MacroPolis

Government under fire for indecision on Covid measures

The government has put itself under more pressure, including criticism from friendly sources, because of prevaricating over what kind of measures to adopt in order to contain the pandemic.

PM seeks to leave ICU controversy behind as Tsipras ups stakes with snap election call

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is trying to draw a line under the controversy surround the quality of care for Covid patients, but SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras has decided to use the row over the availability of ICU units as a platform for a fresh offensive against the government.

Health service weakness highlighted as Covid deaths hit record high and research points to ICU disparity

Greece registered a record number of 130 daily Covid-related deaths on Tuesday. The grim news was followed by the publication of research by leading Greek experts which highlighted the low tolerance the Greek health system has to a high case load during the pandemic and the higher mortality among seriously ill patients who are hospitalised outside of Athens or do not have access to intensive care.

Mitsotakis confronted by show of strength from church, turns attention to post-wildfire reconstruction

Long-running tensions between the government and the Church of Greece threatened to derail Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s charm offensive on vaccination.

Govt stands firm on 'no lockdown' message, pins hopes on vaccination surge

The political leadership in Greece is insisting that it will not be following the lead of other European countries by imposing further public health restrictions in the approach to the Christmas holidays, but instead is focussing all efforts on boosting vaccination uptake.

Opposition renews attack on government over hospital capacity

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s announcement of fines for unvaccinated over-60s has further widened the divide between government and opposition on the handling of the pandemic, as cases appear to fall but hospitalisations continue to surge.

Surprise handout announcement provokes storm of criticism from opposition

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis ended weeks of speculation by announcing that low-paid pensioners and people with disabilities are to receive a year-end payment to help with skyrocketing living costs.

PM makes new bid to address Covid wave, speculation about restrictions

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was due to return on Thursday to a communications tactic he used regularly during the early days of the pandemic – the televised address – in a bid to contain the latest Covid wave.

From the National Energy and Climate Plan to COP26: What has Greek climate policy learned?

By: Georgia Nakou

A lot has happened in the two years since Kyriakos Mitsotakis, freshly elected as Greek PM, took to the stage at the UN General Assembly in 2019 to launch “a new, ambitious, national strategy on energy and climate change” for Greece, a strategy which was outlined and quantified in the National Energy and Climate Plan adopted a few months later.

SYRIZA presses for answers on hospitals amid mounting Covid deaths

Main opposition party SYRIZA is pressing the government from multiple directions for more clarity on its strategy for handling the pandemic, as the daily figures suggest no let-up in the spread of the virus and its human toll.