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HRF classifies Greece as democratic.
Greece is a parliamentary republic in Southeastern Europe. Following a seven-year military dictatorship (1967–1974), the country underwent a peaceful transition to democracy, culminating in the adoption of the 1975 Constitution. Since then, Greece has maintained regular, competitive elections, alternation of power among major political parties, and generally robust protections for civil liberties. It joined the European Communities (now the European Union) in 1981 and the Eurozone in 2001.
In 2009, the country entered a sovereign debt crisis, fueled by an economic contraction (reflecting the global 2008 downturn), falling state revenues, and pervasive tax evasion. The following year, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) offered an approximately $146 billion USD rescue package to Greece, contingent upon the adoption of far-reaching austerity measures (such as welfare spending cuts). Profound economic hardship and precarity contributed to the rise of anti-establishment parties, culminating in the 2015 coalition government between the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) party, which won the year’s election on a vehement anti-austerity platform, and the far-right Independent Greeks (ANEL). As they struggled to deliver on their economic programs, however, SYRIZA, ANEL, and other fringe parties lost considerable popular support, with voters swinging to the center-right New Democracy and center-left Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) parties in recent electoral cycles. New Democracy has been in office since 2019. After winning the 2023 parliamentary elections, the party has governed singlehandedly, with leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis serving as Prime Minister.
National elections are largely free and fair. The incumbent New Democracy (ND) won an outright majority in the June 2023 parliamentary elections, with a large number of other actors competing on an equal footing. Those were the second parliamentary elections of the year, as an earlier vote that May did not yield a stable governing majority. The legal framework is largely conducive to electoral integrity, according to international observers. Parliament adopted electoral amendments that would bar parties whose leadership had previous felony convictions from running earlier in 2023, raising concerns of arbitrary disqualifications. However, the incumbent party hasn’t abused these provisions to hamper the mainstream opposition.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public are largely free to criticize or challenge the government openly. However, since the ND came to office in 2019, Greece has experienced a steady erosion of media pluralism and a narrowing of civic space. The government has extended executive overreach over key media oversight bodies; engaged in arbitrary surveillance of opposition members and prominent journalists; and arbitrarily favored government-friendly outlets through the nontransparent allocation of public funds, hampering Greece’s once-robust media ecosystem. While civil society is vibrant, organizations working on issues related to migration and asylum face unnecessary registration barriers and, on limited occasions, arbitrary legal action. Lastly, while most peaceful gatherings proceed without undue interference, excessive use of force by police against demonstrators and reporters remains a lingering and often underinvestigated problem.
While the ND’s last two terms in office brought about significant institutional erosion, institutions are independent and still largely serve as effective checks on the government. For instance, state agencies have held public officials accountable for misusing voters’ personal data to secure an unfair campaign advantage. The courts’ adjudication of arbitrary lawsuits hampering the freedom of dissent has been mostly, if not entirely, consistent with EU standards. At the same time, the executive retains uncurbed control over a few key agencies (including the Security Service, which falls under the direct purview of the prime minister), while Parliament has abused some of its powers to shield former officials from accountability for corruption.
In Greece, national elections are largely free and fair. With no arbitrary barriers to participation, diverse parties can campaign freely, and competition for parliamentary seats is high. This has often produced fragmented parliaments and stymied the formation of enduring coalitions. New seat allocation procedures aimed at mitigating this fragmentation have met some criticism for privileging bigger parties, but there’s no evidence that they have substantially undermined electoral competition. Restrictions on the right to run for office are proportionate and generally applied impartially. Lastly, independent electoral oversight is robust, and the administration of elections meets international standards.
