His meetings began Minister of Development Takis Theodorikakos with entrepreneurs and with representatives of the retail trade with a purpose to reduce the prices of basic products.

The bet for the government is not only the fall of inflation, but the result to be seen on the supermarket shelves therefore and according to information from the Athenian Agency, the minister started his contacts, almost immediately after taking office, with businessmen, some of whom also represent retail operators and will continue, intensively, in the coming days, with representatives of the food and beverage industry as well as with the representatives of entities that come under the ministry and have a decisive role in the operation of the market such as the Competition Commission and the Consumer Advocate.

It is noted that the intention of the political leadership of the ministry is, in addition to the market’s effort to reduce prices and strengthen cooperation and the effectiveness of control mechanisms in matters of ill-gotten gains, to observe the rules of competition. In this part, the speed with which the Competition Commission completes the cases has a decisive contribution, as well as its ex officio control role in the market. The contribution of the Consumer Ombudsman is also decisive, where new leadership is expected, as the term of Lefteris Zagoritis ends in August.

It is recalled that the government announced the extension of the measures to be exact until December but the position of both industry and retail is that they have reduced profit margins and estimate that the de-escalation of inflation allows the government’s measures to be gradually lifted.

In the meetings already held by the minister, the businessmen focused on the review of the measure for the ceiling on the profit margin. And this is because, as they estimate, the restriction may have worked for a while as a barrier to increases but, at the same time, it cannot lead to reductions in products. This second element is of immediate interest to the Ministry of Development, as the minister stated in a recent meeting with journalists, “companies in many products will have to reduce prices and limit their average profit. They should back off.” As he characteristically said, it is a case that “we must all join our forces” and “when I say all, I mean the state, the control mechanisms, the market forces and the citizens”.

However, for the people of the market, interventionism for a long time creates distortions and for this reason any measures taken should be reviewed and improved or even abolished.