Greece 2017

Greece nurtures a long tradition of free and fair elections, which is a right granted by the constitution. After a very dynamic period, the political life somewhat stabilized. Still, the biggest political issues for the Government led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras have been the economy and the migrant crisis. Greece is a parliamentary democracy with the 300-seat unicameral parliament. Rather specific electoral system in the country, i.e. the so called “reinforced proportional representation”, which rewards the party with the plurality of votes at the elections with 50 extra seats in the parliament above its proportional share, remains a serious issue. That way, the system favors big parties, allowing even a party which won elections with a small margin of votes to form a

Greece doesn’t have unconstitutional veto players who could undermine decision making process. This allows the government to rule effectively. Security forces are under civilian control. Although there is a specific situation with Greek judicial system - where only the Supreme Special Court, which is not a permanent body, could decide upon constitutionality of laws - there is a clear separation of powers between judicial, executive and legislative branch. However, corruption remains a problem, while the country has gone down by 11 places, and is now ranked as 69th, in the Transparency International`s 2016 Corruption Perception Index. Greek Orthodoxy is a state religion, recognized by the Constitution as a major faith, thus Greek-Orthodox Church has a significant influence in

The country continues on its way of improving environment for journalists and for both the traditional and the online media outlets, with Freedom Barometer 2017 Press Freedom score increased. However, there is a lot on the way to make media landscape free in Greece. Journalists continue to be physically and verbally attacked because of their reporting. Economic pressure and criminalized defamation might influence journalists to practice self-censorship. Also, close relations between politicians and media owners could influence independent reporting. Issues regarding lack of transparency of media ownership remained unresolved. Government failed to license national televisions, following the Council of State ruling that the law, which was permitting Government to issue licenses

Justice system in Greece is free from direct control by the executive branch of power. By many reports, including FNF`s own field interviews, courts are, however, sometimes subject to outside indirect influence, by political or business circles. Corruption is also a serious problem, as well as is bias in politically sensitive cases. Portal GAN in December 2015 described Greek judiciary as “inefficient, slow and vulnerable to corruption and political influence”. Throughout summer 2017, a verbal skirmish was on between a number of government officials and the highest representatives of the judiciary. Senior judges accused Syriza-led government of trying to introduce Hungary- or Turkey-style political control over judiciary, so as to

Business portal GAN describes corruption in various departments in Greece as “widespread” in public services, public procurement and police, very high in forest or construction inspectorates, “high” in judiciary, “serious” in tax administration and widely present in custom administration. Analyses by FNF and/or Greek scholars often conclude that oligopolies, professional licenses or otherwise closed markets, crony business activities, furnished public procurement, tax evasion or numerous other manifestations of inequality at the market are in the core of the Greek corruption problem. Some reforms of the enumerated have started after the Greek agreement with creditors in summer 2015, but the process is still slow, superficial

Academic freedom has been well preserved in the university classrooms in Greece, but in campuses occasional attacks by the far-left or ultra-conservative extremists against the liberals, or against vulnerable groups advocating equality, have reduced it. Yet, universities and adjacent think tank NGOs are still the true places of innovative scientific and social thinking. Freedom of religion and secular character of the state are officially guaranteed, but in reality Greek Orthodox Church is favored and ready to go political if their privileges decreased. A real breakthrough in religious tolerance was the permission, in August 2016, after long delay, to the Islamic Community to build a mosque in Athens. Along the management of the indeed

Private property rights in Greece are not sufficiently respected. Weak institutions remain at the core of the problem of property rights. Judicial impartiality in court proceedings is sometimes under question. Corruptive practices within judiciary are still present. Enforcement of contracts is extremely difficult due to the very long court procedures, taking on average as much as 4 years, which is next to the worst in the world. This problem has recently been tackled by introducing tighter rules on adjournments and imposing deadlines for court procedures, but the impact of those reforms is yet to be evaluated. There are no specialized commercial courts, so commercial cases are heard before general courts. Obtaining real property in Greece is a complicated and expensive process,

Although several waves of austerity measures have been implemented since the beginning of the debt crisis, general government expenditure is still blatant, reaching 49% of GDP in 2016. Political turmoil still poses a significant obstacle to business apart from the bad economic environment due to austerity. The economy recorded neither boom nor recession in 2016, but growth is expected to pick up next year, although the potential growth rate is estimated at just 1.5%. Public finances finally recorded a small surplus in 2016, but public debt remains enormous, at 184% of GDP. It is probably still unsustainable, so possible further actions should be taken to tackle this question. Public transfers remain at a very high level: even with the implemented downsizing, public sector in

Regulatory environment overall is not too business-friendly. Political and economic instability led to a freeze in new investments, standing as low as only 10% of GDP, and even pushed some investors out of the country. Starting a new business is easy and inexpensive, done within two weeks and with a symbolic minimum paid-in capital of just one euro. However, rules and regulations are complicated and sometime competing, creating surroundings prone to corruptive activities of public officials, while regulatory burden measured through licenses and restrictions remains heavy, even after reforms implemented under the austerity package. Tax procedure is also a weak point: although the number of annual payments is low, and they are filed online, actual compliance with regulation is

Freedom to trade in Greece is generally respected. Being an EU member state, Greece implements the common EU trade policy, with overall low trade tariffs for manufactured goods, while those on agriculture products might be substantially higher. Non-tariff regulatory trade barriers remain present mostly due to the complicated process of standardization. Customs service is inefficient, with expensive procedures, further hindering free trade. Working permits for non-EU nationals are generally difficult to obtain, while the new law regulating non-EU immigrant workers is generally considered to have alleviated some ambiguities and lowered the number of years necessary for illegal immigrants to obtain residence permit. A ‘’golden visa’’ program allows foreign nationals that