European Prosecutor to be 'blocked' from investigating Greece?
Dear Member,
This is our weekly round-up from Greece.
Israeli contractors who claim to have manipulated more than 30 elections worldwide appear active in Greece, a breaking investigation claims. PM Mitsotakis will have no remorse in conducting the biggest crimes against democracy, SYRIZA leader Tsipras stated concerning the recent revelation. MEP and PEGA Committee’s Sophie Int’Veld emphasized the report’s reference to Greece. This triggered a character assassination attempt against her.
In a new draft bill, ND attempts to block the European Prosecutor from investigating Greece's ‘secret budget’, a report concludes. At the same time, it is reported that ‘secret budget’ spending almost doubled for 2021. Could EU funds be misdirected and ‘absorbed’ into this ‘abyss’?
Inflation ruins the party in Greece during the carnival. Food inflation remains staggeringly high, while Eurostat estimates people in the country are spending the most significant percentage of their income (in relation to their European counterparts) on housing costs.
Breaking investigation causes concern for elections fraud Greece
A team of Israeli contractors who claim to have manipulated more than 30 elections worldwide using hacking, sabotage, and automated disinformation on social media has been exposed in a new investigation (Abre numa nova janela) by an international consortium of journalists, including Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País. “The unit is run by Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old former Israeli special forces operative who now works privately using the pseudonym “Jorge”, and appears to have been working under the radar in elections in various countries for more than two decades,” the Guardian reported.
Crucially for this newsletter, Greece appears involved in this dirty business. More specifically, “Team Jorge” -as it is codenamed- retains one team in Greece, as Hanan claimed in his initial pitch to potential clients-undercover reporters.
The news caused a furor and worry in Greece, especially given the still unfolding wiretapping scandal in which little light has been shed, mainly due to government intransigence to disclose crucial information.
“According to the Guardian, an Israeli company has been active since 2019 in Greece aiming at manipulating election results,” SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras said in an interview (Abre numa nova janela). “I will say this loud and clear: Mr. Mitsotakis will have no remorse in conducting even the biggest of crimes against democracy on the road to elections,” he stated.
The opposition intends to create suspicion on the validity of election results; PM Mitsotakis said in an interview (Abre numa nova janela) the following day. When directly asked if he is stating that SYRIZA will call election results into question, he replied: “I mean, they want to tell us more or less that citizens will vote for SYRIZA, but New Democracy will be elected in power at the end.” “Will they say the election will be rigged?” the journalist asked again. “If you see where their arguments rationally lead, I have no doubt they will end up saying even this, yes.”
The PM attempted to play the story from the end to the beginning. Can it be ruled out that a government involved in a wiretapping scandal would not be involved with another shady company messing with elections? And when ND-affiliated Twitter trolls and even government officials often name ‘homeland traitors,’ ‘Turkish agents,’ and ‘SYRIZA supporters’, lashing out en masse against people who try to uphold democracy? And that they keep hinting on the ballot date, leaving a nation in wait despite the fact they are to take place June-July at the latest?
This week’s incident?
“Our duty is not to protect one political party or another. Our duty is to protect democracy for all,” said (Abre numa nova janela) Dutch MEP and PEGA Committee’s Sophie Int’ Veld in Greek this week, at the end of her intervention at the European Parliament Plenary Session during the debate over the “erosion of Rule of Law, Media Freedom and Wiretapping Scandal in Greece.”
Shortly after, ND MEP Anna Michel Asimakopoulou stated in an interview (Abre numa nova janela) that the aforementioned Parliamentary debate was caused by “a clique of center-left politicians with their agenda, led by a Dutch woman, Int’ Veld.” She added: “To give you the picture, it’s like listening to Konstantopoulou, only with curly and fairer hair.” Just to put the latter in context, Zoe Konstantopoulou has served as the President of Parliament during the SYRIZA government and has been heavily criticized for being authoritative, excessively argumentative; a bully - some have even implied she suffers from mental illness. Irrespective of if this is true or not, the thing is, Asimakopoulou meant to characterize in dark colors the Dutch MEP who has been very outspoken on the wiretapping scandal.
