Greek Prime Minister fights to avoid resigning over Watergate-type scandal

Trying to avoid resignation, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis insisted on Monday (8 August) that he was unaware that Socialist Party (PASOK) leader Nikos Androulakis’ phone had been tapped, seeking to distance himself from a growing eavesdropping scandal.

The case, which broke last week, has sparked uproar, with opposition parties demanding a thorough investigation and labelling the revelations a ‘Watergate’ that should cost Mitsotakis’ post.

The prime minister, whose party faces a battle for re-election next year, apologised to Androulakis on Saturday, saying he had no knowledge of the intelligence service tap and would not have approved it.

On Monday, Mitsotakis added in a televised address: “What took place may have been lawful, but it was a mistake. I did not know, and obviously, I would have never allowed it.”

He said he had only found out about Androulakis’ wiretapping “a few days ago”. He announced measures to tighten control of the EYP intelligence service’s operations and boost transparency over its practices.

He said the EYP intelligence service had underestimated the political dimension of its surveillance which, while complying with the law, was “politically unacceptable.”

Androulakis, a member of the European Parliament since 2014 who was elected PASOK party leader in December 2021, said on Friday he had learned EYP listened to his conversations in late 2021. He did not disclose his source for the information.

Earlier that day, EYP head Panagiotis Kontoleon and his chief of staff Grigoris Dimitriadis unexpectedly resigned over the case.

PASOK is Greece’s third-largest political party and was for decades the main political rival of Mitsotakis’s conservative party, New Democracy.

Trouble brewing

Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has sounded the alarm over abusive lawsuits filed by Dimitriadis, also Mitsotakis’ nephew, against two media outfits following the EYP admissions.

Dimitriadis sued the Reporters United website, Nikolas Leontopoulos and Thodoris Chondrogiannos over stories about allegedly illegal practices by the government.

They reported that the phone of the journalist Thanasis Koukakis had been spied on and that a company owned by Dimitriadis had dealings with Intellexa, a company that sells the Predator spyware in Greece, according to RSF.

Dimitriadis is claiming €150,000 in damages and the articles withdrawal, while his suit against the newspaper Efimerida ton Syntakton (EfSyn) claims €250,000 in damages for its 4 August story about the Predator scandal.

He has also sued Koukakis, the target of the spying, demanding the withdrawal of a tweet about the Reporters United and EfSyn revelations, RSF noted.

“The decision to sue Thanasis Koukakis and the journalists who investigated the surveillance to which he was subjected instead of trying to shed light on the surveillance itself is deplorable,” said Pavol Szalai, the head of RSF’s European Union and Balkans desk, who also asked Dimitriadis to immediately withdraw the abusive lawsuits.

“We urge the government to reestablish a relationship of trust with the journalistic community. To that end, we call on the authorities to speed up their investigations into the spying on journalists and, in particular, to shed light on the reason why the EYP, an agency under the prime minister’s direct control, spied on two journalists. An analysis of the financial transactions of companies selling the Predator spyware, and their potential relations with companies that are state subcontractors, is also essential,” he added.

Koukakis, an investigative reporter, was subject to two forms of surveillance: a phone tapping operation in May 2020 and a Predator target between July and September 2021.

The government previously claimed that Androulakis carried out the Predator surveillance against Koukakis. However, a Predator license costs €14 million, a sum out of reach for a journalist. Meanwhile, the authorities have not taken any significant steps to identify any private individuals who might possess the spyware.

Koukakis said that revelations were expected in the coming days, “directly showing that people close to the prime minister’s immediate circle have relations with representatives of Intellexa, which for four years has signed contracts with the Greek state for security systems for the police and the Ministry of Citizen Protection.”

Greece is ranked 108th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index, the lowest position in the European Union.

The country is likely to head to a snap election in the autumn over a series of scandals and issues plaguing Mitsotakis’ government.

(Edited by Georgi Gotev)