Prime Minister Mitsotakis: More support for farmers
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is to attend the plenary session of the Hellenic Parliament at 11:00 on Friday for "Prime Minister's Question Time" and answer a question for the prime minister tabled by the head of the "Nea Aristera" party's parliamentary group, Alexis Charitsis.
The question deals with the compensation of the victims of destructive flooding in Thessaly caused by Storm Daniel in September 2023.According to Minister of State Akis Skertsos, in an interview on the ertnews public television newscast on Thursday, the prime minister is to announce additional measures for the support of farmers.
"Tomorrow, in the prime minister's address to Parliament, additional assistance will be given in relation to energy costs. Tomorrow, measures will be announced that concern the short-term and medium to long-term support for farming energy bills, so that they can follow the energy transition that the Greek economy is making as a whole. In other words, so that our farmers can also benefit from the cheaper energy prices through utilising renewable energy sources," he said.
On the same issue, he ruled out an announcement on the special consumption tax at this time, noting that in the previous two years this measures had been announced in the autumn, once the course of the budget had been assessed. "The prime minister has given the message that if the budget is going well - as it has done in the previous years, and even better than expected - we are here to support farmer incomes," he added.
For the farmers in the Lake Karla area, he gave assurances that support will continue until the area has been drained.
Regarding farmer protests, he noted that the "problem is European, there is a widespread and justifiable insecurity on the part of the farming community in all of Europe regarding the challenges facing the primary sector. The climate crisis creates great pressures on farming incomes, disasters, many unforeseen situations that our farmers are called up on to cope with."
Given all this, he added, it was natural that they should protest and demand support, while noting that the government had provided this support in its previous four-year term, with ELGA paying out more than one billion euros in compensation, as well as an additional 600 million euros paid out during the pandemic.
"We significantly lowered tax and social insurance burders, facilities were provided with regard to VAT. To put it shortly, we support the primary sector, it is a key sector of the economy," he said. He also pointed to the measures also announced by the government to support farmers, such as the additional advances on compensation and the seven-year measure for support with energy bills and outstanding debts to energy providers.
Skertsos also commented on the bill for same-sex marriage, saying that it "must not divide us and it will not divide us in the way we are handling it" and the bill for non-state, non-profit universities, which he described as a "historic reform" that brings Greece closer to Europe and help reverse the brain drain.
AMNA
