Open-ended strike from today by street market professionals

Street market professionals are launching an open-ended nationwide strike starting Wednesday, January 7, to voice their opposition to the presumptive taxation system and the obligation to issue electronic delivery notes.

As announced today by Angelos Deretzis, President of the Federation of Associations of Professional Producers and Vendors of Street Markets in Macedonia, Thessaly and Thrace, during a mobilisation at the Xirokrini street market—where representatives of parliamentary parties were invited for briefing—the possibility of escalating the protests is being considered, including the closure of wholesale produce markets in Athens and Thessaloniki.

“We are going on strike nationwide from Wednesday, and if no solution is found, we will escalate from Thursday and close the wholesale produce markets in Athens and Thessaloniki—the two major wholesale markets through which supplies are distributed to all department stores, supermarkets and greengrocers,” Mr Deretzis said a few days ago.

“The problems concerning the Ministry of Finance relate to presumptive taxation for professionals, because we do not work all year round yet we are taxed as if we do […] Our proposal is to reduce the presumptive tax for professionals and to keep the delivery note in handwritten form for producer-vendors at street markets,” Mr Deretzis clarified.

He also noted that “we do not want any confrontation with the government—any government—since street markets have always been an ally of successive governments,” however, “for the past two months we have been trying, either through MPs or through interventions, to secure a meeting at the Ministry of Finance, and we have yet to receive any response.”