The Greek political scene
Voting is compulsory in Greece for all citizens over the age of 18. The Parliament, the Vouli, is elected for 4 years by universal suffrage: it elects the President of the Republic, whose role is mainly representative, for a period of 5 years, renewable once. The Prime Minister and the government hold executive power.
The years of crisis (2009-2019) have shaken up the Greek political landscape and reshuffled the cards of power. The Papandreou (PASOK, socialist party) and Caramanlis/Mitsotakis (New Democracy, conservative party) dynasties had reigned supreme on the political scene since the restoration of democracy.
The Syriza party, a coalition of the radical left led by Alexis Tsipras, won the January 2015 elections with 36.34 per cent of the vote, having stagnated at around 4 per cent before the crisis. At the peak of the economic crisis, he had to face a disastrous situation and try to find a balance between a population pushed to the limit and creditors demanding ever more austerity. Although it was eventually dethroned by New Democracy (2019), its meteoric rise, which buried PASOK in the process, was nonetheless a historic event in the contemporary political landscape. Today, Syriza is the main opposition party and still forms a broad coalition on the left of the political spectrum, and is seeking a place of choice in the next elections (2023).
In 2019, the victory of K. Mitsotakis puts the conservative and liberal right back in the spotlight. Among the key measures of New Democracy, one can note an economic policy based on business and the wealthy, especially in terms of taxation, but also a very right-wing positioning on the status of the Orthodox Church, political nationalism and the protection of refugees.
In the summer of 2023, new elections will be held: at the time of writing, it is still difficult to predict which party will be preferred by Greeks, who are disappointed by the management of the health crisis, worried about the galloping inflation driven by the energy crisis since the war in Ukraine, and tired of various political and media scandals, including the government's wiretapping of opposition journalists and politicians (2022).
The humanitarian challenge
One of the major issues of current policy concerns refugees arriving on Greek shores: the islands of the North Aegean are the first to be affected because they are the closest gateway to the EU to Turkey and conflict zones. In the summer of 2015, while Greece is experiencing the worst hours of the economic crisis, the humanitarian crisis threatens to implode: negotiations with Turkey calm the flow of arrivals in 2016-2017 but do not provide a lasting solution to a global geopolitical problem, which resumes in the summer of 2019 and continues since.
After an initial phase of solidarity reception by the local population, which compensated for the lack of responsiveness and care of Greece and the EU as a whole, the issue of migration "management" is becoming institutionalized. The islands of Lesbos, Samos and Chios receive the majority of exiles and set up makeshift camps that are rapidly becoming unhealthy and of limited capacity. The tragedy of the fire in the Moria camp on Lesbos alerted the Greek and international population to the situation, which was already widely decried by humanitarian professionals.
Over the years, these camps have been enlarged, regrouped in dedicated areas and then gradually transformed into "closed centers", or prison zones. At the time of writing this guide, modern confinement camps continue to be inaugurated on the islands of the North Aegean: after the opening of the first "closed center" in Greece in Samos, others should open soon in Chios and Lesbos.
Greece has been widely condemned by human rights NGOs, international organizations under the aegis of the UN and by numerous investigative inquiries for its inhumane, sometimes even illegal practices in receiving these men and women who have come from far away. One of the biggest scandals, which also involves the EU as a whole, concerns the illegal practice of "pushbacks" at sea, namely the illegal return or refoulement of migrants in Turkish territorial waters by the Greek coast guard, under the aegis of Frontex, the European body in charge of patrolling the Union's borders.
Another major scandal: in 2018, the Greek state launched legal proceedings against 24 Greek and international humanitarian workers on the island of Lesbos. They are arrested and tried for espionage and migrant smuggling in the court of Mytilene (Lesbos). This is an absurd situation, condemned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In January 2023, the prosecution for espionage was cancelled by the Greek justice system, but the proceedings for migrant smuggling were still in progress.
Relationships with neighbors
Despite improved relations, there is no lack of tension with Turkey. This is particularly the case in the border islands of the North Aegean, which are still suspicious of their large neighbor. The disputes concern the management of the humanitarian crisis, with the Turks and the Greeks passing the buck for responsibilities and mistakes, on the back of the migrants. But what produces the most nationalistic overtones concerns the sovereignty of certain Aegean islands, in the face of the extension of Greek territorial waters near the Turkish coast or the illegal overflights by the Turkish army near the Greek coast. With the war in Ukraine, the port of Alexandroupoli, on the border of mainland Greece and Turkey, has become a new strategic base for NATO. Greece hopes to become an essential force in the international balance of power to counterbalance the central place that Turkey has carved out for itself in the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. Finally, the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus remains a reason for disagreement.
On the other hand, the historically conflicting relations with Northern Macedonia seem to be finally pacified. Since 1991, Greece has refused to allow this Balkan and Slavic country, which resulted from the implosion of the former Yugoslavia, to take the name of the dynasty of Alexander the Great. Of all the nationalist debates for over 25 years, the Macedonian question is finally resolved: on January 25, 2019, the Greek parliament ratifies the historic Prespa agreement that renames the former Republic of Macedonia to the Republic of North Macedonia ... Two words that close, we hope forever, this thorny dispute.
