SYRIZA-PS president Alexis Tsipras had a meeting with representatives of the Regional Union of Municipalities of Attica at the party's offices.
During the meeting, according to a statement by SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras highlighted «the dangers that citizens and Local Authorities face from the energy crisis which has been aggravated by the government's choices and the risk that citizens will be asked to pay for the deadlocks again».
«Difficult days are coming back and in these difficult days we must all contribute to avoid the worst and especially to stand by in solidarity with the people, our fellow citizens who are in greatest need,» said the president of SYRIZA PS. He stressed the dual role that local government can play in addressing the energy crisis, but also in addressing poverty «which is the result of the huge wave of poverty» and stood by the mayors who are asking for support in resources and staffing corresponding to the responsibilities entrusted to them. He stressed that he believes in a deep and very substantial cooperation between the state and local government «so that we can also face the great difficulties we are going through now», so that, he said, to overcome the perennial problems of lack of staff of municipalities and lack of resources. He added that many municipalities are on the verge of financial distress «because of the dire situation in which they have found themselves in local government», describing as a «great difficulty» the need to pay the bills and balance their budgets.
In this context, he stressed that «the big fear is the possibility that other costs will be passed on to the consumer, to the citizen, if the Local Government cannot cope». Tsipras noted that «a way must be found to deal with it. To avoid it. Because the consumer, the households, the citizens cannot bear any more costs. And this is very important and crucial in my view. So the municipalities must also be strengthened and the additional burden on citizens must be avoided.‘.
At the same time, he praised the essential role they can play in local government «for the development of energy communities», which, he stressed, «must be promoted through local government and its organisations, so that we can find ways to address this energy crisis». He noted the urgent need for «municipalities to take concerted action to tackle poverty». «Local government and municipalities can play a decisive role in my opinion and in social groceries, in social health clinics, in a range of issues that you know better than I do. And I think we all have to realize that we are in a different reality, unfortunately again», he concluded.
The members of the Presidency of the PEDA, according to the announcement, noted for their part that the energy crisis has increased the problems of municipalities, as, as explained by the president George Markopoulos, «we do not receive either from the energy companies, nor from the citizens of course that can not cope. And we really won't be able to function in a short time.».
