Her Covered Market of Kallithea the president of SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, visited today Wednesday and talked with shopkeepers and consumers ahead of Easter shopping.

Afterwards, Mr. Tsipras made the following statement to the press representatives:

“Last year around this time I found myself again in the market of Kallithea. My feeling at the time was that we hit a ceiling on prices and I called for Resurrection measures for consumers, not Crucifixion.

Unfortunately, a year now we are all moving towards a Calvary. And especially the consumers, the citizens who see the prices going up, the income remaining stable. The purchasing power for the middle class, for our vulnerable fellow citizens, has decreased. VAT remains constant, prices rise. Unfortunately, this has led, for the vast majority of citizens, to an extremely difficult situation. We all know them, we experience them.

Inflation today is three times the price of food products and this is something that the average citizen cannot afford. The Easter table this year will be the most expensive of all previous years. There has to be an end to this downward spiral.

The ironies about ‘Porsche lamb’ and about policies that actually only facilitate the big supermarkets, the big chains, are no longer acceptable by both consumers and small and medium-sized entrepreneurs. There must be an end.

The Resurrection is coming and I hope that the Resurrection that concerns the small and medium-sized, the working, the salaried will come very soon. To contain prices, to raise wages, to reduce prices where possible by reducing VAT and substantial controls on markets. A progressive government can stand by the citizen.

I wish and hope, I am sure, with the judgment of the people that this will be the last Easter that the table at home will be so poor, the last Easter that the citizens will feel so alone in the face of daily difficulties and punctuality.”