ATHENS – One of the ruling New Democracy’s biggest bugaboos – enduring high prices at the supermarket – has seen the government move to keep controlling measures in place until the end of 2024.

Those were in an amendment sent by Development Minister Takis Theodorikakos to the Parliament, where the Conservatives have a majority, ensuring their passage, with penalties raised for profiteering.

Those will go up 500 percent for violating the gross profit margin cap and 300 percent for violating a ban on promotions, with multinationals largely blamed for gouging but some domestic businesses  raising prices markedly too.

The profit cap measure fixes the gross profit margin for each business from the sale of basic goods to that which existed before December 31, 2021. The maximum fine for violations is raised from 1 million euros ($1.08 million) to 6 million euros ($6.46 million,) likely far lower than the monies companies take in from high prices.

The Household Basket in which supermarkets maintain lower prices on 51 staple items – excluding one of the most favored products by Greeks, olive oil – will also stay in place to help families deal with the costs.

Supermarkets must also notify the ministry about supplier price increases, announce indicative prices for fresh fruit and vegetables and keep a cap on the price of infant formula that had been far higher than in the rest of the European Union.

The amendment also extends controls on the profit margins relating to the Recycling-Changing boiler program, to deter companies from raising prices due to the extra demand generated by the vouchers with expiration dates.

That came after Theodorikakos met with representatives of supermarkets, the food industry and multinational distributors of food and leaders from the Federation of Hellenic Food Industries and the Union of Supermarkets.

So-called “Greedflation” was reported in data from the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) by its coordinator, Professor Ioannis Tsoukalas, which said there was a 16 percent hike in inflation from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the first quarter of 2024.

“The analysis shows that earnings contributed more than twice as much to cumulative growth in deflated GDP through 2024 as wage costs,” the report said, while in the 20 member Eurozone labor costs were 10 percent of inflation.

The report said, “Businesses, either for reasons of weak competition or due to increased demand that came from the increased savings stock of households and tourism, managed to pass on the increases in imported costs to prices and significantly boost their profits.”

A National Bank of Greece study in May 2023 found that 5 percent of the price hikes in food in the last two years was due to higher profit margins for retailers who haven’t curbed rising prices.

The Governor’s Report of the Bank of Greece in April this year stated that the profit margin of businesses in 2021 and 2022 increased cumulatively by 15 percent, the government unable to rein in the costs despite penalties and other measures.