ATHENS – His party in a position to influence 2023 elections, PASOK-KINAL leader Nikos Androulakis took shots at Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras in a Parliament debate over spyware.

Androulakis is also a Member of the European Parliament whose phone was bugged by the National Intelligence Service EYP and an attempt made by an unknown party to put Predator spyware on it.

The New Democracy government has denied using the spyware that can infect a phone and provide a hacker with all its information and data, including contacts, messages, conversations, videos and photos.

Mitsotakis’ government put forth a bill to reform surveillance and ban the sale of spyware after a scandal erupted following the revelations about Androulakis being monitored by EYP.

The Socialist leader said Mitsotakis and Tsipras engage in “toxic speeches” as they slammed each other and said both were responsible in some ways for the surveillance people on their phones.

While Greece could become the first European Union country to prohibit the sale of spyware the debate came as the New York Tines reported the government licensed the spyware company Intellexa to sell it to Madagascar, which has one of the world’s worst human rights records and corruption.

“a European country, which should steadfastly protect human rights, exposes itself by paving the way for other countries to use such malicious software at the expense of their citizen’s civil liberties,” said Androulakis.

Turning to Tsipras, he said the SYRIZA leader “should explain to Greek people how it is possible that during his rule in government, a company involved with Predator – one founded with only a few thousand euros in capital – could sign contracts with the state worth millions, while the son of the minister who signed those contracts was hired by this company shortly after,” reported the state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency ANA-MPA.

Neither Mitsotakis nor Tsipras have provided a clear answer to these questions, said Androulakis. Greece “deserves something better than what New Democracy and SYRIZA have to offer,” Andoulakis concluded.