Tsipras from Chalandri: “The country is going through a painful crisis – Political change before winter”

“Unfortunately, the country is going through a painful crisis that is the responsibility of the Mitsotakis government”, said Alexis Tsipras at the end of his visit to Chalandri, where he toured the Social Service and Community Center of the Municipality and then toured the city’s market, talking to citizens, consumers and professional shopkeepers who struggle daily, he was told, to keep their stores open in the face of punctuality, high electricity bills, high operating costs and reduced consumer purchasing power.

“How are we going?”, asked Mr. Tsipras the shopkeeper, with him answering “we are not going”. “Can you hold on now?” asked another merchant, “tooth and nail” he replied. Another shop owner said that people are afraid to take even the smallest thing. “We want to be responsible for paying our obligations, but we are getting weaker,” she said. “It’s difficult, it’s not just the current one, it’s that all these years have been accumulating, people want to shop but are very restrained,” said a shopkeeper in conversation with Mr. Tsipras, while a pharmacist commented “if you see, the market is not moving” . One resident raised the issue of overpriced housing, with Mr. Tsipras referring her to look online for SYRIA’s housing policy proposals, while another resident stressed the need for measures to contain prices and reinstate the 13th and 14th salary.

“Inequalities are widening at a rapid rate even in areas that traditionally have middle classes”, said the president of SYRIZ-PS in his statement, who before his tour of the market was given a tour of the social services of the Municipality of Halandri “which has done an amazing work”. “When in Chalandri more than 600 families are at the social grocery store and hundreds of people at the sissitio, we realize where our society has been after a year and a half of terrifying precision in electricity, in basic consumption items,” he said. He noted that “the situation is extremely difficult for the commercial world as well, for small and medium-sized entrepreneurs who can now make ends meet with great difficulty as their turnover has drastically decreased”.

Mr. Tsipras argued that “unfortunately, the country is going through a painful crisis with the responsibility of the Mitsotakis government. The rich get richer, the middle poor and the poor desperate.” “At the same time,” he added, “the clamor of the blue locusts is pouring into the public wealth.”

The official opposition leader said that “these terrible inequalities cannot continue” and that “the country needs political change before a painful winter comes to the whole of Greek society”. He emphasized that “the sooner a progressive government comes to support with a program to support the weak and the middle class, a program of social solidarity for people who are in real need, the better for everyone, for the whole society and the country.”

Earlier, during his tour of the Social Service and Community Center of the Municipality, Alexis Tsipras was informed about the way of action and the services provided. The mayor of Chalandri, Simos Roussos, spoke of a significant increase in the number of citizens attending the social services of the Municipality in the last two years and an increase in requests for allowances as well as pressure from people whose electricity was cut off. “We’ve had a lot of requests over the last year from people asking for the power to be reconnected,” he said. Mr. Tsipras said that the work that the Municipality does in the social field is very important, noting that “the Local Government is perhaps the only one that can play an essential role so that thousands of families are not left alone in the face of the crisis”. He characterized the Municipality of Chalandri as a model with a series of infrastructures. Mr. Roussos pointed out that as the needs increase, the resources decrease.

At the community pharmacy, a structure supported by the Archdiocese of Athens and NSRF, Mr. Tsipras was informed that 600 people are served with medicines, which are selected by an inter-factional committee that checks the criteria to make their selection objective. They told the president of SYRIZA that among them there are also small and medium-sized businesses, whose shops survived the memorandums but not now, and they come to the services even for medicines.

From the social grocery store, the president of SYRIZA found that “we have a frightening increase in inequalities”. “We also see it in a city like Chalandri”, said the mayor, who noted that a great effort is being made to strengthen the grocery store with sponsorship from the Municipality’s budget – this year alone more than 160,000 euros – and from the important contributions of the citizens. He said, among other things, that “too many people who have been on benefits until now are thinking of switching from participating in the social grocery store to the sissiti because they are thinking about how they will pay the electricity.”

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