At last year’s levels and lower are the prices of food for the Easter table. The Easter Basket that comes tomorrow, aims to contain prices, said the Minister of Development, Kostas Skrekas, speaking in the First Program and added that consumers will see the prices of lamb goats to be the same and lower compared to last year’s corresponding period.
“So this will greatly contain inflation, enable vulnerable households and beyond of course, to be able to get the essentials for the Easter table at much lower prices. Of course, our effort is not limited only to the subject of the Basket. We have gone through a series of interventions, correcting unfair trade practices and chronic distortions in the way trade works, so that we actually see slowly, as we do, prices deescalate and inflation come down. But we still have a way to go, this is the reality, that households are struggling and that’s why we are not complacent and continue the interventions” pointed out Mr. Skrekas.
While for lambs, the minister noted that there are many prices in the market, but the request for the government is that the price of lamb in the household basket should be from 10 euros per kilo and lower.
“From there, there are products for all tastes and for every type of consumer. A consumer should have a choice. This is what we are trying to do, that is, to give households the option to be able to choose. They want to buy a product that is more affordable, why can’t they? The household basket. They want to choose another product, which may be more expensive but have different quality characteristics or anyway they like it more, they can also choose it. This is what we must ensure, i.e. that there are options so that households can meet their needs without difficulty,” he said.
“In the basic products, such as the Easter bun, the lamb and other Easter products, all of these, such as the feta and the rest, it seems, we will certainly see it in the Household Basket that will be announced tomorrow by each supermarket chain, it seems that the prices will be the same in some cases will be even lower than last Easter” said Mr. Skrekas.
For fuel
He also spoke about the issue of fuel. As he said at the moment there do not seem to be any changes in fuel. “As far as international crude oil prices are concerned, Greece is completely unable to shape international oil prices at the level of European or American stock exchanges. From there we continue the checks. Of course, geopolitical fluidity is something that de facto affects the prices of internationally traded commodities, raw materials, whether fossil fuels or metals. We hope and we all pray that this war will stop in Southeast Europe but also in our neighborhood, in Ukraine,” stressed Mr. Skrekas.
For the vegetable market
“Yesterday, for example, in the vegetable market we saw that in many basic fruits and vegetables, for example, green salads or tomatoes, prices are quite lower compared to the previous period. From 35 minutes for example, which had reached 50 minutes the lettuce has gone below 30 minutes now, which means that slowly we can see price de-escalation. What can help. Certainly the controls we do in the market can help. Over 40,000 checks and over 17 million euros in fines to those who violated the law on unfair profiteering, which is the only country in Greece that has passed such a law,” the minister added, assuring that the fines are being collected normally.
“There is no question of them not being collected and we see that they are already complying, because no company wants its name to be heard that it is a company that has broken a law and has been fined. (…) All these are things that are slowly paying off. Of course, this cannot be done overnight, but we see that month by month inflation is coming down, companies are complying with the law, and prices will slowly level out, just as it did with energy. Of course, we have not reached where we need to get to,” Mr. Skrekas emphasized.
