Koraki

Greek Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the governing Nea Dimokratia party, told the Greek parliament on Friday 4 October 2019 that: ‘We should acknowledge that on the basis of real data, the problem that we are now dealing with is one of migration not so much of refugees.’ He continued: ‘The vast majority of people currently coming to Greece are economic migrants, not refugees,’ adding that: ‘In 2015 Syrians made up around 75 percent of arrivals, whereas today th

People who like to deal in political aphorisms will tell you that the first weeks a government spends in power are its most important. Though – like most such ideas – this has its roots in the US, where campaigning eats roughly three-quarters of any presidential cycle, it is true that even in Europe, the early days are when a new administration seeks to set the markers from which it will build. In the case of the first two weeks since Nea Dimokratia regained power, the party

Despite increased discussion regarding a Greek economic ‘recovery’, it will take an extremely long time before the state bounces back from a period in which average household income has dropped by 27 per cent, unemployment is at 22 per cent, and one in three Greek businesses have gone bankrupt. Ominously for the current Greek government, Syriza is largely blamed for this, which is simultaneously unreasonable, because Syriza did not cause the crisis, or come up with the enforc