Greece’s government: Costas’ crusade

Fighting corruption in a land imbued with it

LAST March, Costas Karamanlis, just elected as Greek prime minister, shocked his countrymen by announcing that the country was “effectively run by five davatzides (pimps)”. His use of underworld slang was meant to discredit a group of businessmen whose cosy relationship with the previous Socialist government and local media bosses had given them an edge in winning public contracts worth over €2 billion ($2.5 billion) a year in the run-up to the 2004 Olympics. A clean-up of public life, seen by most Greeks as deeply corrupt after many years of Socialist rule, has become a priority for Mr Karamanlis's centre-right government.

So far, the results are mixed. An audit ordered by Mr Karamanlis showed that the Socialists had fed the European Commission misleading figures to get into the euro. But the fiddling damaged the reputation of Mr Karamanlis's government too. The budget deficit, swollen by spending on the Olympics, went above 6% of GDP in 2004, over twice the ceiling set by the European Union's stability and growth pact. With Greece's economy now under close supervision by the commission, Mr Karamanlis has little room for manoeuvre on fiscal policy.

A parliamentary inquiry into allegations that Socialist officials received millions of dollars in kickbacks from middlemen working for big defence contractors has run out of steam for lack of documentary evidence. A new media law that bans big shareholders in newspapers and television stations (plus their relatives) from owning shares in companies that bid for public contracts, may conflict with EU law. Mr Karamanlis's critics, including the boss of Greece's confederation of industry, called the law “preposterous” and said that extra bureaucracy required to sort out shareholder relationships would put off foreign investors whom the government is keen to attract.

In other ways, though, Mr Karamanlis's clean-up campaign may be working. Anastasios Papaligouras, the justice minister, is methodically wading through a heap of files on alleged bribe-taking by Greek judges. More than 20 senior judges are under investigation. The bank account of a jurist in Crete, who faced charges of bribe-taking and money laundering, held over €50,0000 in transfers from a nightclub owner and from lawyers representing a drug-dealer. Several of the judges under suspicion seem to be linked to a trial-fixing ring organised by a Greek Orthodox priest with underworld connections. Other revelations of sexual misconduct by supposedly celibate bishops, leaked to right-wing newspaper and television journalists, have shocked public opinion and triggered debate over whether Orthodoxy should remain the established faith in Greece.

Plenty of other scandals have surfaced as well, ranging from match-fixing among leading Greek soccer clubs, to doctors taking bribes from patients to speed up surgery, to army officers being bribed to exempt entertainers from military service. Mr Karamanlis insists that his clean-up campaign will continue.”Greece must become a country where the law is observed at every level of society,” he declared on the anniversary of his New Democracy party's election win. Yet it remains open to question whether he and his party will succeed in rooting out corruption, which is deeply entrenched in Greek society.

Meanwhile, his crusade is at least keeping up Mr Karamanlis's approval ratings: one anniversary poll gave him a 15-point lead over George Papandreou, the Socialist leader. But it may also divert attention from other challenges, such as boosting tax revenues, creating more jobs and opening up markets (the state still controls 55% of the economy, a bigger slice than anywhere else in the EU). When boredom with corruption-bashing sets in, especially if it is seen not to deliver on its promises, the problems of the Greek economy may loom larger still.

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