Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in his weekly Sunday address, focused on key developments in August, emphasizing energy and labor issues, alongside reforms in public health, education, urban planning, and digital services.
On energy, Mitsotakis highlighted a significant drop in wholesale electricity prices, which have fallen by 29% compared to last summer.
“With the support of new renewable energy sources, including solar and wind, and through our efforts at the European level to address flaws in the single energy market, wholesale prices fell significantly this August,” the prime minister announced.
He noted that Greece currently has lower wholesale prices than Germany, Austria, and Denmark, and expressed his expectation that this decrease will be reflected in retail prices next month.
“If this does not happen, we will intervene in favor of consumers,” he said, adding that the green energy transition should benefit the majority, not a few at the expense of many.
Regarding labor, the prime minister, addressing public debate over a labor bill currently in consultation, stressed that the eight-hour workday is not being abolished. He criticized opposition claims as “deliberate inaccuracies and misinterpretations.”
Mitsotakis underlined that ongoing reforms aim to strengthen the welfare state, enhance public services, and ensure that the benefits of economic and technological changes are widely shared.
In response, opposition party SYRIZA noted: “Prices are skyrocketing, electricity bills are alarming society, and Mr. Mitsotakis, in his Sunday message, writes yet another cheerful collection of ideas on renewable energy.”
The leftist party also criticized the government for “one failure after another in foreign policy”, adding “the country has burned once again, despite government assurances of unprecedented preparation.”
Later Sunday, Pavlos Christidis, labor affairs spokesperson for socialist PASOK, accused the conservative New Democracy government of systematically undermining workers’ rights since taking office.
He argued that Greece now ranks near the bottom in the EU in terms of purchasing power, and described the prime minister’s labor policies as hostile to the principle of decent work, turning the erosion of working hours into what he called “so-called flexibility.”
This story has been updated.