Androulakis accuses Mitsotakis of evading wiretapping explanations

PASOK-Movement for Change (KINAL) chief Nikos Androulakis has accused Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of “arrogance” and said he failed to answer crucial questions at a parliamentary debate on Friday on the Greek intelligence service and alleged attempts to tap the opposition party leader’s phone.

“Mr Mitsotakis, stop showing contempt for the intelligence of the Greek people. You wanted to hold PASOK hostage and failed,” Androulakis said in a statement after being unable to attend the debate in Parliament. 

The debate comes ahead of a vote on Monday on whether a House committee should be convened to investigate revelations that Androulakis had been put under surveillance in September 2021 and up to his election as party leader in December of the same year by Greece’s National Intelligence Service (EYP), and had also inadvertently fended off an attempt to install spyware software on his cellphone at the same period of time.

“Mr Mitsotakis thinks this is widespread, even though he knows I am the only member of the European Parliament this has happened to,” the socialist leader, who is also a Euro MP, said. 

Because the prime minister “expressed concern about when we would meet, I am setting an appointment at the investigating committee, where he can come and respond directly to what he avoided today, choosing to use the toxic clash with Alexis Tsipras as his escape route,” Androulakis said, referring to the main opposition SYRIZA chief.