8/6/2023 0 Comments Unherd newsLast month, MEPs on the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties committee warned that there were severe concerns about “very serious threats” to the rule of law and fundamental rights in Greece, pointing to harassment of officials of independent public bodies, and widespread intimidation of journalists. Greece ranked the worst among the 27 EU member states, according to the World Press Freedom Index for 2022. Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party is now almost certain to win an outright majority in the Greek parliament at the second round of elections on 25 June, and that unfettered grip on power could put more pressure on democratic freedoms, civil society and the press. More security, stability, and tough measures on migration are the direction all parties (even those more left-wing) are going if they want to be in office. However, these scandals did not drive the election results. Indeed, the state of media freedom in Greece was described by Reporters Without the Borders in an interview with EURACTIV as “worse than Hungary”. Together with that, there has been a spyware scandal revealing the government to be spying on opposition lawmakers and journalists, a deadly train crash that exposed major administrative and regulatory shortcomings, as well as the erosion of press freedom in the country. It is a pattern that is being replicated across Europe, the Council of Europe said recently. The most recent: The violent pushback of migrants reported by The New York Times, which has been played down by the European Commission and the Greek government but is emblematic of a pattern of systematic violation of laws by national officials. The Mitsotakis government had certainly endured plenty of scandals in recent weeks and months. Respect for the rule of law and human rights does not win votes across most of Europe. It’s not only in Greece that we are seeing these trends. The answer from the Greek people at this election was that better economic performance and more stability were far more important than the fact that democratic freedoms in the country are eroding. With over 40% of the vote to Syriza’s 20%, Mitsotakis’ New Democracy scored nothing less than a landslide, even if it still faces a struggle to form a viable majority in parliament and a second electoral round in June. In this edition, we look at how economics trumped a series of political scandals in last week’s Greek elections.Įditor’s Take: Europe’s next illiberal democracyĮverybody was surprised by the crushing victory of Kyriakos Mitsotakis at last week’s Greek elections, where he routed his nemesis Alexis Tsipras, while Yanis Varoufakis, Syriza’s other key leader in the fightback against Greece’s EU bailout, failed to get into Parliament. Welcome to EU Politics Decoded where Benjamin Fox and Eleonora Vasques will bring you a round-up of the latest political news in Europe and beyond every Thursday.
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