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ELAS Spokeswoman Outlines Tsipras’ Proposals on Prices, VAT and Housing
🇬🇷 Greece /Elections & Politics

ELAS Spokeswoman Outlines Tsipras’ Proposals on Prices, VAT and Housing

From Ta Nea · () Greek

Translated from Greek and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Interview Named sources New plan
  • Theoni Koufonikolakou said Alexis Tsipras will present a four-year program in Thessaloniki focused on incomes, employment, small and medium-sized businesses, social services and economic restructuring.
  • Proposed measures include lower VAT, price controls on basic goods, stronger competition oversight, tighter Airbnb rules and the abolition of the Golden Visa.
  • Koufonikolakou said the program rests on honest governance, fair growth and productive reconstruction, with anti-corruption measures applying across its policies.

Alexis Tsipras is preparing to present a four-year program in Thessaloniki built around “honest governance, fair growth, productive reconstruction,” according to Theoni Koufonikolakou, spokeswoman for the Greek Left Alliance, or ELAS.

Speaking to MEGA News 104.6, Koufonikolakou said the program will address high prices and incomes, employment and small and medium-sized businesses, the rebuilding of the welfare state, and a change in Greece’s economic model. Health and education would receive particular attention, alongside what she described as a fairer redistribution of wealth.

We do not need to hear someone else in order to formulate our own programmatic positions.

— Theoni KoufonikolakouShe rejected the idea that Tsipras’ speech was designed to prompt a response from Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

She sharply criticized the government’s approach to rising prices. “For us, high prices are not addressed with handshakes, tea or press releases,” she said, calling for systematic checks across the supply chain, greater pricing and profit-margin transparency, stronger penalties and targeted price caps where increases are unjustified. Other proposals include regulating prices for basic-basket goods, reducing VAT, strengthening the Competition Commission and creating a monitoring body covering prices from producer to shelf.

For us, high prices are not addressed with handshakes, tea or press releases.

— Theoni KoufonikolakouShe criticized the government’s response to the cost-of-living problem.

Housing forms another major part of the platform. Koufonikolakou proposed a nonprofit organization to manage loans and public property, tighter limits on Airbnb licensing and the abolition of the Golden Visa. She also backed tax disincentives for owners who keep homes empty and higher taxes on property transfers involving buyers outside the European Union.

Asked whether Tsipras chose Thessaloniki before Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to provoke a response, Koufonikolakou said ELAS did not need to wait for another politician to state its positions. She argued that Tsipras’ standing as a leading rival came from opinion polls and the momentum of the new political formation, not approval from New Democracy.

We have a comprehensive rationale and positions.

— Theoni KoufonikolakouShe described ELAS’s political program during the interview.
About this summary

Originally published by Ta Nea in Greek. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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