The measures recently announced by the government are "not a sufficient overall proposal that can productively create better conditions for society's prosperity," main opposition PASOK-Movement for Change press spokesperson Kostas Tsoukalas asserted on Saturday, speaking to Real FM 97.8 radio.
Regarding the rent subsidy, he said that "subsidising demand only, without also giving incentives to landlords, will simply lead to the cost being transferred to rents in the future. In other words, landlords will interpret the increased ability of tenants due to the extra 'rent' as an opportunity for a further increase."
Tsoukalas noted the need for a comprehensive approach to the issue of housing, since the 'Spiti Mou' programmes were "well-intentioned but had not worked".
"The reason is, when you only increase demand, then rents generally will also rise and we have a trend for rising prices that can neither be stopped nor reduced but instead constantly increase. Therefore, the government has failed spectacularly," he said.
According to Tsoukalas, 212,000 new residences were needed to solve the issue of housing, whereas the government, in six years, "has not built even one house" and was unable to point to any concrete result from the measures it has been announcing since 2021. "There is neither target-setting nor accountability, only communication," he added.
Regarding the under-declaration of rents, he noted that the solution was to give incentives to both sides and not just one, and said that any relief from the government measure would only be temporary and lead to even higher rents in the near future.
He also claimed that the government had failed to deliver on promises to reduce tax brackets, barring a reduction of the tax rate for the first 10,000 euros to 9 percent. He pointed out that tax brackets for incomes higher than 12,000 euros were out of date and had not been changed in 15 years, whereas rents were now multiple times higher than at the start of the economic crisis.
Tsoukalas also criticised the government for delays in setting up a team of judicial employees to issue some 50,000 pending digital certifications, wills and disclaimers of inheritance, saying it should have taken action before so many had accumulated. He called for the return of the EKAS benefit to some 450,000 low-income pensioners and other measures relating to pensions.