February hikes that were simply taken back – Cuts to the amount of the “permanent reduction” that once it expires will become increases
The new communication trick by the Mitsotakis government and the Ministry of Development to “gild the pill” of the leaping price increase in detergents and other similar products they explained speaking to Action24 The president of the Working Consumers Union of Greece Apostolos Rautopoulos and the president of EKPOIZO Panagiota Kalapotharakou.
“They told us on Friday when these measures started that they are not yet ready, they need time to adjust. The Mitsotakis government said “we will give a week or 15 days to adjust”, said Mr. Ratopoulos. The 3,000 product codes that saw price reductions do not exist, he clarified, on the contrary “there are products that have increased from Thursday to Friday. For example, detergent from 5.96 euros went to 6.16 euros, a 20-minute increase, that is +3.3%.
Regarding discounted products, he described that “detergent which in January had 13.95 cents, in February it went to 14.45 euros (+3.6%) and with the implementation of the measures it returned to 13.95 euros. You, call it “reduction”. Other detergent “was 11.52 euros, today it is 10.95 euros, a decrease of 57 cents or 5.2%. However, all detergents, the Mitsotakis government had said in a previous measure it took, have a permanent price reduction of 5%. This means that with the permanent 5% price cut ending, what we will see are increases on the products that today have been reduced by 40, 50, 55, 57 cents”.
“Even in these categories of detergents as Mr. Rautopoulos rightly said, based on the figures of the Competition Commission many of them were as much as 361% up than in Europe. So the any reduction of 5%, 10%, 18%, is infinitesimalin relation to the total cost that the consumer is required to pay”, he emphasized from the side of the president of EKPOIZO Panagiotas Kalapotharakos. “These measures will not work, just like the previous ones… constant checks on the market are needed by the competent Authorities, the Competition Commission and the Ministry of Development”.
