«Media freedom report shakes Greece's conservative government» is the headline of today's edition of the authoritative euractiv.com on the report - a mockery of the Greek government - by six international press freedom organisations.
As the EURACTIV article specifically states:
Six international press freedom organisations published a report that accuses the ruling New Democracy party of trying to control the media.
While the report sounds the alarm about a «systemic crisis of press freedom», the government responds that people are still free to choose which media to follow.
In an interview with EURACTIV last week, Pavol Szalai, EU Head of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said: «In Greece we can see a deliberate political will to reduce the freedom of the press. At the same time, there are other dangerous situations linked to organised crime, which is probably behind the murder of Giorgos Karaivaz, one of the two EU journalists murdered last year.», he added.
The report was prepared following a visit to the country in December 2021.
Η Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) report noted that the crisis affecting press freedom in Greece has been exacerbated by the efforts of the New Democracy government to «control the message» and minimize critical and dissenting voices.
«Newspapers and individual journalists who criticise the government or maintain a neutral stance are targeted by the government and complain of unequal treatment that undermines their journalistic activities. This was further exacerbated by the lack of transparency regarding the allocation of state advertising and its distribution along party lines.», the report adds.
The report also states that media coverage of the refugee issue, such as illegal returns, is «increasingly difficult».
«Violations of press freedom faced by journalists are linked to the restrictive immigration policy of the government and the unwillingness to accept public control of the, leading to obstacles to reporting, such as arbitrary arrest and booking, restriction Accessed at, Monitoring and harassment».
Without responding to any element of the report, New Democracy issued a statement saying that freedom of the press in Greece is institutionally guaranteed.
«Every citizen can be freely informed at any time through the media of their choice,» the conservative party said in a statement.
«The report highlights how Greece is becoming a problematic country in terms of press freedom and democracy», the leader of the opposition and former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras wrote on Twitter.
The situation of media freedom in Greece has caused concern in Brussels.
The Vice-President of the European Commission, Vera Yurova told EURACTIV.cz last December that Greece is one of the EU countries that are considered «problematic» on freedom of the press.
Greece is ranked 70th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2021 Global Press Freedom Index.
Asked if the Commission is concerned about these rankings, a European Commission source told EURACTIV Greece that «the media freedom index is an important source of information for the Commission's work and we pay close attention to it».
The Greek MEP George Kyrtsos was recently expelled from the New Democracy party after strongly criticizing the government for the quality of press freedom in Greece saying that Prime Minister Mitsotakis is leading the country towards «orbanization».
The EPP group in the European Parliament, led by Manfred Weber, a close ally of Mitsotakis, also suspended his membership rights for six months.
In Brussels, it is widely believed that the conservative leadership of the European Commission offers Greek conservatives a temporary protective shield, given that New Democracy is currently the strongest ruling party of the «sick» conservative family of the European People's Party.
