Government trying to show it really cares
The message from the prime minister’s office is clear: there is no room for summer relaxation and no time for a “September reboot.”
Stung by the result of the June 9 election to the European Parliament, which, despite almost doubling the score of its nearest rival, saw the ruling New Democracy party slip more than 12 percentage points, the government wants to prove that it received the message from disgruntled voters who either defected or chose to abstain.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis believes that he and his ministers should focus on issues that touch citizens’ daily lives. There is the bread and butter issue of inflation, which, surveys show, citizens routinely point to as their major concern. But there is also the state of the understaffed and overextended national health system, the fear of crime and the concern about increasingly frequent and severe wildfires.
Mitsotakis wants to establish, by September, that he and his ministers are aware of the problems and are trying to deal with them promptly, without dithering.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, energy prices shot up, ultimately affecting electricity bills. It took the government some months then to act to mitigate the effects by subsidizing electricity. It didn’t wait as long this summer, when prices again started climbing and with citizens feeling the pinch as they have increased electricity consumption to keep cool amid the scorching heat. The government immediately announced a surtax on electricity providers that will help fund the newest round of subsidies.
In the National Health System (ESY), understaffing is especially felt in the summer, as doctors take their holidays. A call for private doctors to volunteer in public hospitals and faraway locations left without a doctor in order to take up some of the slack was initially met with near total indifference, if not hostility. The prime minister is now trying to get doctors to fall in line by threatening to draft them. On Wednesday, the Panhellenic Doctors’ Association announced that it would provide incentives, including hard cash, for its members who volunteer to work for the ESY. Certainly, its statement also said that understaffing is the government’s fault and that it never listened to the association’s proposals, but the main priority, urging its members to help, was achieved.
The government has also lately cracked down on criminal gangs, including white collar crime that exposed corruption among civil servants. It has also decided to increase its patrols in tourist areas, starting from the island of Zakynthos, to combat petty crime.
On wildfires, the government is so far content that no major disaster has occurred, under persistently hot and dry conditions, and that the few major fires have been promptly dealt with.
