The President of SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance, Alexis Tsirpas, is touring Thessaly today. Mr. Tsipras initially had a meeting with livestock farmers in Filyra Trikala and then he will have a meeting with representatives of the Block Coordination Committee in Karditsa while in the evening he will deliver a Speech at an open gathering in the atrium of the Municipal Market of Karditsa. At the meeting with the breeders in Filyra, Trikala, Mr. Tsipras had the opportunity to listen to the serious problems faced by the breeders with the increase in production costs and profiteering, as well as with private debt and auctions, while he also addressed a short speech.

“Cost of production makes it unprofitable for people to live in the countryside and produce – Shield measures for production people.”

Mr. Tsipras underlined that “for the world of production, breeders and farmers the dilemma is now existential, because the cost of production makes it absolutely unprofitable for people to stay in the countryside and produce”. Mr. Tsipras specifically referred to the problems faced by livestock farmers, a very large part of the country’s production potential, where 120,000 families are employed exclusively. Mr. Tsipras noted that “The alarming increase in energy costs and animal feed prices, combined with the inability of dairy and milk prices in particular to compensate for the alarming increases, has led to thousands of farmers across the country being forced to reduce their herds so they can make ends meet”. Mr. Tsipras emphasized that this situation is extremely negative overall for the Greek economy, because as he said “the decrease in domestic milk production has led to an increase in imports and therefore the effects on the Greek economy and the trade balance are equally important, it is an extremely negative condition”.

Mr. Tsipras sounded the alarm and underlined the need for immediate measures to support the livestock industry. “When the electricity bills have tripled and quadrupled for the production units and feed has increased two and three times and up, then we realize that the situation is impenetrable,” he said and specifically referred to the huge producer-consumer price discrepancy saying that ” according to the official figures of Eurostat, the prices that the producer gives from the field and the prices that the consumer finds on the shelf are on average 300% different”. Mr. Tsipras strongly criticized the ND government for a series of negative firsts for Greece in the EU. mentioning indicatively “we are the country of the E.U. with the highest price at the petrol pump, with the highest wholesale price for electricity and at the same time the country with the lowest per capita income”.

Mr. Tsipras spoke about two forms of profiteering “the private profiteering you experience in your skin combined with the government profiteering, because the government keeps the VAT and the VAT which are indirect taxes – the rich and the poor pay the same – at a time when the products have doubled and tripled , excess revenues are created in the public treasury so that Mr. Mitsotakis can make some pre-election benefits and some subsidies which he also purposefully gives to keep the prices consistently high for the energy providers, the PPC and other businesses, the supermarkets and the refineries”. “What has been going on for the last year and a half is a grand robbery” he specifically mentioned and added that “the Mitsotakis government follows a policy that aims for the few and the powerful to win and the great majority to lose”.

Mr. Tsipras then referred to specific commitments of the next progressive government for livestock farmers. Specifically, Mr. Tsipras emphasized the need to have a protection shield for the world of production, for breeders and farmers and of course structural changes that will look at the next day, the change of the production model. “A progressive government will establish the agricultural oil, i.e. the non-payment of the Special Consumption Tax for the farmer and the breeder, it will implement the cap on the agricultural and livestock stream, i.e. the farmer and the breeder will pay the kilowatt-hour at the price they paid before the crisis will come and the VAT on agricultural supplies and animal feed will be reduced to zero”.

“A progressive government will not leave you alone against the ‘Patsis’ who want to loot you”

Mr. Tsipras also mentioned on the issue of private debt and auctions saying that the problem does not only concern the urban world, the first home owners, it also concerns the rural world, reminding that “it is a long and long history since the period of the bankruptcy of the Agricultural Bank with the mortgaged agricultural lands”. Mr. Tsipras specifically mentioned that “700,000 auctions are ahead and concern both first residence and commercial housing and agricultural land. And so these crows, the ‘Patsides’, the administrators, the servicers come and take a securitized loan at 15% of the value from the banks and go to withdraw 100%”, which is “a terrifying redistribution of wealth and property and a terrifying profit for some hawks who have their backs in the current power”.

Mr. Tsipras underlined that “there was the protection of the first home, you know it very well, from the Katseli law, which protected the first home until 2020, when the Mitsotakis government passed this new bankruptcy law” and referred to the request of “there should be an immediate suspension of all auctions of first homes, agricultural land and commercial housing until the elections”.

Finally, he referred to the SYRIZA-PS plan for private debt. “We have a plan. To protect the owner, the first home, the business house and the agricultural land. And to enable sustainable arrangements that will enable owners to keep their property. So let the Greek people know that in the face of this attempt to redistribute the wealth, there is a protection plan and that you, as well as your fellow citizens here, know very well that a progressive government, which needs the place, on your own against the ‘Patsides’, the vultures who want to rob you”.