ATHENS — "It has now become routine to dub ordinary natural phenomena, such as snowfall in winter, "extreme" for the sole reason of hiding the huge deficiencies in the fields of civil protection, planning and the construction of infrastructure to meet people's needs," the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) said in an announcement on Monday.

"At the same time, the government is shutting even major road networks down over a few centimetres of snow as the state and private companies that exploit them have not done even the basics to ensure that they are cleared and remain open," added KKE, concluding that "this is only one example of present-day state mechanism, which operates based on the interests of the few and not the needs of the many'.