By Dora Antoniou

In the question of the taxation of bank surplus profits, the new field of frontal conflict between the government and PASOK is being built. The government makes it clear in all tones that it is not going to proceed with such a move, announcing other initiatives, and accuses the official opposition of populism, while PASOK submits its relevant proposal with an amendment to the Parliament.

The Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakisanswering a related question yesterday, in the context of his participation in the Greek Investment Conference co-organized by Morgan Stanley and the Athens Stock Exchange in London, he stated features that: “We expect many things from the banks, but an extraordinary tax is not in our plans.”

Government sources report, decoding the Prime Minister’s statement, that in the next period priority will be given to mobilizing the banks to facilitate the granting of loans to individuals and businesses and this is what the Prime Minister’s statement is about what the government expects from the banks.

At the same time, the government spokesman, Pavlos Marinakis, put another parameter of the government’s targeting, saying that “Extraordinary taxation is not among the priorities, but more efficiency and relief for citizens in terms of fees”. As he said, in this direction the government will exhaust all the institutional tools at its disposal.

Sources of the Maximos Palace also refer to the Prime Minister’s statement a few days ago that now, with the new fiscal rules, the additional revenue from an extraordinary taxation cannot be spent, as there are ceilings on spending. He made a related report yesterday from London, saying that “We are now in a new fiscal framework and we have to explain that, and not just to the markets. I think the markets understand that, but we also need to explain to the public that benchmarks for spending are set. So even if we have additional revenue, we cannot spend that revenue and exceed the spending benchmark.”

In this light, government sources accuse PASOK of populism, arguing, in fact, that the Nikos Androulakis he is aware, due to his tenure in the European Parliament, of the new fiscal rules and the consequent restrictions. For the government, the official opposition party’s stance on this particular issue is another tick in the image of PASOK as “green SYRIZA”.

Charilaou Trikoupi responds to this criticism by accusing the government of reluctance to proceed with the taxation of banks. And for their part, they argue that what is prohibited by the new fiscal rules is the allocation of non-regular income to regular benefits. They also argue that the revenue from extraordinary taxation can be allocated to extraordinary social expenditures and that this is exactly what PASOK is proposing.

Thus, as Nikos Androulakis stated yesterday, the Parliamentary Group of the party is testifying amendment for the taxation of the excess profits of the banks, resulting from the interest rate difference and charges. “The banks must show a more social face, something they have not done until now, while they have already managed too much money from the Recovery and Resilience Fund. So, our initiative has both a fiscal and a political nature”, stressed the president of PASOK.

The confrontation is expected to continue today in the Parliament, where the tax bill will be discussed in the Plenary.