Competition for parliamentary seats is intense, as the government has not skewed the electoral playing field to the extent that it generally wins elections with a very high vote share. The June 2023 re-run of the parliamentary election in May of the same year took place precisely because no party secured an outright majority in the initial vote, and coalition-building efforts proved futile. By contrast, the June election reintroduced a “bonus system,” adopted by the ND-led government in 2020, but constitutionally delayed until the second electoral cycle following parliamentary approval. These new seat allocation rules allowed the ND to obtain a majority (156 out of 300 seats), while winning 40.6% of the popular vote. While legal and not unprecedented in Greek parliamentary history, the bonus system (whereby the winner gains extra seats depending on their vote share, starting at 20 bonus seats for 25% of the popular vote and scaling up to 50 for 40% and above), spurred some criticism from the opposition for tilting the electoral playing field and disincentivizing coalition-building among the winner and smaller parties.
Despite some concerns surrounding new restrictions on the right to run for public office, the government has not unfairly barred a real, mainstream opposition party or candidate from competing. Shortly before the May 2023 election, the ND–led parliament also adopted new legal amendments preventing parties from participating in elections if their leadership had been convicted of serious crimes, or if their platform was deemed “contrary to the democratic constitution” of the country. While the vague wording of the provisions caused some concern among international observers, the application of the law has been circumscribed and impartial overall: the main affected party was Ellines, co-founded by Ilias Kasidiaris, a former member of Parliament (MP) from the far-right Golden Dawn party, which has since been convicted of running a criminal organization. At the time that Ellines’ electoral bid was rejected by the Ministry of the Interior, Kasidiaris was serving a 13-year prison sentence for crimes committed together with other Golden Dawn members, including the murder of an anti-fascist Greek rapper. Reflecting the very limited impact of the new laws, Greek elections remain highly competitive, with voters having multiple alternatives along the ideological spectrum. To illustrate, in the June 2023 election, the populist left-wing SYRIZA party, once dominant during Greece’s financial crisis, came second with 17.8% of the popular vote, followed by PASOK-KINAL (11.9%), the Communist Party (7.7%), and smaller parties including Spartans, Victory, and Course of Freedom, some of which emerged from far-right or anti-establishment platforms.
The government has not seriously undermined independent electoral oversight. The Ministry of the Interior oversees the process, alongside special electoral courts and regional and municipal authorities. Although media pluralism and state media independence have declined in recent years, particularly after key public broadcasters were placed under the prime minister’s supervision in 2019, the electoral framework itself is assessed as consistent with democratic standards by observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, and members of the general public are largely free to criticize the government. However, executive overreach by the ND-led government has undermined the independence of the country’s major public broadcasters, influencing incumbents’ portrayal in the mainstream media. In addition, it has engaged in unlawful surveillance and intimidation of critical journalists and political leaders, creating a lasting chilling effect. While falling short of overtly repressing public gatherings, incumbents have circumscribed the freedom of assembly. Civil society organizations (CSOs) working on politically sensitive issues have also faced obstruction, from onerous registration requirements to arbitrary legal action.
The incumbent party has pursued policies that unfairly biased media coverage in its favor. As discussed further in the Institutional Accountability pillar, in 2019, Parliament placed the two main national broadcasters, the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) and the Athens News Agency – Macedonian Press Agency (ANA-MPA), under the oversight of the prime minister through the General Secretariat of Communication and Information, paving the way for direct editorial interference. For instance, in 2021, a leaked internal ERT memo revealed that journalists were instructed not to broadcast videos of Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis partying in violation of COVID-19 social distancing rules at the height of the pandemic. At the same time, it transpired that the government had allocated some €20 million ($23.3 million) of EU funds earmarked for spreading COVID-19 awareness to friendly outlets in a largely opaque manner (in what became known as the “Petsas list” scandal). Opposition-leaning media, by contrast, received less than 1% of the funds.
