ATHENS – Greece’s New Democracy government rejected a European Parliament resolution denouncing a lack of media freedom and monitoring of journalists, calling the vote “mudslinging” and “slander.”

Media freedom groups had said the same in a recent finding after a fact-finding mission to Greece as had a previous European Parliament which found the government trying to control the dialogue.

The Parliament said the resolution noted a “hostile environment for media and journalists, spyware, corruption and the use of force by the police” and said the EU commission should consider withholding funding.

https://www.barrons.com/news/greece-rejects-eu-media-freedom-resolution-d4b02a17

“Greece is being slandered,’ government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis told reporters, said Agence France-Presse (AFP.) “The aim is to reduce the prestige of Greece’s success in recent years,” he said.

The resolution expressed “grave concerns about very serious threats to democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights in the country” but Marinakis said it was a “political ploy” against the center-right European People’s Party ahead of European Parliament elections in June.

The resolution said journalists in Greece faced physical threats and verbal attacks, including from high-ranking politicians, and abusive lawsuits aimed at chilling their reporting, including one filed by Grigoris Dimitriadis, the nephew of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

That was over stories about Dimitriadis’ role in the revelations that the National Intelligence Service (EYP) was bugging the phones of 15,745 people, including journalists, business executives, politicians and the use of spyware which the government denied being behind.

It cited a lack of progress in the investigation into the murder of Greek crime journalist George Karaivaz in April 2021.

In November, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Greece was effectively scuttling an investigation into the phone tapping that Mitsotakis said was done in the interest of national security.

“The investigation is at a complete standstill and Greek institutions seem determined not to let it progress,” it said.