MacroPolis

As Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis arrived at the latest European Union summit in Brussels on Friday in the hope that an agreement would be secured on the Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF), Greece’s domestic politics was focussed on the latest fallout from the Novartis scandal.

New Democracy found itself on the defensive on Friday over the actions of two key officials: Centre-right Athens Mayor Kostas Bakoyannis and Prime Minister Kyriakos’s Mitsotakis’s chief of staff Akis Skertsos.

The government is trying to avoid tying itself up in knots after coming under attack from all sides on Wednesday, when it passed an amendment that ensures two football clubs from northern Greece will not be relegated despite an independent commission recommending that they be expelled from the Super League.

Migration was in the spotlight again on Tuesday, soon after the government received another reminder about the high level of dissatisfaction among voters about the way the issue is being addressed by New Democracy.

The European Council’s analysis of the Greek criminal justice system has found that the current setup inadequate to counter corruption.

Rulings from the Council of State just published deem parts of the 2016 pension reform, known as the Katrougalos law, unconstitutional and mean the new government will have to redesign parts of the social security system and incur a reported annual fiscal of around 300 million euros.

By: Georgia Nakou

The Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn burst onto the parliamentary scene overnight in 2012, to the alarm of democratic forces across Europe. Seven years later, the party finds itself out of the national and the European Parliament after losing more than half its voters.

Reforms in the education and judicial systems are high on the agenda of the new government, with officials indicating that New Democracy is already preparing to make significant changes on both fronts.

Alexis Tsipras attempted on Thursday to turn the latest criticism from Greece’s lenders to his political advantage as he continues to search for an edge over his rival, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

There was speculation on Friday that a cabinet meeting would result in the government moving ahead with lining up the appointments for top positions in the judiciary despite concern that the move runs counter to the constitution.