Mitsotakis announces €5.5 bln in extra spending
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Saturday 21 initiatives to support households and businesses buffeted by the energy crisis and high inflation.
The package, which is in addition to continued subsidies on electricity bills, includes, among other things, a €250 one-off cost-of-living check aimed at 2.3 million recipients, with some getting extra money, the boosting of the heating fuel subsidy to €300 million, from €174 million last year, an emergency subsidy of about €150 million to farmers to cover rising fuel and animal feed costs and a hefty rise (50% and, in certain cases, 100%) in housing cost allowances to university students.
Also, kicking in after the new year, pensions and the minimum wage will rise (the latter from May 1), as well as wages of national health service and armed forces personnel. The abolition of the so-called ‘solidarity contribution’ will be made permanent and lower VAT on a series of sectors will be extended. In construction, specifically, VAT is suspended until the end of 2024 to boost building activity.
Mitsotakis repeated that elections will take place at the end of his four-year term.