The ND-led government has seriously intimidated independent dissenting media and political leaders by engaging in covert state-sponsored surveillance, and created a lasting chilling effect as a result. In 2022, the “Predatorgate” scandal exposed unlawful surveillance by the National Intelligence Service (EYP) of dozens of prominent individuals (up to 100 or more, according to some estimates), including investigative journalists and opposition figures. Investigations revealed collaboration between state and non-state actors in selecting targets, procuring their details, and deploying spyware like Predator. Despite overwhelming public outcry, there has been little transparency regarding the aims of the surveillance. Government officials who authorized the surveillance have not been held accountable. On the contrary, as the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE), the country’s independent privacy authority, attempted to uncover the true extent of the surveillance, the then–Supreme Court prosecutor ruled that ADAE had no authority to audit the records of telecom companies to trace the phone tapping, and threatened criminal sanctions against its members. As discussed under the next pillar, the prosecutor also dropped all charges against the EYP in July 2024, citing insufficient evidence, in a move that sparked international criticism from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and other observers.
International observers have decried the considerable erosion of media pluralism and narrowing of civic space that these policies have cumulatively produced. In 2025, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Greece 89th in its World Press Freedom Index, the lowest score among EU member states for the third consecutive year, reflecting executive overreach in publicly-owned media and concerning instances of harassment against journalists.
The government has not seriously and unfairly repressed protests or gatherings, but has increasingly circumscribed the freedom of assembly. A 2020 law mandates prior notification for public gatherings and holds organizers legally responsible for disruptions. While not punitively enforced, the law contradicts EU recommendations and likely exerts a chilling effect. Police have occasionally responded to peaceful protests with excessive force. In 2024, journalists covering demonstrations, such as Giorgos Androutsos and Spyros Halikias, were violently detained or assaulted despite identifying themselves as press. Amnesty International and other observers have documented numerous such instances, including unlawful preemptive detentions and misuse of water cannons.
While the government has not shut down major independent, dissenting organizations, those supporting refugees and migrants face disproportionate legal and bureaucratic barriers. A 2019 law introduced restrictive registration criteria, which the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders criticized in an open letter as discriminatory. Investigative reporting revealed selective enforcement: the Ministry of Migration and Asylum declined to register many established organizations or took a long time to review their applications, while granting status to recently formed or “ghost” NGOs. In addition to administrative obstruction, human rights defenders advocating for these vulnerable groups have faced arbitrary legal action. Sarah Mardini and Seán Binder, volunteers with the Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI) that assisted the Greek coastal guard in search and rescue missions, were arrested in 2018 on bogus charges of espionage and people-smuggling, which carry up to 20 years’ imprisonment. Multiple due process violations, including a failure to translate important court documents for the defense, have marred the legal proceedings thus far. While espionage charges were dropped in May 2024, Mardini and Binder’s trial on the remaining charges, including people-smuggling, a felony, began in December 2025 and remains ongoing.
In Greece, institutions are independent and largely serve as effective checks on the government, despite a pattern of executive aggrandizement by the incumbent ND party. The oversight capacities of critical independent agencies have been undermined by questionable appointments and leadership overhauls, limiting true accountability for high-ranking officials. On the other hand, the courts have continued to largely uphold the rule of law, checking abuses of power that erode electoral integrity and civil rights, and independent oversight bodies have retained the capacity to investigate and sanction potential violations by political elites.
The government has subjected multiple executive institutions to reform that seriously weakened their independence and effectiveness. Upon taking office in 2019, Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis placed the National Intelligence Service (EYP) under his direct supervision—an unprecedented move that severely compromised the agency and played a central role in the Predatorgate scandal. As a testament to this erosion, the EYP attempted to thwart other agencies’ efforts to shed light on the surveillance (such as ADAE’s attempt to sue telecom companies mentioned above), while its own inquiries proved inconclusive despite mounting evidence supplied by independent investigative journalists. Ultimately, the Supreme Court’s chief prosecutor cleared all officials of wrongdoing in July 2024, citing insufficient evidence. The government has signaled little willingness to fundamentally reform the EYP, which remains under the prime minister’s purview. Further, in 2023, the government bypassed constitutional requirements to unilaterally appoint leadership at the ADAE and the National Council for Radio and Television (NCRTV), consolidating executive control over agencies responsible for monitoring public media and enforcing privacy and access to public information regulations. At the time of these personnel changes, ADAE was reviewing a proposed €100,000 ($116,500) fine against the EYP for the unlawful surveillance of opposition figures and journalists in the Predatorgate wiretapping scandal. ADAE only issued a decision after the appointment of the new members practically guaranteed a pro-government majority. The newly reconstituted ADAE declined to fine the EYP, which had been under the direct oversight of the prime minister since 2019.
