Greece // the history of a crisis

Until 2010 Makis Voridis (Μάκης Βορίδης) was mainly known as a politician with a long-term association with the far right. Few wanted to be seen in his company. But the crisis offered Voridis the opportunity to move from the margins. By late 2011 he had entered the main halls of government, and since then he … Continue reading →

Alexis Tsipras (Αλέξης Τσίπρας) is leader of the left coalition SYRIZA (ΣΥΡΙΖΑ) that since 2012 is the main opposition in the Greek parliament. In the 2014 European elections he stood as the candidate for the presidency of the European Commission, for the cross-national European Left alliance. Born in 1974, Tsipras has been often hailed as … Continue reading →

Giorgos Papandreou (Γιώργος Παπανδρέου) was prime minister of Greece between September 2009 and November 2011, leader of PASOK from February 2004 to March 2012, and president of the Socialist International from 2006 to the present. Under his premiership Greece entered officially the crisis. He was the third Papandreou to become prime-minister of Greece. His grandfather … Continue reading →

Democracy has been one of the main victims of the crisis. In parliament the law-making process is consistently bypassed and ridiculed. Hard-won articles of the constitution are erased in an instant on the Troika’s whim. In everyday life long-held basic principles seem to have been forgotten. In the streets, the freedom to move and protest … Continue reading →

Απαγορεύσεις διαδηλώσεων, κλειστοί σταθμοί του μετρό, αποκλεισμένες  λεωφόροι, άδειες πλατείες σε αστυνομικό κλοιό, ειναι πλέον μιά σύνηθης εικόνα από τις πόλεις της ελληνικής κρίσης. Στην άκρη των δημοσιογραφικών εικόμνων, πέρα από τα μπλόκα, ίσα ίσα που διακρίνονται λίγοι απτόητοι διαδηλωτές, στριμωγμένοι όπου κανείς δεν υπάρχει να τους ακούσει ή να τους δεί. Αυτή είναι η … Continue reading →

Forbidding access to public spaces in moments of political significance is a tactic used with increased frequency by the Greek government. Dissent is thus becoming ever more difficult to be expressed in public, while parliamentary politics and people’s politics hardly ever cross paths.  

Antonis Samaras (Αντώνης Σαμαράς) is the leader of the conservative party New Democracy since 2009, and prime minister since June 2012. Samaras first came to political prominence as foreign minister in the early 1990s, when he established his reputation as a nationalist, largely due to his role in the ‘Macedonian’ [‘Μακεδονικό’] debacle that still haunts … Continue reading →