Filipche: SDSM directed €2 billion to citizens in the crisis — now who got help? Nobody

Venko Filipche, president of SDSM, told reporters that citizens need concrete relief measures to cope with rising prices and living costs, and accused the current VMRO-DPMNE-led government of offering no meaningful support during the latest price shocks.

Filipche recalled that during the worst of the previous crisis SDSM-led governments directed 2 billion euros in measures aimed at households, and he contrasted that intervention with the present situation in which, he said, no one has received a package to offset the recent fuel-price increases.

Filipche lists past measures and criticises current response

“I see that the prevailing narrative is often to compare what is happening now with 2022. The crisis, wages, management, and so on are compared. Citizens did not elect this government to hear comparisons with the past; they expect measures. In that crisis, I remind you, a total budget of 2 billion euros was directed to citizens through special measures for different categories of people, for social cases, families with many children, students, elderly people; 600,000 families then had subsidized electricity, etc. Who now received any package in this crisis with rising fuel prices in the recent period? Nobody,” Filipche said.

He argued that, while prices and basic living costs are rising, citizens have been left to cope on their own because the authorities offer announcements about a new “basket” that, in his view, are just PR gestures rather than real assistance.

“They have rejected our proposal several times to raise the minimum wage to €600. The basket has reached 70,000 denars. If you add other real costs, rent or mortgage payments, expenses exceed 90,000 denars. People cannot survive. And from this talk about some basket, I expect nothing, because I think it is again just a PR trick, something like they will announce it and in the end it will be nothing,” Filipche said.

Photo: press material from the event