In contrast with these concerning trends, judicial, legislative, or executive institutions themselves have not systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to hold government officials accountable. The judiciary, in particular, has checked executive aggrandizement in several important instances: the courts issued consequential rulings upholding privacy rights in the wake of the 2022 Predatorgate surveillance scandal, including a 2024 decision by the Council of State that struck down restrictions preventing the independent communications watchdog (ADAE) from informing citizens they were under surveillance. Courts have also largely dismissed politically motivated defamation lawsuits, such as those filed by the prime minister’s nephew and former intelligence coordinator, Grigoris Dimitriadis, against journalists who uncovered the scandal. Independent oversight bodies have also impartially sanctioned potential abuses of office. For instance, the Personal Data Protection Authority (PDPA) fined the ruling New Democracy (ND) party €40,000 ($46,580) for the misuse of personal voter data in a 2024 campaign for the European Parliamentary election. One problematic exception to the democratic resilience and watchfulness of these institutions, however, is the ongoing systemic impunity for excessive use of police force against participants in peaceful demonstrations. Such impunity, as noted in several European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings against Greece, remains a serious concern. While the courts have occasionally awarded compensation to victims, accountability for perpetrators has fallen short. In 2021, for instance, an Athens court found police responsible for inflicting serious bodily injury to photographer Yiannis Kafkas at a 2011 anti-austerity protest in the capital. While Kafkas was awarded a compensation of €50,000 ($58,230), the disciplinary and criminal investigations into the case did not identify a specific perpetrator.
HRF classifies Greece as democratic.
Greece is a parliamentary republic in Southeastern Europe. Following a seven-year military dictatorship (1967–1974), the country underwent a peaceful transition to democracy, culminating in the adoption of the 1975 Constitution. Since then, Greece has maintained regular, competitive elections, alternation of power among major political parties, and generally robust protections for civil liberties. It joined the European Communities (now the European Union) in 1981 and the Eurozone in 2001.
In 2009, the country entered a sovereign debt crisis, fueled by an economic contraction (reflecting the global 2008 downturn), falling state revenues, and pervasive tax evasion. The following year, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) offered an approximately $146 billion USD rescue package to Greece, contingent upon the adoption of far-reaching austerity measures (such as welfare spending cuts). Profound economic hardship and precarity contributed to the rise of anti-establishment parties, culminating in the 2015 coalition government between the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) party, which won the year’s election on a vehement anti-austerity platform, and the far-right Independent Greeks (ANEL). As they struggled to deliver on their economic programs, however, SYRIZA, ANEL, and other fringe parties lost considerable popular support, with voters swinging to the center-right New Democracy and center-left Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) parties in recent electoral cycles. New Democracy has been in office since 2019. After winning the 2023 parliamentary elections, the party has governed singlehandedly, with leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis serving as Prime Minister.
National elections are largely free and fair. The incumbent New Democracy (ND) won an outright majority in the June 2023 parliamentary elections, with a large number of other actors competing on an equal footing. Those were the second parliamentary elections of the year, as an earlier vote that May did not yield a stable governing majority. The legal framework is largely conducive to electoral integrity, according to international observers. Parliament adopted electoral amendments that would bar parties whose leadership had previous felony convictions from running earlier in 2023, raising concerns of arbitrary disqualifications. However, the incumbent party hasn’t abused these provisions to hamper the mainstream opposition.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public are largely free to criticize or challenge the government openly. However, since the ND came to office in 2019, Greece has experienced a steady erosion of media pluralism and a narrowing of civic space. The government has extended executive overreach over key media oversight bodies; engaged in arbitrary surveillance of opposition members and prominent journalists; and arbitrarily favored government-friendly outlets through the nontransparent allocation of public funds, hampering Greece’s once-robust media ecosystem. While civil society is vibrant, organizations working on issues related to migration and asylum face unnecessary registration barriers and, on limited occasions, arbitrary legal action. Lastly, while most peaceful gatherings proceed without undue interference, excessive use of force by police against demonstrators and reporters remains a lingering and often underinvestigated problem.
