PM trying to move past costly errors
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has responded to major government missteps by taking remediation steps, such as legislation or other government decision.
This was tried successfully after last year’s disastrous wildfires that affected Central and Southern Greece. Civil protection was upgraded into a ministerial portfolio, the Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Ministry, and a tried European technocrat, Christos Stylianides, a Cypriot politician and the European commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, was brought to lead it.
Better coordination between authorities, European assistance in the form of rotating teams of firefighters and a bit of luck in the way of more favorable weather conditions, reduced wildfire damage by more than 80%.
The prime minister is trying the same recipe to deal with the phone bugging scandal that affected socialist leader Nikos Androulakis, among other figures.
While Mitsotakis insists he was unaware of the bugging, he defended its legality, while conceding it was carried out in, at best, a clumsy way.
The prime minister also denied that any Greek state agencies have used the Predator spyware.
Mitsotakis has reformed surveillance procedures at the National Intelligence Agency (EYP).
State Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis also told a visiting European Parliament committee that was in Athens this week to investigate the case – as Androulakis is a member of the European Parliament – that legislation will be introduced to ensure that the lifting of secrecy for national security reasons will be done transparently and legally.
Gerapetritis also told the European Parliament investigators that Greece will be the first European Union member-state to totally ban the sale of spyware.
The Eurodeputies were not totally convinced, noting that, while there was no proof of state use of spyware, their investigation was hampered by the frequent invocation of state secrets.
“We learnt a lot but we also still feel that a lot of our questions remain to be answered,” committee head Jeroen Lenaers said after the fact-finding visit to Greece and Cyprus.