More so, on Wednesday, MEP Int’ Veld also tweeted (Abre numa nova janela) about the Consortium Investigation on “Team Jorge”: “This chilling story shows why the digital attacks on democracy are a huge and underestimated threat. Spyware is just one tool in the toolbox of the enemies of democracy. The claim about election interference in Greece must be immediately investigated.”
The Greek government is drafting obstacles for the European prosecutor
Greece’s secret budget for 2021 had been budgeted at 54.2 million euros, yet Inside Story reported (Abre numa nova janela) recently that almost double the amount was finally spent - that is 97.5 euros. Circa 25% of this money was paid by the country’s National Intelligence Service EYP, an institution implicated in the wiretapping scandal and under the auspices of the PM since ND ascended to power.
Now the government is drafting a bill (Abre numa nova janela) to make investigating cases relating to the ‘secret budget’ an obstacle course.
In Greece, the government is for decades now running a so-called ‘secret budget,’ which has often been the cause of Parliament debate and suspicion. The Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defence, Citizen Protection (especially Civil Protection), and from 2020, the Migration Ministry have a secret budget. No Parliamentary or Prosecutor’s investigation into a secret budget issue has ever resulted in incriminating those involved, mainly because the defense was calling upon reasons of ‘national security’ to justify their use.
Yet another case related to the secret budget was reported this week. Until the end of 2021, the confidential spending of the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum amounted to 1.7 million euros. The funds have been distributed without ever informing Parliament, despite Minister Notis Mitarachi’s commitment to transparency and keeping lawmakers fully informed, Solomon reported (Abre numa nova janela).
The Migration Ministry’s secret budget accounts for “spending on responding to the migration crisis” regarding matters of classified national urgency. Payments are made by ministerial decision after being examined by a special three-member committee, while all relevant documents are destroyed no later than six months. The Parliament must be informed about payments exceeding 25,000 euros. Hence, the issue arises of spending 1.7 million without transparency.
Thus, the timing is at least strange: The Justice Ministry has drafted a new bill, which, if passed, will, in effect, equate the European Public prosecutor’s Office with the Athens Finance Prosecution Authority. The bill was tabled on Friday in the relevant Parliamentary Committee in the context of changing the law on Asset and Fund Declaration.
However, it is reported (Abre numa nova janela) that should this bill become the law of the state, the European Prosecutor, charged with investigating crimes violating EU laws and interests, will not, for example, be able to examine if part of the Recovery Fund budget for Greece is directed in ‘secret spending’ (either directly or through virtual payments codes). It is added this happens at a time when the judicial and journalistic investigation into if Predator was financed in this way remains open.
Under its updated mandate, which provides that national law cannot supersede the European Prosecutor, the new European Public Prosecutor’s Office is entitled to issue orders to member-states, which then undertake to carry out the procedure. Most cases of interest for the European Prosecutor concerning Greece are reported to concern subsidies, and agricultural and development projects.
The Greek government has argued that this bill enhances the work of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. “Yet, according to trusted sources, the European Prosecutor’s Office has taken a stance as to the relevant clauses of the draft bill in question, but their proposals have not been adopted,” the report stresses. “At the same time, it rarely happens for the national lawmaker to intervene in the text of a transnational law made under the Charter, as the one concerning the European Prosecutor’s institution and duties. This is not reported to happen in other states,” it is added.
The report concludes: “In a strange coincidence, this happens while it is being revealed that ‘secret budget ’state spending in Greece has skyrocketed in the last three years.”
An explosive mix
It’s the first year that life got more or less ‘back to normal’ after the pandemic, and people in Greece (as everywhere we assume) seem eager to enjoy life on every occasion. We are well into the Carnival month in the country, and parties are going on all the time.
But there is a thorn: Inflation has skyrocketed. Once upon a time, popular dinner parties in Greece have long been gone for most; a night out at a taverna is rarer, and you count carefully how much you would drink in a bar (you really can’t afford to be pissed).
