Yearbook 2008
Greece. According to
Countryaah reports, Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras and several other
cities were shaken by crows during most of December. Concern
was triggered by police in the Athens district of Exarchia
on December 6 shooting a 15-year-old boy, Alexandros
Grigoropoulos, to death. Students at Athens' prestigious
Technical College became leading in violent protests against
the police and also against the government and its economic
policies. Banks and shops were looted. The country had on
several occasions earlier in the year been shaken by general
strikes in protest of the government's austerity and
privatization program. Schools, hospitals, airports, ports
and other publicly funded operations closed when several
million employees stayed home from their jobs. The protests
were aimed specifically at the plans for lower pensions and
increased retirement age. The actions continued after
Parliament voted on the pension proposal on March 20. A
strike on the same scale on October 21 was also a protest
against the government's intention to set aside € 28 billion
to rescue banks threatened by bankruptcy in connection with
the international financial crisis.
During the year, a number of reports of abuse of asylum
seekers and other violations of human rights came. In April,
the UNHCR asked the EU countries to stop sending refugees
back to Greece. According to the UNHCR, Greek authorities could
not guarantee the basic rights of asylum seekers, such as
legal aid and interpreters. During the summer, the medical
aid organizations Médecins du Monde and Médecins Sans
Frontières reported very difficult conditions on refugee
facilities in the Greek island world. On the island of
Patmos, for example, 140 refugees, among them many women and
children, had first lived trapped in a former disco and
then, when the authorities stopped paying the rent for the
disco, were forced out on the street. The Greek government
believed that the EU should take greater account of Greece's
exposed location at the Union's southeastern border and
invest more money on the Greek refugee reception. Sweden did
not obey the UNHCR's request, but continued to refer asylum
seekers back to Greece. Norway, however, ended.
Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis became the first Greek
governor in almost fifty years to visit Turkey on January
23-25. In April, Greece and Russia signed an agreement to build
an oil pipeline to supply Greece and other EU countries with
Russian natural gas.
Two people died in an earthquake near the city of Patras
on Peloponnese on June 8.
The 2012 parliamentary elections
In the first half of 2012, Greece held two parliamentary
elections. At the May elections, SYRIZA became the second
largest political party with close to 16.8 percent of the
vote. PASOK dropped to third place with just over 13 percent
and New Democracy ended with its lowest ever result with
just under 18.9 percent of the vote. International media
interpreted the result as the people's response to the harsh
crisis measures and the loan agreement with the Troika.
Another surprising element of the May 2012 election was
the emergence of the right-wing parties. The party
Independent Greeks, Anexártitoi Ellin (ANEL), got
10.6 percent of the vote and Golden Dawn almost 7 percent.
After an unsuccessful attempt to establish a new
coalition government, new elections were announced in June,
barely six weeks after the last election. The result was a
multi-faceted parliament consisting of the party from across
the political spectrum from the far right to the extreme
left. New democracy strengthened its position by well over
29 percent of the vote, closely followed by SYRIZA by nearly
27 percent. In June 2010, four of SYRIZA's MPs left the
party and started the Democratic Left party, Dimokratikí
Aristerá (DIMAR). At the June 2012 election, DIMAR
received over 6 percent of the vote.
The result of the June 2012 parliamentary elections was a
coalition government consisting of PASOK, New Democracy and
DIMAR. Antonis Samaras from New Democracy became Prime
Minister.
Government crises and EU presidency
In May and June 2013, Greece went through two major
government crises. The first was linked to disagreement in
the coalition government about the content of an anti-racism
law. An increase in racially motivated violence in recent
years has led to a desire by DIMAR and PASOK to supplement
the existing legislation with a law against racism with a
higher sentence. Many saw the law as the government's first
proper response to the ever-growing Golden Dawn.
The second crisis came in the wake of the sudden closure
of the national television and radio company ERT. This led
to DIMAR withdrawing from government cooperation, and a new
two-party government with New Democracy and PASOK was
established in June 2013.
In September 2013, the anti-fascist and anti-racist
musician Pavlos Fyssas, also known as Killah P, was killed
by Golden Dawn member Giorgos Roupakias. The event attracted
international attention and led to demonstrations in several
major European cities such as Barcelona, Paris, Brussels,
Amsterdam, Copenhagen and London. Prime Minister Samaras
quickly went out and condemned the murder, and a few days
later, 20 members of Golden Dawn, including the party's
leader Nikolaos Mikhaloliakos and four other MPs, were
arrested by the police's anti-terrorist division on charges
of leading a criminal organization.
The first half of 2014, Greece held the presidency of the
EU.
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