“For five years now, the government of New Democracy has been operating without a long-term development policy for the primary sector. The results of your contempt for the rural world are paid for by the Greek region”, pointed out the president of PASOK – Movement for Change, Nikos Androulakis in his intervention in Parliament on the attitude and responsibilities of the government in the farmers’ problems.

“It is characteristic that in five years you have changed four Ministers of Rural Development and five presidents in OPEKEPE. If all the responsibilities are there, Mr. Mitsotakis, why did you expel its president OKAY; If the problem is European why did it take three months and over 20 blocks

for the government to push through a simple amendment to keep the affected farmers in Thessaly from having their electricity cut off, as you promised them since November?” its president said PASOK – KINAL.

“The Strategic Plan submitted by our country to the EU, in the framework of the CAP, was nothing more than a wish list with self-evident findings without a proposal for substantial changes in the productive model of the agricultural economy,” said Mr. Androulakis and added that in 2023, it will historically be the worst payment year since its first implementation CAP.

“The existing CAP was designed by the Greek government and not by the Brussels. The problem is not the European Green Agreement, as you hint and which you negotiated, but your own incompetence”, he stressed and criticized the government for remaining a mere spectator in the increase in production costs, which for the period 2021 – 2023 has increase by 25%.

“The Prime Minister’s announcement to refund the Special Consumption Tax of 82 million euros for the year 2024, with half of the money deposited in March, is nothing more than a partial refund of a tax that farmers have already paid,” he argued. Mr. Androulakis and underlined:

“As PASOK, we have proposed to reduce production costs by:

• Zeroing of the Special Consumption Tax on agricultural oil in an easy and applicable way

• Support the installation of renewable energy sources and the creation of energy communities among farmers, with priority to irrigation organizations, producer groups, our islands and remote and mountainous areas.

• Control of production costs and mainly: Agricultural supplies (fertilizers, feed, pesticides and veterinary supplies).

“For us, agricultural land is national capital. For this we have proposed: The universal protection of agricultural land.

• A second chance for dignity for the Greek farmer who is consistent in his loan obligations.

• And also, the unconfiscated and tax-free of subsidies, aids and compensations, he added.

The president of PASOK – KINAL deemed necessary, even at the last moment, a real Strategic Plan for the Greek agricultural economy and underlined: “For PASOK, support to farmers and the primary sector as a whole is not a flag of opportunity. We do not see the agricultural world as just another occupational category. For us, the primary sector is the cornerstone on which we want to build our vision of a productive and outward-looking economy, where tourism will be fully linked to manufacturing and agri-food. For us, the support of the agricultural world is a necessary condition not only for economic development but also for the demographic, social and regeneration of the Greek region. A region without a peasantry cannot be understood, and for this reason PASOK has – throughout time – given and will give the fight for a prosperous Greece on the side of the farmers”.

He repeated the positions of PASOK – KINAL which include:

1. Renegotiation of the Strategic Plan of the Common Agricultural Policy by simplifying the ecological schemes and adapting it to the needs of the Greek countryside, so that the beneficiaries are the real farmers.

2. Creation of energy communities in rural areas to zero energy costs and reduce the cost of rural electricity.

3. Abolition of the Special Consumption Tax on agricultural oil.

4. Revision of the ELGA regulation for fairer compensations.

5. Protection of agricultural land from speculative practices and foreign funds.

6. Necessary condition for importing food and agricultural products from third countries

is their certification according to European and national standards.

7. Zero tolerance for illegal Greekization practices.

He called on the government to adopt them.