The political system, centered on parliament, was thrown into a whirlpool of explosive tensions over the monitoring. Yesterday’s first of a special meeting of the Committee on Institutions and Transparency, the subject of which was the approval of the appointment of a new EYP governor, Themistocles Demiris, was marked by great tensions and conflicts between the government and the opposition.

There were two reasons: firstly, the phrase attributed to Mr. Demiris, for the appointment of which only the “blue” deputies voted positively, that “no one is a priori excluded from observation.” Recall that from the very beginning, the majority faction emphasized that under the current legislation and for reasons of national security, everyone can be taken under surveillance, regardless of status. Secondly, the fact that from the first moment there were leaks from sources close to SYRIZA about incidents and statements from the meeting.

Tassoul intervened

This event prompted a public intervention by the Speaker of the Parliament, Kostas Tasula, given that, in accordance with the rules of the Parliament, the meetings of the special committee on issues related to the EPM are held behind closed doors. Mr. Tasoulas noted that “the process has become a sifter, giving the impression that recourse to institutional procedures is completely pretentious and that the only thing that is ultimately of interest is unrequited and therefore uncontrolled publicity, precisely because of that the responsible and named institutional bodies cannot answer”. On the same issue, the commentary of the ND parliamentary group emphasizes that SYRIZA is responsible for “violating confidentiality and simplifying the extremely important parliamentary process.” A little earlier, SYRIZA circles adopted a phrase leaked – without a priori reference – attributed to the new commander of the EMP, stating: “Mr. Demiris strongly confirmed the parastatus of Mitsotakis. All Mr Mitsotakis has to do is publicly declare which other MEPs and MEPs he follows, for what reasons, and then resign.”

The climate was provoked by various interpretations of the appointment of a new EMP commander and “leaks” by SYRIZA about the content of the meeting.

More cautiously, on behalf of PASOK, Haris Castanidis argued in a statement that “a major political question for the government arose from the answers given by National Intelligence Service candidate Mr. Demiris regarding monitoring, perhaps at this time, political figures.”

The institutional obligation to keep confidential what was said at yesterday’s meeting made any further statement by Mr. Demiris or other participants, confirming or refuting a particular phrase, unacceptable from the outset. “Responsible and named institutional bodies are not in a position to respond”, notes Mr. Tasoulas, and in this context he condemned the phenomenon of “unresponsive and uncontrolled publicity”. The ND, for its part, emphasizing that “neither his answer (of the head of the EMP) nor the protocol can be made public”, limited himself to commenting that SYRIZA distorted the position of Mr. Demiris and characterized his party oppositionist” an unreliable interlocutor in the highest process “.

With regard to the evolving multi-tiered parliamentary process on the EPI and its follow-up, it reportedly sparked a renewed heated debate yesterday, especially with regard to the order of the meetings. Mr. Castanidis, for example, reiterated the request that tomorrow’s discussion of political leaders be preceded by a new meeting of the Committee on Institutions scheduled – unexpectedly – next week, emphasizing that “the current governor of the EYP should come back and provide explanations for what we called important political issue.”

As a reminder, PASOK and the KKE requested this meeting in order to summon “key” individuals to discuss cases regarding the surveillance of Nikos Androulakis, the illegal Predator software, and cases of “collusion” at the Communist Party call center. According to available information, yesterday from N.D. it was noted that it would also be proposed to call former EYP administrators as part of its request for investigation and previous periods, i.e. since 2012.