Development Minister Kostas Skrekas spoke to SKAI and the ‘SIMERA’ show on Wednesday morning about the issue of accuracy.

“Accuracy is the number one problem facing societyit’s a difficult subject, it is EuropeanI’m not saying that as an excuse,” he said.

“Food inflation from September ’21 to October ’23 in the Eurozone is 25%, in Spain 28%, in Germany 28%, in Greece 27%. We are at the European average and a little lower – or very close – in the rest as well European countries,” he explained.

Asked about Greece’s prices in relation to abroad, Mr. Skekas noted: “Hundreds of products are cheaper in Greece than in the rest of Europe. We may find a product of a certain brand, for a period of time, is cheaper in Germany, but if we take all the rest, for example, dairy products produced in Greece and exported, then they are cheaper.”

Government interventions to be precise

Regarding the infringements that have been made to deal with punctuality, the minister stated: “We have proceeded with checks for dirty profits. However, the accuracy is not only related to this, it also has to do with objective conditions such as for example the increase of raw materials, which we are now seeing a decrease.

We also impose fines on any company that tries to profit profitably. Greece is the only country in Europe that has a law on unfair profit making and applies it. We have fined 4 multinationals and the first dropped prices up to 25%. The fines exceed 8 million euros and 5.5 million have been collected,” he added.

“We have the initiative for the permanent price reduction. We had a goal of 500 products, now we have 890 that have joined. The products that have the special tag should for at least 6 months have a consistently reduced price compared to the previous period. Many chains list the previous price so the consumer knows.”

“As long as we detect problems fines will be imposed“, he emphasized.

Asked about the issue that had arisen regarding the offers, the minister clarified: “No government agent ever wants to abolish tenders, no one ever said that. We said that the offers must be real, not misleading. We want to put some order into it.”

Finally about Black Friday he said: “All the previous period we were trying to collect prices which we will compare after Black Friday in relation to the prices before this period. The fines of August brought results.”