By Dorian Kodra
On Friday at noon, supermarket owners were invited to one of the halls of the prime minister's office, who for two weeks had refused to submit to the government a list of prices of the goods they sell in their stores.
With pursed lips, furrowed eyebrows, and the look of a man who had been up all night thinking about the price of bread and eggs, Edi Rama was the first to enter the hall where the merchants were waiting for him. In front of him, the owners stood serious and silent, and for a few moments, the scene reminded him more of a meeting between the commissioners and the villagers in the movie “Confrontation” than a meeting between the government and business in a market economy.
Of course, Rama was not faced with the kulaks hiding sacks of grain. He did not even call them “slushkas” as they did in the productions of the new Kinostudio, but the language used by the prime minister was similar. According to him, we are living in an “aggressive capitalism”, where merchants are earning “more than what is considered good manners”; he warned them that the government would not allow them to “burden the people” with heavy prices and made it clear that the day could come when they would say: “What have we opened for ourselves? To hell with what we are earning without right…”.
Alongside Rama were Comrade Delina, Minister of Economy, who told the owners that preparing the price list would not take more than an hour of work, and Comrade Petrit, Minister of Finance, who explained that the government was looking to find a link in the supply chain, where prices were being abusively inflated. Only "Comrade Martin" was missing...
The government initiative aims to create a “Price Mirror” platform, a model previously applied in Greece and Italy to keep prices of basic foodstuffs under control. Transparency is seen as a measure that could increase competition and lead to price reductions.
Greece and Italy also used agreements with supermarkets to curb prices. Only the governments there didn't start by gathering retailers in a room to pressure them about why they were making so much money.
In both Greece and Italy, many basic foods are taxed at a reduced VAT rate. In Greece, the standard VAT rate is 24%, but a reduced rate of 13% applies to bread, milk, meat, fish, olive oil, cheese, pasta, flour, cereals and vegetables.
Italy has also long applied reduced VAT rates to various food categories.
Both governments, in Greece and Italy, also took money out of the budget to ease families' food bills.
Italy created the “ Dedicata a te” card : in 2023 it initially made 500 million euros available to around 1.3 million families in difficulty to buy basic food; the fund was later increased to 600 million euros. Greece created the “Market Pass” , which in the initial phase subsidized 10% of a monthly amount calculated for food purchases, starting from 22 euros of assistance per month for a family with one person and increasing according to the number of members. The assistance was provided via a digital card or, with a 20% lower amount, directly to the bank account.
In both cases, governments also used money and state instruments, either before or in parallel with pressure on merchants.
Meanwhile in Albania, as Rama asks merchants to give up part of their profits, the government continues to maintain the standard VAT of 20% for basic foods.
Rama once thought differently about the solution for poor families. With the promise of "zero VAT on food" he came to power. At the time, he argued that a family should not have to pay 20% tax on bread, milk, eggs, flour or rice. Watch the video below:
Now that food prices in Albania have exceeded the European Union average, the government is desperately looking for the culprit inside the supermarket. It's just that this zeal to blame the merchants doesn't seem to be honest.
That's why the scenes created in the prime minister's office resembled the movie "Confrontation", where Kadri Roshi masterfully delivered the joke that supermarket owners have had in mind for the past two weeks: "Dig, Tare, dig, I have a dead dog there! Take it, take it!"/Lapsi.al
