Those who lived their adolescence in the 1980s and 1990s will remember the subversive musician and satirical performer Tzimis Panousis opening his shows with the iconic phrase “Comrade consumers”. I was reminded of it when I saw the March retail trade figures from Eurostat, which recorded a 6% increase despite inflationary pressures stemming from the war in the Middle East.
On Politis radio 107.6 & 97.6 and in the Show Me the Money supplement, we interpreted this increase in different ways. Yannis saw resilience; I saw slow consumer reflexes and delayed price adjustments. One, however, does not cancel out the other. The most likely explanation is that we are both right, with the hope that Yannis proves more correct for the good of us all.
My first reaction on reading the data was that higher-priced products automatically translate into higher consumption in value terms, even if in reality we bought fewer items or roughly the same as in March 2025. However, the 6% increase is clearly higher than monthly inflation, which stood at 1.5%.
In other words, with the exception of fuels, retail prices did not rise at the same pace, which allowed consumers to maintain their purchases at February levels, when the crisis had not yet erupted.
In the same data, however, we saw that retail trade in Germany fell by 2%. There, inflation stood at 2.8%, indicating that businesses had faster reflexes in passing on cost increases through pricing, while the country’s “comrade consumers” also showed adaptability by cutting back.
It is well known that the behaviour of German consumers is what forces supermarkets in Germany to sell feta cheese at a lower price than in Greece, the country where it is produced. It appears that a large segment simply does not buy unless it considers the price fair relative to quality, regardless of whether a small increase affects their personal finances. In other words, it is a matter of principles.
For Yannis Seitanidis, the increase in turnover in Cyprus pointed to resilience among households and businesses. If not for everyone, then certainly for a segment of workers often described as “privileged”: from senior public servants and executives in the financial sector to foreign employees in technology companies.
A walk through city centres confirms that money is circulating. From cars worth tens of thousands of euros to luxury apartments and extremely expensive restaurants. In other words, high earners are unlikely to change their consumption habits.
If this is the case – and it is – then horizontal support through fuel tax cuts is even more misguided. We should perhaps turn instead to targeted vouchers for low-income pensioners and low-paid workers, discounts on electricity and large-scale investment in public transport.
Of course, we could simply wait for the storm in the Middle East to pass without doing anything. After all, the political credit for any measures is not guaranteed to materialise now. On the contrary, if fuel taxes return, wealthier voters are likely to cast even more “angry” votes at the polls.
It is no secret that no one feels “privileged” any more; everyone feels wronged. Let us not forget that in this country we once lived through the ultimate absurdity, where even low-paid workers lived the “high life” on borrowed money that was never repaid.
We still feel nostalgic about those times and consider them “normal”, rather than today’s so-called “misery”.
