An invitation for a “serious discussion” in relation to the situation in the real economy, was addressed to the progressive forces by the independent MP Euclid Tsakalotos, during his intervention, in the Economic Affairs Committee of the Parliament, where the debate on the 2024 budget was concluded today .

“We have a situation, with a big deviation from the Eurozone. We have a situation where wages are the lowest in almost all of Europe and we work more. And the button line… is that you have a Budget, and Mr. Mitsotakis comes out and says ‘how well the economy is doing and can’t this Budget change these facts'”, said Euclid Tsakalotos.

The MP also commented on what the government is declaring in view of the passing of the new Budget.

“It’s not possible unless we agree that things are not very good and that people out there feel that something is wrong, that we can have a serious conversation in our country and how we are going to deal with this,” he said, adding: “There is divergence from the Eurozone, wages are too low, the cost of living is not being addressed by the measures you are taking and this is where I call on the Progressive Forces, because I have long since lost faith that you can do this. So, I invite the Progressive Forces to a serious discussion about how to deal with this phenomenon. It cannot be dealt with unless we know where we are today. It is a separate debate whether you are more to blame or if the SYRIZA government was more to blame. Now where are we, and what plan do you have for the micro economy, but also the real economy, and how are you going to deal with this data, because it’s very serious.”

The NSRF

Previously, Euclid Tsakalotos responded to what the Deputy Minister of National Economy and Finance, Nikos Papathanasis, had said today, in relation to the low absorption of the NSRF under the SYRIZA government – a sector that was managed by Alexis Haritsis as a member of the SYRIZA government.

“He says that 25% was absorbed by the SYRIZA Government from the NSRF in 2019. He did not tell us that this was double what previous governments had done at the same point in the cycle. We all know that NSRFs are backlogged – when they are spent – and that’s the truth. Not to mention other things, what happened in the previous governments and the 1 billion that would have been lost by your government before 2015, which the European Union wanted to take back and was saved by the SYRIZA government. So, it is good Mr. Papathanasis not to say things, the reality is that in 2019 it was twice as much as in your government at the same point of the cycle”, said Euclid Tsakalotos.

Mr. Papathanasis had stated a few minutes earlier to the committee that “in 2019, the absorption of the NSRF was at the lowest point in European countries and today it reached 95%”. After the intervention of Euclid Tsakalotou, Nikos Papathanasis came back and commented: “Taking the percentages between 2019, because we are presenting the situation now, how it is today and in what state we received in 2019, we see even with the table you gave me, that the fraction 80:114 which is in 2019, that is, Greece with Eurozone, gives us a result that Greece was at 68%, while today with your table Greece is at 84 and the Eurozone at 117 and this gives us 71% . That is, the ratio of the fraction of GDP in 2022 has improved compared to 2019”.