Top Stories
Illegal surveillance software was used to monitor at least 33 individuals including reporters, MEPs, and a former prime minister. No one has been charged. The parliamentary inquiry was quietly shelved.
Thousands of hectares of forest lost each year. Aerial firefighting fleets outdated. Prevention budgets slashed. But every August, the same ministers stand in front of cameras to express "solidarity."
After a decade of austerity cuts, public health infrastructure remains gutted. Doctors leave. Equipment goes unrepaired. Patients wait months for scans that could be done in days.
They are doctors in Berlin, engineers in Amsterdam, professors in London. Half a million Greeks — mostly young, mostly educated — left during and after the crisis. The question is not whether they will return. The question is what kind of country they would return to: one where merit is rewarded, institutions function, and the future is not determined by who your uncle knows. Greece has not yet answered that question convincingly. This is the story of those who stayed — and why that may have been the harder choice.
The Golden Passport Scandal That Embarrassed the EU — and Was Forgotten in Athens
Aegean Pushbacks: Documented, Denied, Repeated
How TV Station Licenses Became the Currency of Greek Politics
The Archaeology of Corruption: Public Works, Private Gains
"In Greece, the powerful are rarely punished. Institutions bend, inquiries stall, and memory fades by the next news cycle. Banana Republik exists because someone has to keep count."— Editorial Board, Banana Republik
Opinion
The exchange of political favors for votes is not a side-effect of Greek political culture — it is the engine. Until parties stop treating state jobs as electoral candy, nothing structural will change.
Press freedom rankings mean little in the abstract. They mean everything when reporters self-censor because they know surveillance tools have been used against colleagues — and no one was held responsible.
Short-term rentals have hollowed out Athens neighborhoods, driven up rents for locals, and generated a housing crisis that city authorities have enthusiastically refused to address.
Comparing down has become Greece's national sport. Our press freedom is low — but not as low as Hungary's! Our courts are slow — but at least they're independent! The bar is in the earth.
Environment & Crisis
Illegal construction in flood zones, absent land registries, and planning enforcement that doesn't enforce. Each disaster produces a commission. Each commission produces a report. Each report is filed away.
The Aegean is among the most plastic-polluted seas in the world. Tourism boards advertise crystal waters; environmental scientists document a different reality.
Athens is one of the hottest capitals in Europe and has among the least green space per capita. Concrete absorbs heat; citizens absorb consequences. Urban planning answers with more concrete.