Life is not about parties anymore. It’s about surviving. Life has diminished to sheer existence.
Despite the announcement by the Hellenic Statistical Authority on Wednesday that inflation had eased (Abre numa nova janela) for the fourth consecutive month to 7% in January, the food price index was up to 15.4%, “meaning that so-called food inflation remained in the double digits for a tenth consecutive month out of the last 12, and above the 15% level for a third consecutive month,” as Kathimerini noted (Abre numa nova janela). Food inflation will remain at very high levels at least until the end of the first half of the year, based on market estimates, the report added.
Our documented experience of decades, including the crisis decade, says that when prices go up in Greece, they never go down again. Only wages and pensions have gone down these years - oh, and mobile bills a bit.
It’s even more worrying that market representatives are speaking of cost increases “that occurred after the war in Ukraine” (24 February 2022) not having been incorporated in the price of some products due to time lagging.
Well, this is remarkably surprising as most prices started skyrocketing the next day (so to say) of the eruption of war in Ukraine - no time lagging then?
On Thursday, five leading supermarket chains were fined a total of 382,497 euros for over-pricing their products, the Development Ministry announced (Abre numa nova janela). The Dutch-owned AB Vassilopoulos chain received the most significant fine. Lidl Hellas, a subsidiary of the German chain, was also fined, as well as Galaxias, Kritikos, and an unnamed chain.
At the same time, an increase in electricity prices is expected in March (Abre numa nova janela). Households will ‘feel the heat’ as government electricity subsidies are expected to be much lower.
Meanwhile, while the share of housing costs in disposable income was, on average, 19% in the EU, Greece came top with the highest percentage (34%), according to the report (Abre numa nova janela) published by Eurostat this week.
More specifically, in 2021, the share of housing costs in disposable income was, on average, 19% in the EU, while specifically for people at risk of poverty, that share stood at 38%. At the national level, for both the general population and people at risk of poverty, the highest shares of housing costs in disposable income were recorded in Greece (34% and 60% respectively) with Denmark (26%; 57%) and the Netherlands (24%; 48%) following.
At the same time, house prices in Greece have continuously risen since the beginning of 2018. The increase was sped up since the beginning of 2021, reaching in the third quarter of 2022, 11.2% yearly, according (Abre numa nova janela) to the Alpha bank report released this week.
Given all these, no wonder buying or renting a house has become a nightmare for many Greeks, with rising prices forcing many into home-sharing or a return to their parents, as Balkan Insight reported (Abre numa nova janela).
Add the recent developments allowing for easier and faster procedures for auctions, even for the first residences we extensively analyzed, and you have the whole picture. Assurances given recently (Abre numa nova janela) by funds’ associates that no vulnerable person is at risk of losing his/her house as auctions are expensive and deals are often struck with debtors, left no one assured.
Read
Update: Artists are still on the streets demanding the abolishment of the Presidential Decree that equates their degrees with High School diplomas. They struck on Friday and filed (Abre numa nova janela) a relevant complaint with Greece’s Top Administrative court. A big concert is planned (Abre numa nova janela) for Monday 20 February in protest, outside the REX theatre in Panepistimiou street (All links in Greek).
Turkey’s earthquake through the eyes of an award-winning AP photojournalist (Abre numa nova janela)
Ship with humanitarian aid for Turkey to depart from Patras (Abre numa nova janela)
Greece Border Abuses Highlight Europe’s Clashing Priorities on Migration (Abre numa nova janela): The top rights officer at Europe’s border agency said in a confidential report that it should stop working with Greece because border guards there were mistreating asylum seekers.
Kaili to remain in custody for another 2 months (Abre numa nova janela)
Museum: London, Athens could share Parthenon Marbles in deal (Abre numa nova janela)
Sweden returns 4,000-year-old seal to Greece (Abre numa nova janela)
Failure to assess impact of wind farms raises EC’s ire (Abre numa nova janela)
Listen
Podcast: #108 - The fall of Press Freedom in Greece (Abre numa nova janela)
That's all for this week,
Stay safe!
the AL team
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