By Danae Alexaki 

 

A deep and open wound in the domestic primary sector is created by the destruction caused by torrential rains and unprecedented floods in the region of Thessaly, in central Greece.

 

Losses in the plains are creating a “domino” of developments across the domestic primary sector and manufacturing, further driving up key operating costs and most notably threatening food security in the country.

 

Thessaly is the third largest region of the country and with a participation in the total GDP of the order of 5.5%. It is the country's largest supplier of agricultural products.

 

Although there have not yet been recorded significant product shortages, it is estimated that this will be seen in the coming weeks, which will lead to an increase in imports and inevitably to higher prices.

 

According to the first estimates, price increases of about 15%-30% are expected in basic food products such as milk, cheese, legumes, pasta, meat, fruit and vegetables.

 

And the industry is once again facing the risk of shortages of basic raw materials with milk, meat and durum wheat topping the list of needs.

 

Ursula von der Leyen: Europe on Greece's side

 

"Europe is next to Greece and the Greeks. We are a union of solidarity," Ursula von der Leyen stated

 

The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen stated in her joint statements with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis that she was shocked by the disasters in Greece and reassured that Europe stands by Greece.

 

She also said that the Commission will mobilize all the necessary resources, through which – as she said – Greece can receive a total of over 2 billion euros.

 

Regarding the ways in which Europe will help Greece, the president of the European Commission said that it is necessary to make investments, but also for the country to receive immediate help. “We will be fast and flexible,” she promised.

 

She explained that funds not spent from the previous period can be used as well as money from the Cohesion Funds. She said that the funds can be channeled directly to the Greeks from the European solidarity fund. She also referred to “the common agricultural policy, which plays an important role. We have two funds from the previous program and now we also have the new program for agricultural policy.”

 

On his part, Mitsotakis said: “We were faced with an unprecedented weather phenomenon, a disaster of enormous proportions, which was much worse than we could have foreseen.”

 

The Greek premier said that he is in Strasbourg to mobilize further European economic aid, both in the short term to help Greece and the Greek people, but also in the long term, to be more aware of the fact that these kinds of phenomena will occur with increased frequency and that we cannot focus only on mitigating the consequences.

 

National strategy

 

The agricultural world emphasizes the necessity of drawing up a national strategy to restart production in the plain, since, as representatives of agricultural cooperatives argue in "N", "emergency subsidies are a first relief measure and in no way solve the scale of the natural disaster, the effects of which are not limited only to Thessaly, but extend to the whole spectrum of the chain from the field to the shelf at a pan-Hellenic level.

 

The extent of the destruction cannot yet be calculated, but it will begin to be seen gradually with the drainage of the huge volumes of muddy water that have "sunk" the Thessalian plain. The first picture is heartbreaking, as hundreds of thousands of acres of crop production, an as yet unknown number of productive animals, warehouses with products and other mechanical equipment and facilities are still buried in the mud.