The SYRIZA-PS strategic communications manager, Nasos Iliopoulos, harshly criticized Kyriakos Mitsotakis for pre-election “dispensation”, commenting that “the government cuts permanent expenses and gives very little in pre-elections” and that “Mitsotakis steals ten and returns one”.

He mentioned in particular that the prime minister announced yesterday 300 million for the support of pensioners, but “the permanent provision of the 13th pension – which the ND as the opposition had also voted for – cost 1 billion euros per year” and “with four Mitsotakis budgets, therefore, we are talking about 4 billion euro cuts to pensioners”. He said that SYRIZA-PS has every right to criticize and talk about the country’s finances, “because he is not the one who has bankrupted it twice”, but “he took a bankrupt country and left it with a cushion of 37 billion .euro and with a regulated debt of which 80% is locked in an interest rate of 1% for the next 15 years.” He argued that “today with inflation and Mitsotakis precision we are experiencing the worst overtaxation for the social majority”, adding that “the year that ended brought 4 billion euros in additional revenue from VAT alone”.

Responding to the ND’s criticism of “benefits” on the part of the official opposition, he emphasized that “the country having collective labor agreements and a labor inspection, which the ND dissolved, is not a provision, it is a matter of a different model and a serious development path for The next day”. He said that “in 2012 when the basic wage for the under 25s was cut by 32%, and 23% overall, the argument was the supposed reduction in unemployment. But that’s how we had the worst unemployment and the worst recession the country has ever experienced.” He noted, among other things, that “when the SYRIZA government increased the minimum wage for those under 25 by 27%, and 11% in total, we had growth and consumption increased and public revenues increased. Because the basic salary as a whole falls into consumption”.

Speaking on ERT’s “First Program”, he repeated SYRIZA’s request to freeze with PNP every auction of first homes. “The protection of the home is constitutionally enshrined,” he said, accusing the government of “choosing to bring in a bankruptcy code that even the IMF had not dared to propose.” He added that “this blew up the protection of the first home” and emphasized that “the regulation of the private debt with 120 installments and the cancellation of part of the pandemic debt is a matter of democracy and a change of model, which will also benefit the state revenues”. “Unfortunately, the government plan for the first residence is Mr. Patsis…”, he commented. In addition, he mentioned that Mr. Mitsotakis announced on April 30, 2020 that he will extend the protection of the first residence that was in force by the SYRIZA government so that no Greek will lose his home. “Therefore, for the entire period 2015-2019, there was a protection framework for the first residence”, noted Mr. Iliopoulos.