“The coming days will not be easy in terms of prices, when Brent oil had $ 68 in November and was at 120 yesterday. Gas last year had $ 25 per megawatt hour and yesterday it reached $ 200. There are no magic solutions here.” .
This was stated by the Minister of Development and Investment, Adonis Georgiadis in an interview today, in the First Program, commenting on current events.
Answering a question about the imposition of a profit margin, the minister said: “It is impossible not to have price increases when the various goods in the international markets follow a frantic course due to the war. We have set a fixed point before the crisis, in September 2021, and we say that for all critical goods such as war-related travel, heating and food, which have an explosive rise, these goods cannot be traded or the producer sells today at a higher profit than he did before the war. So, the control mechanism enters a company and asks for purchase and sale invoices, compares the difference and makes the same comparison with the purchase and sale invoices of September 2021. If the profit is higher today then it can impose a fine. “The goal is not to change market relations because of the war.”
Regarding the role of DIMEA in the market, he noted that: “Due to the pandemic, a very strong control mechanism was set up in the Ministry of Development, which did not exist before. DIMEA, which carries out intensive inspections, has already imposed millions of euros in fines and we are currently completing a large registration and imposition of fines in large supermarket chains for various goods for which we had made a similar amendment in the middle of Covid. With this mechanism we checked the prices on masks and gloves and everything. “Now this is happening on a larger scale because the war has created some special conditions.”
Mr. Georgiadis said the increases in fuels – products“I do not want to lie to the world, the days to come will not be easy in terms of prices, when Brent oil was $ 68 in November and 120 yesterday. Gas last year was $ 25 per megawatt hour and arrived yesterday. 200. There are no magic solutions here “.
Regarding the reason why there is no reduction of fuel taxes, he explained that: “The complex problem that Greece has to face is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine creates in the markets a reasonable concern of recession and halting the economic growth of 2022. worldwide. Thus, it creates a state of concern regarding the sustainability of public finances. This is even worse for a country that has a very high debt like Greece. If we assume that at the same time due to the pandemic we are in a moment of high inflation cycle, it is very likely that the central banks will raise their interest rates to face the inflation cycle. That is why we had an increase in lending rates in all Eurozone countries and Greece. If at this time you are going to make a decision that creates a big financial problem for you, it is extremely likely to be certain that the reaction of the markets will be a greater increase in the country’s lending rates that will drag the lending rates of all banks, cards, of loans, mortgages. You are going to win something at the gas station, which you can pay twice as much on the loan. “So, it’s not that simple.”
Responding to the reason why the price ceiling can not be imposed, the minister noted the following: the carrier and the gas station owner to sell at a loss and as the price increases with even greater loss. Aside from the fact that no one is selling at a loss because they will go bankrupt, the most likely thing to happen is to stop producing and selling. “By putting a price on a good that is imported and growing, you will either cause a shortage or you will cause a black market or both at the same time.”
For the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the minister noted: “If someone said that a country on the planet and a great power, such as Russia, which I have nothing to do with the Russian people, I love him, would have a leadership that would bomb a nuclear power plant, would you believe that? Everything that President Putin has been doing lately to me has no logical explanation, it is completely absurd. First of all, Russia does not win from this war, Russia is also destroyed. President Putin is also destroying his own people. The Russian people are suffering and will suffer even more from sanctions. When it comes to bombing a nuclear power plant, which means that if the fire had not been extinguished in the morning we would have leaked radioactivity from such a giant nuclear reactor, would the radioactivity reach the West alone? Wouldn’t that be enough for Russian citizens as well? “Honestly, I’m shocked.”
Finally, answering a question about SYRIZA’s stance on the Russian invasion, he said: “The whole stance of SYRIZA since the beginning of this war is deplorable. They strongly condemned the ban on performances of Russian works by Ms. Mendoni despite the invasion itself. “Someone who basically monitors the reactions of SYRIZA, will see that for my own statements they have made 100 times more noise than for the Russian invasion”.
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