“Every professional group has the right to demonstrate, as provided by law, without disrupting anything that has to do with the free passage of citizens,” the government spokesman said in an interview. Pavlos Marinakis, on the occasion of the farmers’ mobilizations. Speaking to ERT, the government representative said that the latest proposals, if combined with the previous ones and all the Government’s policy this four years and a little more for the primary sector, answer many of the farmers’ problems.

“Obviously not in everything, because we are living in an unprecedented period in terms of imported inflation and the needs that arise. Especially for electricity, this proposal has two features, which the farmers requested and rightly so. That is, a permanent solution, but also a logic, a mechanism that lowers prices to the cost limit.

For oil, also, there is the discussion from 2025 onwards for a more permanent – in coordination with the farmers – and fairer way of returning the EFFK. There are a lot of things that are run by the government in Europe as well, such as the CAP and many others. Obviously, therefore, we have reached the limits of fiscal endurance. We clear it up. There is nothing else we can give. And especially the last measures did not have a financial burden, but were targeted and responded – as I said – to the farmers’ problems”, he underlined.

Mr. Marinakis noted that the government has shown that it does not wait for mobilizations to give as much as it can in satisfaction of the demands of a professional group. “The fact that we started implementing a policy, we didn’t do it waiting for the first blocks. Watch out, I say it again. Every citizen, every professional group has every right to react, to protest in an organized manner or individually, as provided for by the law. As it is the duty of the government to respect this right, it is correspondingly the duty of the government to apply the law provided, so that the passage of citizens is not impeded. I don’t believe we will get to this point”, he pointed out while stressing that the government does not want the situation to derail.

“There is no such prediction. Even the meeting of Mr. Chrysochoidis with the representatives of the farmers took place in a very good atmosphere. Different opinions were heard. The minister calmly told them that, obviously, they have the right to protest. They have so far done it in a very gentle way in the vast majority of cases. I don’t think the situation will drag out. And I say it again, what should we do as a State, like any Government? We are no different. To let citizens exercise their rights without, however, breaking the law and without hindering the rest of society,” he noted.

For the possibility of giving something extra after September the government representative stated that in the discussion of the next budget the Prime Minister has already committed to a permanent refund mechanism for the Special Consumption Tax on oil. “I hope we can achieve something more for 2025. And there are not a few times that the government has returned the surplus of the economy’s performance to the citizens. But in order not to open “loopholes”, not to create expectations above, at the moment when we are talking about the demands of the farmers, in terms of costs, the fiscal margins have been exhausted”, he stressed.

Answering the next question in the event that the farmers insist on going down to Athens by tractor, Mr. Marinakis reiterated that everything provided by the law will be done.

“We are doing the self-evident thing that has not been done for decades in the country. The application of the law is neither a right-wing policy nor a centrist policy, it is a constituent element of the Democracy”. he added.

For the bill for same-sex couples the government spokesman said he passed a bill that has more value for the people it refers to. “Equality in civil marriage and no more children of a lesser God. Children who at this moment and until the day before yesterday existed, grew up with two men or two women and were “invisible”. That is what the bill regulates, nothing more. There is no risk to the reasonable concerns of our MPs and fellow citizens and the act will respond to their concerns. We will never accuse a person who may disagree with a bill”, he stressed.

He also said that Kyriakos Mitsotakis had the courage to implement a part of his program despite possibly some internal party objections which are legitimate and in a matter where there was no party discipline.

“Kyriakos Mitsotakis did not consider political costs. He saw that some people had to be recognized with some rights and he legislated and I will say on this obviously with the vote of MPs of other parties. And this is a good moment for the Greek Parliament”, he continued.

“It was to be expected that there would be different opinions and the arguments are intense. I also experienced it in what some ironically said about “tutorials”, as secretary of the party I experienced them every day, every week, for all the bills. When it’s an issue on which there are different opinions and there is no party discipline, obviously at the end of the day there will be arguments on both sides. This is something we have been waiting for. The second thing I want to say is that N.D. – because we have to see the big picture – it comes out much more united overall. Why; Because it has the most compact, the most organized Parliamentary Group. There are no two- and three-speed MPs. Just because an MP voted in favor of a particular bill, given that there was no party discipline, does not mean that they are any more than a MP who voted against or an MP who abstained. This was made clear by the prime minister from the very beginning. There is no categorization of MPs. This Parliamentary Group, whose unity some question and will see in the next and subsequent bills, has fought the hardest battles for the country. He has taken unpopular initially, but subsequently important decisions both in the previous four years and in this four year period. It is the most coherent, the most ripping, the most powerful K.O. for decisions that concern all citizens. And you will see that,” he added.

He also mentioned that the core of Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ policy is the strengthening of the family and that in the coming months a series of very important measures will be introduced in favor of what they call the “nuclear family”.

Mr. Marinakis also stated that he is not surprised by the attitude of the KKE, while for SYRIZA he said that only the way former minister Pavlos Polakis justified himself and the reaction of Koumoundourou is enough. “We keep the big picture. That the vast majority of MPs voted for him. I don’t want to reset everything. But from a point on, obviously there can be no two standards. I am not the one who will judge how a president of a party will manage his deputies. Unfortunately, of course, it is not the only case. I mean, I mean we’ve had threats against political opponents again, because it’s not just about marriage equality.

I will come to PASOK. Obviously, it is important that 2/3 of the MPs voted for him. It should be noted, of course, that the percentage of upvoting is less than for ND MPs… And I am referring to this, so 1/3 of PASOK MPs did not vote…”, he noted.

“When you raise the “banner”, sometimes even the monopoly, or consider yourself to be the protagonist, the “big progressive faction” and within a month you declare your support for the specific bill, you come with a fist to the Parliament to defend it and in fact you talk about every other topic, everything imaginable and 1/3 of K.O. doesn’t support it and you announce with funny prefaces – don’t make fun of us – vote against the non-state Universities, then you are probably not the one who will express the reform center, the people of the great reforms. You are not what you consider to be a great progressive party, or rather you have retained the pathologies of PASOK of the 80s, which are many but – we will not discuss them now – also the very important steps that were taken in the 80s. And we have admitted that in some of them we did not participate as a faction, but we want to move forward”, he added.

Regarding the bill for non-state non-profit universities, Mr. Marinakis emphasized that this is perhaps the most emblematic reform, until the next one.

“Anyone who has been for a walk in Cyprus will understand how far behind Greece has been and how much the anchorings of the Left mainly and the Center Left secondarily – because PASOK also has a great responsibility, remember the years of the late Marietta Giannakou, how far they held the country back. Today 40,000 children, 40,000 young people are studying abroad. They are not only proportionally more than the other countries of Europe. They are more and in absolute number. Something must at some point make us wonder why we were left behind. Do you know how much GDP increased? of Cyprus?”, he added, among other things.

In addition, he emphasized that nowhere in the world where non-state universities were established, public universities were not degraded, and that since 2019, funding for public universities has increased.

“Actually, there is no argument against. It just might be the last bastion of the ideologies of this political space. We want consensus, obviously,” he added, noting that the government is open to improvements and is waiting for proposals from the opposition, but they will not be pretexts for a vote against.