While the ND’s last two terms in office brought about significant institutional erosion, institutions are independent and still largely serve as effective checks on the government. For instance, state agencies have held public officials accountable for misusing voters’ personal data to secure an unfair campaign advantage. The courts’ adjudication of arbitrary lawsuits hampering the freedom of dissent has been mostly, if not entirely, consistent with EU standards. At the same time, the executive retains uncurbed control over a few key agencies (including the Security Service, which falls under the direct purview of the prime minister), while Parliament has abused some of its powers to shield former officials from accountability for corruption.
In Greece, national elections are largely free and fair. With no arbitrary barriers to participation, diverse parties can campaign freely, and competition for parliamentary seats is high. This has often produced fragmented parliaments and stymied the formation of enduring coalitions. New seat allocation procedures aimed at mitigating this fragmentation have met some criticism for privileging bigger parties, but there’s no evidence that they have substantially undermined electoral competition. Restrictions on the right to run for office are proportionate and generally applied impartially. Lastly, independent electoral oversight is robust, and the administration of elections meets international standards.
Competition for parliamentary seats is intense, as the government has not skewed the electoral playing field to the extent that it generally wins elections with a very high vote share. The June 2023 re-run of the parliamentary election in May of the same year took place precisely because no party secured an outright majority in the initial vote, and coalition-building efforts proved futile. By contrast, the June election reintroduced a “bonus system,” adopted by the ND-led government in 2020, but constitutionally delayed until the second electoral cycle following parliamentary approval. These new seat allocation rules allowed the ND to obtain a majority (156 out of 300 seats), while winning 40.6% of the popular vote. While legal and not unprecedented in Greek parliamentary history, the bonus system (whereby the winner gains extra seats depending on their vote share, starting at 20 bonus seats for 25% of the popular vote and scaling up to 50 for 40% and above), spurred some criticism from the opposition for tilting the electoral playing field and disincentivizing coalition-building among the winner and smaller parties.
Despite some concerns surrounding new restrictions on the right to run for public office, the government has not unfairly barred a real, mainstream opposition party or candidate from competing. Shortly before the May 2023 election, the ND–led parliament also adopted new legal amendments preventing parties from participating in elections if their leadership had been convicted of serious crimes, or if their platform was deemed “contrary to the democratic constitution” of the country. While the vague wording of the provisions caused some concern among international observers, the application of the law has been circumscribed and impartial overall: the main affected party was Ellines, co-founded by Ilias Kasidiaris, a former member of Parliament (MP) from the far-right Golden Dawn party, which has since been convicted of running a criminal organization. At the time that Ellines’ electoral bid was rejected by the Ministry of the Interior, Kasidiaris was serving a 13-year prison sentence for crimes committed together with other Golden Dawn members, including the murder of an anti-fascist Greek rapper. Reflecting the very limited impact of the new laws, Greek elections remain highly competitive, with voters having multiple alternatives along the ideological spectrum. To illustrate, in the June 2023 election, the populist left-wing SYRIZA party, once dominant during Greece’s financial crisis, came second with 17.8% of the popular vote, followed by PASOK-KINAL (11.9%), the Communist Party (7.7%), and smaller parties including Spartans, Victory, and Course of Freedom, some of which emerged from far-right or anti-establishment platforms.
