Yannis Pretenteris

It doesn’t take a brilliant political brain to realize the Opposition is in complete and utter disarray; it’s clear to anyone with eyes in their head. And it’s going to be another two or three months, maybe more, before they’ve managed to work through their multiple issues. It’s not a pleasant sight. Because who wouldn’t […]

SYRIZA is looking more and more like a sinking ship every day. A ship without a rudder, drifting who knows where as the crew fight among themselves and with the passengers. Unfortunately, this is the second largest party in the Greek Parliament we’re talking about. The official Opposition. Till now, the spectacle has had something […]

After one electoral year (May 2023-June 2024) and four elections, all of which it won, the government clearly needs a restart. A reboot. Which is fair enough. Because, for governments, the clock doesn’t start ticking from the last election, but from the first. And the Mitsotakis premiership is already in its sixth year. What’s more, […]

A few weeks after Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race, Kamala Harris’s candidacy appears to have been a game changer for the US presidential election. And while the impact has been momentous, it clearly hasn’t been surprising. It was obvious to everyone that the outgoing President had reached his physical limits. Sadly, time halts for […]

August is a no-news month. We’ve heard it over and over. We’ve taken it on board. Besides, most journalists are on holiday. Although the newspapers and TV channels keep on publishing and broadcasting. Even if there’s no news, even with fewer journalists on the job. What August does have, though, is fires. Every year—regular as […]

With war in Ukraine and the Middle East, race riots in the UK, the threat of terrorism hanging over France and Belgium, unrest in Germany, and the specter of Jihad and Putin hovering over Europe, any talk of “national security” is either made in jest or hopelessly naive. Not simply because security is the second […]

Yet again, the Middle East is on the verge of a major conflagration. The smell of gunpowder is in the air once more. Every new wave of bloodshed is a response to the one before it and the seed for the one that follows. I don’t know many people who will be mourning the death […]

"above all else, democracy is a culture"

"We’ve made a democracy, now we have to make the democrats".

So, obviously, we don't expect Erdogan and Mitsotakis to settle accounts that go back multiple decades. But we do expect them to talk.

France holds its breath at the polls. And with France, the whole of Europe. In the second round of the parliamentary elections today, a broad (though far from cohesive) coalition of centrist, center-right and center-left forces plus “unbowed” and unbalanced voters on the Left will be attempting to prevent Le Pen’s rise to power. Will […]

The European elections are a painless process in themselves, but this time round they paved the way for an electoral contest that could seriously disrupt European democracy. President Macron has called a general election, the French are voting in the first round today, and the latest polls show a clear lead for the unrepentant far-right […]

No one has ever claimed or implied that Chairman Mao was centre-left. I suspect that if someone had told him so to his face, he wouldn’t have known what they were talking about. Not that this has prevented Greece’s centre-left from honouring him by confirming a famous saying of his in practice: “great disorder under […]

Only hypocrites or the deliberately obtuse can claim not to have understood what happened in the European elections. Because, one, there’s nothing complicated about it, and two, it’s clear as day. New Democracy didn’t bother actually talking to the voters, never so much as mentioned the things that concern them, so it’s no surprise many […]

If a visitor to Greece believed everything they heard recently on TV and in the coffee shops, they would have fallen from the clouds today. Because—amazingly—the citizens of Greece aren’t voting to bring down the government or raise up the opposition! No, we will have the self-same government and opposition tomorrow. Nor are they are […]

Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza is about to enter its ninth month. Russia’s war with Ukraine is now in its third year. And there are still no signs of normalization or appeasement on the horizon. Even worse, none of the warring parties appears to have a strategy for exiting crises which, with no prospect […]

if Europe is absent from people's lives; if it fails to address the cost of living crisis, immigration, unemployment; if it can't even forge a common position on the Middle East, then what exactly is it asking us to elect?

With just three weeks to go until the European elections, you might say we’re in the home straight. But to what? An electoral contest that has provoked nothing but yawns, and whose outcome everyone has rushed to predict with impatient over-confidence. The only event that actually looked and felt like an election rally was Edi […]

Needless to say, Mitsotakis’ visit to Ankara and his meeting with Erdoğan is not destined to change the course of history, just as it hasn’t stirred up waves of nationalist enthusiasm. But it is a necessary effort aimed at mutual understanding and coexistence. Made in the hopes that it will prove to be an honest […]

The trial of those charged in relation to the deadly Mati fire of 2018 has come to an end. But it has failed to satisfy the public. To the extent that a trial relating to a dreadful tragedy has descended into a trial of a trial. It seems the Association of Judges and Prosecutors was […]