on them to endure yet another difficult winter.
The battle against high prices is difficult and the measures are judged by their result. But there is also another battle, in which neither international oil prices nor the markets can be used as an excuse.
The government’s battle with its “bad self.” And that is exclusively its own responsibility