ATHENS – “The issue of price increases has reached uncontrollable dimensions” and concerns the vast majority of households and businesses in our country, for many months,” SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Alexis Tsipras said on Friday during his speech in parliament.

The leader of the main opposition said that the government’s responsibilities can no longer be hidden behind the “propaganda”, adding that a very large part of the price spike is not due to the international crisis, but to the government’s own choices.

“In the midst of the crisis, instead of being the protector of social cohesion, you have become the protector of the cartels and the guardian angel of profiteering,” he said and accused the prime minister of committing a double fault by presenting “an idyllic situation of supposed success in the management of energy and of the inflationary crisis” and that he did the same in the management of the pandemic but “they were refuted by the scientists”.

“I have listened for 45 minutes to the prime minister almost confirming the core of my criticism, namely that he commits the double mistake of doing nothing to deal with high energy prices and inflation, but also trying to present an almost idyllic reality in relation to the government choices and its results,” Tsipras said.

Mitsotakis’ speech was focused on insisting that this was not his fault and that things are worse in other EU member states, he said and responded to “the prime minister’s argument that Putin is to blame for high prices in Greece.”

Specifically, Tsipras said: “Greece had the highest electricity wholesale prices in August ’21, November, January, February ’21. Had the war in Ukraine started then? How many lies will you tell the people to justify your choices and responsibilities?”