Mitsotakis, Tsipras cross swords over inflation

The government is not to blame for the economic difficulties facing Greek consumers, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Friday after leftist opposition leader Alexis Tsipras accused his New Democracy administration of “plundering the low income and middle classes.”

“You could not find a single word to name the main culprit of this global inflation crisis: the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Mitsotakis said during a parliamentary debate on soaring prices.

“The crisis will cost us, but it will not break us,” the prime minister said, defending government measures to protect consumers and businesses from inflation and urging his leftist rival to “stop with the lies and the fabrications.”

Tsipras had earlier slammed the government over “unchecked” inflation, adding that the ruling conservatives were “sinking their hand deeper into the pockets of taxpayers by maintaining high taxes on fuel.”