PM Mitsotakis on AlphaTV: 'We are nearing the beginning of the end of this cycle of high prices'

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke about a broad range of issues during his interview to Alpha TV that was broadcast on Monday evening.

This summer's wildfires and the two floods that followed right afterwards made people sad and demanding of the government to do more than it could do, Mitsotakis said. No one can deny the intensity of natural phenomena, he added, and he spoke of a need to draft an entire strategy of adjustment to deal with climate change.

About price hikes and overall financial struggles, Mitsotakis said that the biggest current problem of the average Greek family is high market prices. "There are two approaches in dealing with this issue," he said, "one is issuing short-term support measures such as Food Pass, Market Pass and Fuel Pass, and the other is permanent raises and measures that ensure the market stays regulated." Against price hikes, the government has raised minimum wages more than once, supported pensioners, and legislated permament pay raises in the civil service, among other measures. Mitsotakis also warned that "no company involved in profiteering, even large ones, will be immune from inspections."    

Mentioning upcoming permanent wage and pension raises as of January 1 and Christmas bonuses for pensioners, Mitsotakis noted that "we are now nearing the beginning of the end of this cycle of high prices," but he warned that circumstances are still difficult.  

Referring to the newly elected leader of main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance Stefanos Kasselakis, the prime minister said that he happens to have met him socially in the past and finds him likeable, but that he "has yet to hear some substantial and substantiated political discourse" from Kasselakis.  

On Greek-Turkish relations, the premier referred to his meeting with Turkish President Erdogan during the recent UN General Assembly in New York as "an opportunity to leave behind the tensions of the past and and find a way to move forward together." Even if the two countries still do not work out their sole dispute, that should not become a reason to "be on the verge of a heated incident".      

Concerning the upcoming local government elections on October 8, Mitsotakis, leader of ruling New Democracy, said that the aim is for the party to come first in as many of the country's 13 regions as is possible, including the country's largest of Athens, Thessaloniki, and Patras. 

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