Greek government slams 'greedflation' while levying baby formula price controls

Greece’s center-right government announced price controls on baby formula Wednesday, accusing multinational suppliers of imposing unjustifiably high prices on the country’s consumers.

A 7% profit cap on formula will take effect in March and follows a series of similar initiatives over the past two years for basic items.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis accused major supermarket suppliers of taking advantage of high inflation to further hike prices.

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"The battle to tame high prices and to impose more competition rules in favor of the consumer is a constant battle," Mitsotakis told his ministers in a televised address.

"We are constantly deploying new policy tools until everyone – especially the multinational companies – understands that Greece is not a banana republic and that ‘greedflation’ cannot be tolerated."

Inflation in countries using the shared euro currency increased to 2.9% in December after a seven-month decline, according to an official estimate, with the Greek rate swinging higher to 3.7%.

Greek authorities in recent months have imposed fines of up to 1 million euros on major international companies they said had violated government-imposed caps on profits.