Tsipras for PPC: It will be re-nationalized – They will lose their interests

The president of SYRIZA-PS, Alexis Tsipras, launched an attack on Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in an interview with iEnergeia.gr, characterizing the “obscene profit in the energy sector as a conscious choice”, while underlining his decision to return 51% of PPC to the public.

“For a year now, the government has been feeding the profiteering mechanism with the fiscal bleeding of citizens from indirect taxes. This is a conscious, strategic choice by Mr. Mitsotakis, precisely because he does not dare to proceed with the required moves that will really reduce the cost of energy, but they conflict with the interests of the cartel.” He characterizes the government’s proposals for changing the burners as a “storm in the head”, with the citizens paying for the misunderstanding that prevails and underlines that “PPC will be re-nationalized, this time they will lose their interests, the citizens have already lost a lot”. specifically states.

Accuracy signed by Mitsotakis

Referring to the causes of the crisis, he notes that it is pan-European, however, he adds, “This crisis was disproportionately magnified in Greece and its consequences multiplied due to the choices and deliberate inaction of the Mitsotakis government. The violent and unplanned de-lignitization, which in reality was the violent tying of our energy mix solely to imported natural gas. The choice to privatize PPC at the time when the storm was starting. Toleration of the profiteering of energy producers. The audacity to claim for Greece also the disconnection of the price of electricity from the price of natural gas, as the Iberian countries did. The oligopolistic and shallow Greek market combined with the absence of a forward electricity market and the doctrinal insistence on non-intervention by the state. All this together brought Greece with energy inflation almost twice that of the European average. And according to the Commission’s official figures, the largest increases in the price of electricity for businesses and the third largest increases for households. This is the precision that bears the Mitsotakis signature.”

Mr. Tsipras also claims that government subsidies “go into the pockets of the privatized PPC and four more large private groups in the energy sector. With this money we would have bought five times all the shares of PPC. “So the government consciously chose to waste public money in order to leave the mechanism of profiteering unscathed and at the same time not to solve the problem for households and businesses that are on their knees.”

Explaining his position that profiteering is a conscious choice, he says: “Since the energy crisis, all the government has been doing is subsidizing profiteering. In other words, to take money from the pockets of taxpayers through public funds and accounts and give it to the pockets of energy providers. In the last 8 months alone, according to official data, citizens have paid 7 billion. more in the State. These 7 billion more tax revenue, about which the government boasts, is the money that leaves the citizens’ pockets mainly through the VAT and the EFFK on the fuels that have been launched due to the continuous rise in prices, and goes into the pockets of the providers”.

“We believe in state intervention”

He then repeats his main proposals: “At the TIF I proposed the adoption of an integrated, costed and coherent package of measures: fiscal, regulatory and control and supervision measures. Among them, the recovery of the State’s share in PPC’s share capital, the establishment of a maximum profit rate of 5% in energy production, the taxation of 90% – real and not fictitious – of the surplus profits of energy companies and a double regulatory intervention in the operation of the market at both wholesale and retail levels. Intervention in the operation of the Energy Exchange by disconnecting the high price of wholesale electricity from natural gas and promoting fixed contracts, respectively as claimed and achieved by Spain and Portugal at the Community level but not by Mr. Mitsotakis. And of course, protection against cuts especially for vulnerable consumers as we have an explosion of cut requests amounting to over 300,000, as well as devaluation and reduction of excise duty on fuel and VAT on basic food.

Regarding PPC, he also notes: “restoring its public character with a social and developmental role is our main priority. So we believe in government intervention. I say it clearly. We believe, we can and we will, to serve a completely different model… The restoration, therefore, of the majority of 51% in the State makes the power of the State indisputable and essential and can put the Public Electricity Company on the path of operating in favor of the public interest ».

Totally mad

Mr. Tsipras, while in favor of decarbonization in the energy sector, nonetheless criticizes the government for “hasty Mitsotakis-Hatzidakis de-lignification that turned out to be sloppy, communicative and ultimately disastrous” and adds: “The Mitsotakis government chose to replace by pressing “a button’ domestic mineral resources from natural gas, also mineral but additionally imported. And we are seeing the effects today. In February in the Parliament, Mr. Mitsotakis falsely assured the body and the Greek people that the production of electricity from natural gas is cheaper than lignite. It turned out to be many times more expensive than lignite plants including carbon taxes. Then, under the weight of the revelations and the social and economic reality, he was forced to activate the lignite units, but without the availability of either sufficient raw material or the factories being able to perform to the maximum of their functionality due to the three years of obsolescence.

Regarding the proposal to change natural gas burners to burn oil, which concerns 700,000 households, he says: “It is unacceptable for the State to create conditions of panic and pass on to consumers and households the burden of its weakness. The state itself urged consumers to switch to less polluting options and is now indirectly telling them to “write wrong”. In order to understand the government’s nonsense, it is enough to point out that at the same time that citizens are being asked to pay again for the replacement of natural gas burners with other oil ones, the state itself in the climate law completely bans oil burners from 2025. Through the “Excoionamo” subsidizes households to change burners and switch to natural gas, it necessarily requests a study for natural gas in order to complete new buildings and at the same time PPC subsidizes the heat pump. So we are not talking about a plan but about a storm in the skull, with the citizens paying the price of the misunderstanding”.

RES-EMP

Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.