Greek stories with Brussels lobbyists

They arrived in my ears yesterday some rumors, from friends of the column in Brussels, in relation to the report that will be published on April 17 by the European Court of Auditors, regarding the exercise of influence by interest representatives towards the institutions of the European Union. The, as it is commonly called, lobbying. The report has, in any case, a Greek essence, as the initiative of the European Court of Auditors to make the observance of the rules of transparency governing the Community institutions a wing and a feather was taken after the revelation of the so-called “Qatargate”.

However, the report sounds like it goes far beyond this case and is a deep investigation of the period 2019-2022, which reveals how various lobbyists, on the one hand, and MEPs or people from the Commission on the other, bypass directly or through convenient ” loopholes” their obligation to declare specific communications, gifts, events and various kinds of indirect or even direct “services”. And the investigation, they tell me, also stumbled upon our own people. Compatriots that is. We do not expect the report to have names, of course, except for those who already have known open cases. It will “photograph” faces and things, however, and warn…

I brought you the other day the information that, if the “Spartans” submit a regular ballot to the Supreme Court to participate in the European elections, there will be a mobilization on the part of the parties of the democratic arc to file one or more memoranda in the supreme court, arguing against it approval of their combination. The “Spartans” did it, they testified, and I learn that in the party headquarters the memoranda are being prepared and they have as a point the recent prosecution of the “Spartans” for voter fraud. PASOK’s, for example, is almost ready. But why did I write “one or more memos” before? Because it sounds strongly that there will be an attempt to coordinate so that it is filed publicly. As they had tried last year. In two party headquarters that I asked, however, competently, they told me that they have not been attacked for the time being.

For the rest, after the prosecution by the prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Georgia Adeline, the “Spartans” abandon the… ship one by one. The shipwreck, more precisely. Yesterday, another “Spartan” member of parliament became independent, the third in recent days, named Dionysis Valtogiannis. He informed the Parliament about this with a letter in which he (and he) succeeds against the head Vasilis Stigaarguing that it is impossible to remain in the KO under his leadership, after the “unfounded and non-existent” complaints that became the reason for the criminal prosecution of the others.

Speaking of departures, as I had previously announced to you, Mr Burhan Baran, the independent MP expelled from PASOK, appeared yesterday at the Ethics Committee of the Parliament in order to request the lifting of his immunity, with the statement that “my only motive is to prove my innocence in full before the Greek Justice like every Greek citizen, having absolute trust in the Judicial Authorities”. I remember that he was excluded from the Parliamentary Group following his decision Nikos Androulakis, when a case file for a 2016 case involving illegal drug prescriptions was shared with the Parliament. The link with the party, however, remains, judging by the fact that he made it clear that “those who invest politically against me and my party on the occasion of this case, wanting to take advantage of this particular event, will be solemnly refuted.”

Many interesting things were said yesterday at the Delphi forum. But I would like to dwell on her presence Giannas Angelopoulou and in the retrospective he made in the history of the claim of the Olympic Games of Athens 2004 and in their imprint. Because it is a story that has not yet been written and around which many myths and conspiracies are still reproduced. Primarily in terms of finances. And the Angelopoulou gave a clear answer yesterday, saying the budget for the Games was €2,098,400,000. “We returned to the state a 130.6 million euro surplus,” he said, pointing out that according to a study by the University of Oxford, it was the second cheapest Games after Los Angeles in 1932. In 2004 alone, he said, 2.5% was added to GDP, the state had 2.9 billion euros in tax revenue, and that’s without counting the revenue from tourism. “The Olympic Games did not bankrupt Greece, the numbers speak for themselves,” he concluded categorically.