The amendment of the Ministry of Development on the measures to deal with punctuality was voted in the Parliament.

SYRIZA, the New Left and the Spartans voted “YES” on the government’s package of measures.

A strict message that until there are tangible results, controls for unfair profiteering will continue with all the tools available to the government, they will be intensive and universal and strict fines will be imposed where illegality is found, the Minister of Development, Kostas, sent from the floor of the plenary session Skrekas, defending the amendment he tabled with anti-accuracy measures, in the bill being passed today, to strengthen vocational education and training.

The new anti-accuracy measures in supermarkets – which will take effect from 1 March 2024 – include a 7% cap on the gross profit margin on baby milk, a reduction in the starting price on detergents and the imposition fines depending on the severity of the violation, ranging from 5,000 to 2 million euros, with parallel publication of the name of the companies that profit

“Certainly the checks on unfair profiteering will continue, they are not stopping. They are not sampled, they are universal and are not only done once, but also a second time in the same company. We have proven this with the second fine imposed on a multinational electrical appliance sales chain and in fact doubled, increased. This is what the government is doing, really trying with all the weapons we have and are planning, to hold down prices and accuracy,” the minister pointed out, responding to the opposition’s accusations that the government is not effectively and effectively dealing with profiteering at the expense of consumers.

“The Greek market is small, it has pathologies, it is fragmented, with thousands of stores and despite all this we are holding down inflation. We haven’t achieved what we want and that’s why we continue to take measures and we will continue to do so until we see the prices on the supermarket shelves deescalate”, argued Mr. Skrekas.

As the Minister of Development acknowledged, “it was found that the prices of the products on the supermarket shelves deviate from the prices of the rest of Europe” and “we expect that they will deescalate immediately after the implementation of the measures on March 1”.

“We believe that unjustified price increases of large product categories will end. This applies to all products sold in organized retail and supermarkets. Since announcing our intention to implement the measure, we have already had zero announcements of supplier price hikes to supermarkets. We determine that discounts on specific product categories that their suppliers provide to retailers are reduced by 30% – and this benefit must be passed on to the consumer,” he said and added:

“This measure should be seen in supermarkets on March 1 with reduced prices and we will announce this list before and after its implementation, so that consumers can see which company and how much has reduced the price of the products on the shelves. We want absolute transparency, clear prices throughout the supply chain, from the producer to the supermarket, and in this way we can even better control the possibility of someone profiting unfairly.”

Mr. Skrekas particularly commented on the prices of baby milk in Greece, stressing that “the price is more expensive than the rest of Europe”.

“We are coming with a drastic measure, to put a ceiling on the profit margin of the companies that import and distribute baby milk in our country, with the aim of limiting it and reaching the average prices in Europe”, he noted.

He also emphasized the upgrade of the electronic platform, so that “the consumer can download the application on his mobile phone and compare prices by choosing where to buy from […] In this way we impose transparency on prices and enable the consumer to choose the cheapest products”, he noted.

For his part, SYRIZA Member of Parliament, Christos Giannoulis, accused the government of “not really dealing with the ‘greed inflation’ that reached 8.9%” and added that “while this issue is plaguing society, the government puts cut-off date of March 1, leaving room for supermarkets to continue to profit”.

“Good luck to them and let them be late in dealing with indecency and obscene profit. Because when we, a long time ago, talked about it, you accused us of taking risks”, commented the parliamentary representative of PASOK-KINAL, Dimitris Manzios, while bringing back his party’s proposal to reduce the VAT on basic consumer products.

The parliamentary representative of the KKE, Nikos Karathanasopoulos, accused the government that no substantial measure is taken by the government to deal with the three main causes of the exactness and the dangerous mixture which are the prices, the salary and the taxes.

The parliamentary representative of the Hellenic Solution, Konstantinos Chitas, argued that “the inefficiency of the government created the problem of accuracy and managed to soar higher the profits of the cartels which reached 137.9%”, and added that “smearing and backbiting are not they bring results”.

The parliamentary representative of NIKI, Nikolaos Vrettos, accused the government of “sloppy and ineffective measures and an inability to deal with the beast of precision, which it itself bred”.

Responding, the Minister of Development countered that the policy followed by the government has already begun to bring results.

“Since the days we announced the measure, no revaluation has been sent to the supermarket. Of course, the reality is that some products, if the cost of production, construction and construction increases dramatically, they will rise in price because there will be objective conditions. We don’t want the sly ones who will find an opportunity in the bubble of inflation to raise the price to earn something more. We will continue the checks until the prices on the supermarket shelves are reduced”, underlined Mr. Skrekas.