The government has not seriously undermined independent electoral oversight. The Ministry of the Interior oversees the process, alongside special electoral courts and regional and municipal authorities. Although media pluralism and state media independence have declined in recent years, particularly after key public broadcasters were placed under the prime minister’s supervision in 2019, the electoral framework itself is assessed as consistent with democratic standards by observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, and members of the general public are largely free to criticize the government. However, executive overreach by the ND-led government has undermined the independence of the country’s major public broadcasters, influencing incumbents’ portrayal in the mainstream media. In addition, it has engaged in unlawful surveillance and intimidation of critical journalists and political leaders, creating a lasting chilling effect. While falling short of overtly repressing public gatherings, incumbents have circumscribed the freedom of assembly. Civil society organizations (CSOs) working on politically sensitive issues have also faced obstruction, from onerous registration requirements to arbitrary legal action.
The incumbent party has pursued policies that unfairly biased media coverage in its favor. As discussed further in the Institutional Accountability pillar, in 2019, Parliament placed the two main national broadcasters, the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) and the Athens News Agency – Macedonian Press Agency (ANA-MPA), under the oversight of the prime minister through the General Secretariat of Communication and Information, paving the way for direct editorial interference. For instance, in 2021, a leaked internal ERT memo revealed that journalists were instructed not to broadcast videos of Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis partying in violation of COVID-19 social distancing rules at the height of the pandemic. At the same time, it transpired that the government had allocated some €20 million ($23.3 million) of EU funds earmarked for spreading COVID-19 awareness to friendly outlets in a largely opaque manner (in what became known as the “Petsas list” scandal). Opposition-leaning media, by contrast, received less than 1% of the funds.
The ND-led government has seriously intimidated independent dissenting media and political leaders by engaging in covert state-sponsored surveillance, and created a lasting chilling effect as a result. In 2022, the “Predatorgate” scandal exposed unlawful surveillance by the National Intelligence Service (EYP) of dozens of prominent individuals (up to 100 or more, according to some estimates), including investigative journalists and opposition figures. Investigations revealed collaboration between state and non-state actors in selecting targets, procuring their details, and deploying spyware like Predator. Despite overwhelming public outcry, there has been little transparency regarding the aims of the surveillance. Government officials who authorized the surveillance have not been held accountable. On the contrary, as the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE), the country’s independent privacy authority, attempted to uncover the true extent of the surveillance, the then–Supreme Court prosecutor ruled that ADAE had no authority to audit the records of telecom companies to trace the phone tapping, and threatened criminal sanctions against its members. As discussed under the next pillar, the prosecutor also dropped all charges against the EYP in July 2024, citing insufficient evidence, in a move that sparked international criticism from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and other observers.
International observers have decried the considerable erosion of media pluralism and narrowing of civic space that these policies have cumulatively produced. In 2025, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Greece 89th in its World Press Freedom Index, the lowest score among EU member states for the third consecutive year, reflecting executive overreach in publicly-owned media and concerning instances of harassment against journalists.
The government has not seriously and unfairly repressed protests or gatherings, but has increasingly circumscribed the freedom of assembly. A 2020 law mandates prior notification for public gatherings and holds organizers legally responsible for disruptions. While not punitively enforced, the law contradicts EU recommendations and likely exerts a chilling effect. Police have occasionally responded to peaceful protests with excessive force. In 2024, journalists covering demonstrations, such as Giorgos Androutsos and Spyros Halikias, were violently detained or assaulted despite identifying themselves as press. Amnesty International and other observers have documented numerous such instances, including unlawful preemptive detentions and misuse of water cannons.
