Androulakis meets farmers in Crete, calls for 'strategic plan' to address sector's problems

Without a reorganisation of the farming sector that will link it with cheap energy, manufacturing and quality tourism, "Greece will become a country where the Greek people and farmers are foreigners in their own country," opposition PASOK-KINAL leader Nikos Androulakis said on Friday in a meeting with farmers' representatives in Heraklion, Crete.

He accused the government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of a "painful and nationally destructive policy" that was "dehellenising" Greece's economy, saying that PASOK will resist this development. He also noted that the farmers' problems cannot be solved by measures that primarily aimed to stop the farmers' protests.

He said that PASOK wants a strategic plan to address the huge problems facing farmers, such as delays in compensation for lost crops, soaring production costs and the climate crisis.

Androulakis also criticised the government's failure to address the issues "while trying to blame everything on Brussels" and noted that the problems of Greek farmers were very different to those of their French counterparts. He also referred to energy issues and said that the green transition should not be a threat to farmers and a means of profiteering for the domestic oligarchy when other countries had made energy communities for farmers a priority.