REPORT
Greece: a major demonstration against inflation in Athens
Audio 01:23
Demonstrators against inflation in Athens, Greece, February 26, 2022. AFP - LOUISA GOULIAMAKI
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
In Greece, at least 10,000 people gathered outside the Athens Parliament this weekend at the call of the unions, to denounce galloping inflation, particularly in the energy sector.
In a country still marked by low wages inherited from the economic crisis, excessive inflation could indeed threaten many Greeks with poverty.
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With our correspondent in Athens,
Joël Bronner
The risk of poverty is all the greater as the war in Ukraine threatens to encourage this tendency to inflation.
Everything is increasing in Greece.
In January, prices had increased by an average of 6% in one year.
And it is in the energy sector that the surge is the most spectacular: some 50% more for electricity and 150% for natural gas.
In a country with a minimum wage of 650 euros, this inflation threatens the most precarious in particular.
►Also read: In Greece, inflation is soaring
“
If you look at the situation, you see that, from food to energy, all the prices are going up.
And with what's happening in Ukraine, all those costs are going to keep going up.
This is our problem.
We should therefore either increase wages or lower VAT
, ”says Dimitrios Drimanis, courier for a home delivery chain.
Mass layoffs
The demonstrators also denounced certain reforms of the Labor Code deemed too liberal.
Coming from Kavala, in the north of the country, Sterios Tsagas is general secretary of the union of an oil company, the regional economic lung, whose employees are on strike.
“
The increase in the cost of living, we are taking the brunt of it in Kavala.
The management of the Energean company decided to stop production and lay off more than half of the employees.
In the context of the increase in the prices of consumer products such as energy, all this risks plunging our local community into misery
”, he believes.
According to 2020 figures, one in four Greeks is at risk of poverty.
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