EU Commission Holds Greek Prime Minister Responsible for Surveillance Scandal

A European parliamentary committee has blamed Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for the surveillance scandal that rocked the country last summer.

Prime Minister Mitsotakis is responsible for a scandal that has seen Predator spyware used to monitor the country’s leading politicians, journalists and other public figures, the PEGA panel, which is investigating the use of spyware in member states, said Tuesday.

Sophie Ent Feldt, rapporteur of the committee, said: “What we know for sure is that as soon as his government took power, the law was changed and Greece’s National Intelligence Service (EYP) came under the direct responsibility of the prime minister.”

She added, “Either he knows, then we have a very serious problem, or he doesn’t know when he should have known, and that’s a serious problem as well.”

Feldt said some evidence indicated that the Israeli-made “Predator” spyware was exported from the Greek Cypriot administration to Sudan, where the two sides are at war, through a license issued by Greece.

She added that the European Commission is obligated to investigate and continue to obtain all information.

surveillance scandal

On August 8, 2022, Mitsotakis acknowledged that opposition politician Nikos Androulakis had been wiretapped by the Greek intelligence agency but denied knowledge of the operation.

The scandal first surfaced on August 4, when Panagiotis Kontoleone, then head of the EYP, told a parliamentary committee that the intelligence agency was spying on Malian journalist Thanassis Kokakis.

On August 5, Kontoleone, along with the Secretary General of the Prime Minister’s Office, Grigoris Dimitriadis, resigned.