Opposition leader defends program, reaches out to PASOK
Main opposition leader Alexis Tsipras lashed out against Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday, accusing his conservative rival of false accusations that leftist SYRIZA is making promises it can’t keep.
“I am fully aware of the country’s fiscal capabilities,” Tsipras told a press conference at Athens’ Zappeio Hall, stressing that SYRIZA ended its term in government in 2019 leaving a safety net of 3.7 billion euros in state coffers.
“The cost of SYRIZA’s program comes to around 5.5 billion euros on an annual basis, which is almost half the fiscal cost of the subsidies for the profiteering in electricity in 2022 alone,” Tsipras said, referring to government subsidies for household and business power bills during the peak of the energy crisis.
SYRIZA, he added, is “determined to smash the mechanism of profiteering and windfall profits.”
Outlining some of the key points of his party’s program, Tsipras said that SYRIZA has already drafted three legislative acts to suspend auctions of repossessed primary residences, to abolish the minimum pass grade in nationwide university entrance exams and to reduce the special consumption and value-added taxes on food. He noted that of these three pledges, only the last one carries a cost, with a price tag of 1.4 billion euros.
In what is seen as a fresh overture to socialist PASOK ahead of Sunday’s elections, meanwhile, Tsipras said the “first and third party could form a government,” while speculating that if New Democracy comes first, Mitsotakis “will try to form a government; he will not risk a second round.”
