On the 13th of April, the Greek government issued an emergency decree which contains a contentious article (69) that allows for the Ministry of Tourism, the Greek National Tourism Organisation, and local administrations across the country to directly award contracts — therefore circumventing the foreseen procedures and legislation regarding public procurements — to a specific company for the purpose of promoting Greece’s tourism campaign. In particular, according to the emergency decree in question, the aforementioned public bodies will be free to award competition-free public procurement contracts to the private company Marketing Greece until the 31st of August.
The Hellenic Single…
by Stefanos Loukopoulos for the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Foundation
Throughout the world, most media outlets and pundits are so consumed by the public health and economic consequences of COVID-19 that they consistently fail to highlight the looming political and institutional risks ahead.
Could in fact the biggest casualty of COVID-19 be democracy itself?
Unfortunately, the pandemic is not just here to test the robustness of our healthcare systems and economies but also the very foundations of our democracies and our perceptions of them. A recent report by the United Nations (COVID-19 and Human Rights: We are all in this together) in fact…
Τhe civil society members (Vouliwatch included) of Open Government Partnership’s Steering Committee have released a statement on COVID and its risks to open government. Focused on democratic values, the statement is a call to action to governments, donors and international organisations. ~
The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a global state of emergency, rapidly overburdening governments. Public institutions are under pressure as never before. Protecting lives and livelihoods, sustaining health-care systems and the resetting the economy have rightly become the most pressing priorities for the foreseeable future.
Yet another priority needs to be front and centre: the protection of open…
On the November 25, 2019 the Greek Parliament was called to amend what constitutes the highest law of the land. The Greek Constitution consists of a series of articles that define how the state will be organized by deciding the powers and authorities of government between different political units, and by stating the basic law-making and structural principles of society.
This is a long and stringent procedure designed in such a way so as to generate the greatest possible political consensus to protect the integrity of the Constitution.
The first phase of this process which defined the articles that were…
The independent -in the sense that it’s only composed of 3 MPs, the rest are members of the judiciary, ombudsman etc.- parliamentary committee in charge of auditing asset declarations and political parties finances is required by law to publish an annual report with its findings.
To this day they have published 3 reports for the years 2015,2016,2017.
In all three reports, the committee in question, despite the fact that it detected a series of breaches of the relevant legislation (party financing) it never released details with regards to which parties breached the law (by mishandling public financing) nor did it…
Most Greeks grossly overestimate the number of refugees stranded in the country, according to a new study which, however, found that the majority view the integration of newcomers in a positive light.
According to the poll carried out by AboutPeople on behalf of VouliWatch and published on Kathimerini newspaper, six in 10 Greeks think that there are currently more than 100,000 refugees in Greece. Half believe the number is larger than 200,000, according to the same figures.
Official data show that fewer than 62,000 are in Greece.
The figures were released on the occasion of International Day for the Elimination…
The historically established mentality of the Greek political system doesn’t prioritize transparency or give it the importance that its citizens today demand, a tradition that is reflected in the financial interest statements of MPs for the years 2013 and 2014, which were disclosed in December 2016. This is the conclusion we at Vouliwatch have reached following an in-depth review to digitize and process the data. We approached this exercise not with the intention of scandal-mongering, or with any other aim than to assess the process itself, and what we ultimately found was a multitude of oversights and omissions. …
Οι κατεστημένες νοοτροπίες 10ετιών και η αναντιστοιχία της σημασίας που δίνεται από την πολιτικό κόσμο στο θέμα της διαφάνειας, συγκριτικά με την απαίτηση των πολιτών, «καθρεφτίζονται» στις δηλώσεις περιουσιακής κατάστασης των βουλευτών για τις χρήσεις του 2013 και του 2014. Τα στοιχεία δημοσιοποιήθηκαν τον Δεκέμβριο του 2016. Το Vouliwatch.gr ψηφιοποίησε και επεξεργάστηκε τα δεδομένα τεκμηριώνοντας με τα «ευρήματά» του τον παραπάνω ισχυρισμό.
Μακριά από την λογική της αναζήτησης σκοπιμοτήτων ή την σκανδαλολογία καταγράφει σωρεία αβλεψιών και παραλείψεων. …
Request campaign launched for access to EU Commissioner’s travel expenses
Vouliwatch, a strong advocate for a more transparent and accountable political system, is participating in a European campaign launched by Access Info in order to inspire citizens to exercise the right to access public information. Within this frame, we filed an official request to access the Greek Commissioner’s, Dimitris Avramopoulos, travel expenses.
The campaign’s full text follows:
Madrid, 26 January 2017 — Access Info Europe today launched a public campaign to crowd source access to EU documents requests to obtain full information on the spending by EU Commissioners on official…
Photos: Panayotis Tzamaros / FOS PHOTOS
This might not sound flattering, but the Greek Parliament is no stranger to absurdity. The perennial problems of the Greek political system have been impacting Greece’s top legislative institution for decades. Indeed, the economic crisis of recent years has served as a “magnifying glass”; the legislative process and the self-monitoring systems are the two main problematic areas for the Greek parliament, and the difficulties it has had in adjusting to the crisis intensified these problems.
But let’s look at this in more depth:
The ability of parliament to investigate issues of concern to the…
Δυναμώνουμε τη Δημοκρατία I Empowering Democracy