While the government has not shut down major independent, dissenting organizations, those supporting refugees and migrants face disproportionate legal and bureaucratic barriers. A 2019 law introduced restrictive registration criteria, which the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders criticized in an open letter as discriminatory. Investigative reporting revealed selective enforcement: the Ministry of Migration and Asylum declined to register many established organizations or took a long time to review their applications, while granting status to recently formed or “ghost” NGOs. In addition to administrative obstruction, human rights defenders advocating for these vulnerable groups have faced arbitrary legal action. Sarah Mardini and Seán Binder, volunteers with the Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI) that assisted the Greek coastal guard in search and rescue missions, were arrested in 2018 on bogus charges of espionage and people-smuggling, which carry up to 20 years’ imprisonment. Multiple due process violations, including a failure to translate important court documents for the defense, have marred the legal proceedings thus far. While espionage charges were dropped in May 2024, Mardini and Binder’s trial on the remaining charges, including people-smuggling, a felony, began in December 2025 and remains ongoing.
In Greece, institutions are independent and largely serve as effective checks on the government, despite a pattern of executive aggrandizement by the incumbent ND party. The oversight capacities of critical independent agencies have been undermined by questionable appointments and leadership overhauls, limiting true accountability for high-ranking officials. On the other hand, the courts have continued to largely uphold the rule of law, checking abuses of power that erode electoral integrity and civil rights, and independent oversight bodies have retained the capacity to investigate and sanction potential violations by political elites.
The government has subjected multiple executive institutions to reform that seriously weakened their independence and effectiveness. Upon taking office in 2019, Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis placed the National Intelligence Service (EYP) under his direct supervision—an unprecedented move that severely compromised the agency and played a central role in the Predatorgate scandal. As a testament to this erosion, the EYP attempted to thwart other agencies’ efforts to shed light on the surveillance (such as ADAE’s attempt to sue telecom companies mentioned above), while its own inquiries proved inconclusive despite mounting evidence supplied by independent investigative journalists. Ultimately, the Supreme Court’s chief prosecutor cleared all officials of wrongdoing in July 2024, citing insufficient evidence. The government has signaled little willingness to fundamentally reform the EYP, which remains under the prime minister’s purview. Further, in 2023, the government bypassed constitutional requirements to unilaterally appoint leadership at the ADAE and the National Council for Radio and Television (NCRTV), consolidating executive control over agencies responsible for monitoring public media and enforcing privacy and access to public information regulations. At the time of these personnel changes, ADAE was reviewing a proposed €100,000 ($116,500) fine against the EYP for the unlawful surveillance of opposition figures and journalists in the Predatorgate wiretapping scandal. ADAE only issued a decision after the appointment of the new members practically guaranteed a pro-government majority. The newly reconstituted ADAE declined to fine the EYP, which had been under the direct oversight of the prime minister since 2019.
In contrast with these concerning trends, judicial, legislative, or executive institutions themselves have not systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to hold government officials accountable. The judiciary, in particular, has checked executive aggrandizement in several important instances: the courts issued consequential rulings upholding privacy rights in the wake of the 2022 Predatorgate surveillance scandal, including a 2024 decision by the Council of State that struck down restrictions preventing the independent communications watchdog (ADAE) from informing citizens they were under surveillance. Courts have also largely dismissed politically motivated defamation lawsuits, such as those filed by the prime minister’s nephew and former intelligence coordinator, Grigoris Dimitriadis, against journalists who uncovered the scandal. Independent oversight bodies have also impartially sanctioned potential abuses of office. For instance, the Personal Data Protection Authority (PDPA) fined the ruling New Democracy (ND) party €40,000 ($46,580) for the misuse of personal voter data in a 2024 campaign for the European Parliamentary election. One problematic exception to the democratic resilience and watchfulness of these institutions, however, is the ongoing systemic impunity for excessive use of police force against participants in peaceful demonstrations. Such impunity, as noted in several European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings against Greece, remains a serious concern. While the courts have occasionally awarded compensation to victims, accountability for perpetrators has fallen short. In 2021, for instance, an Athens court found police responsible for inflicting serious bodily injury to photographer Yiannis Kafkas at a 2011 anti-austerity protest in the capital. While Kafkas was awarded a compensation of €50,000 ($58,230), the disciplinary and criminal investigations into the case did not identify a specific perpetrator.
