Many questions are emerging over the heavily promoted defense conference called the Athens Defence Summit, which was held on Wednesday and will continue to Thursday, under the auspices of the national defence ministry, HAI (Hellenic Aerospace Industry) and EAS (Hellenic Defence Systems).

This is because behind the spotlight of the glamorous conference and the smiles of ministers, dinners with foreign officials and the grandiose declarations about “national security,” what appears to have been organized is yet another web of intertwined political and business interests, demonstrating how opaque networks of power and transactions are woven between the government, relatives of ruling party figures, and media-publishing groups whose primary investment lies in serving the government’s propaganda needs.

At a time when the Mitsotakis government is attempting to present Greece as a “geopolitical pillar of stability,” it is being revealed that the prominent defense industry conference appears to have passed into the hands of a newly established private company, created literally at the last minute by individuals with direct political and family connections to the core of government power.

A major conference with official government backing is assigned to a company founded 3.5 months ago

The Athens Defence Summit is one of the largest conferences of its kind organized in the country. It is held under the auspices of the Ministry of National Defence and gathers extremely high-level guests from the political, defense and business worlds.

Such conferences are expensive, require major sponsorships from banks, public organizations and large business groups, and are usually undertaken by companies with significant experience in organizing and managing events of this scale.

However, in this case there was no cooperation with any of the established companies active in this sector with proven experience. The conference was assigned to a private company that had been established just 3.5 months earlier.

The company is called European Defence Summit PC. It was established on Feb. 2, 2026, with share capital of 5,000 euros. Nevertheless, within just a few weeks it appears to have undertaken the management of a conference whose sponsorships exceed 1.5 million euros.

The ‘princelings’ enter the business world

The answer as to why a newly created company — effectively a company from nowhere — undertook such a large and expensive conference and came to manage such major sponsorships may lie in the identity of the company itself.

According to records from Greece’s General Commercial Registry (GEMI), the main shareholders are Filippos Avramopoulos, son of former minister and current New Democracy lawmaker for Ilia (Elis) prefecture Dimitris Avramopoulos, and Giorgos Karamanlis, the son of newspaper publisher Nikos Karamanlis.

In other words, suddenly a newly founded company appears, whose principal shareholders are the son of a current ruling party MP and former minister and the son of a publisher who today plays a significant role in pro-government propaganda, and as if by magic this company is selected to manage one of the country’s biggest conferences — moreover, a conference dealing with national defense. This translates into the argument that the company was selected precisely because it could exploit its access to the broader system of government power.

Giorgos Karamanlis reportedly holds 37% of the company and serves as its manager, while Filippos-Lambros Avramopoulos holds 31.5%. The remaining shares are divided among three additional individuals who joined the company almost immediately after its establishment.

Particular interest surrounds one Vassilios Gavalas. According to a recent Forbes publication, despite his young age he “served as an adviser to the Greek government and to think tanks in Greece and abroad, such as DIKTYO, the Karamanlis Institute and the ECFR, before turning to business diplomacy.”

The same publication notes that, having “a strategic interest in linking artificial intelligence and national security,” he co-authored with Secretary-General Giannis Mastrogeorgiou the first related Greek study. It should be noted that Mastrogeorgiou, who also passed through both the Karamanlis Institute and DIKTYO — the think tank of former EU Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou — served from 2019 to 2022 as secretary-general for communication and media at the presidency of the government, and since 2022 has been special secretary for long-term planning at the presidency of the Greek government.

In any case, questions remain as to why such a major project was assigned to what is, essentially, a start-up company, unless connections to a wider government “ecosystem” were considered sufficient.

The individuals involved in the private company (IKE), which was established only 3.5 months ago.

The flourishing of Nikos Karamanlis’ businesses during the Mitsotakis era

An interesting detail concerning the European Defence Summit PC is that it reportedly operates essentially from the premises of Nikos Karamanlis’ media businesses along Syngrou Avenue — where, besides Political, he also operates the digital outlets Paraskinio and Karfitsa — while formally declaring another registered address. The contact information includes the accounting email address of Karamanlis’ business group: logistirio@nkmediagroup.gr.

The fact that Karamanlis’ publishing businesses have “flourished” thanks to their contacts with the prime minister’s office is well known. Even within New Democracy, numerous party figures have reportedly long been irritated by the editorial line adopted by these publications toward specific individuals within the party.

At the same time, in commercial terms, direct state contracts are said to come and go, as highlighted by an investigative report published by Ta Nea newspaper last April.

That report stated, among other things, that “their social media accounts and corporate events (meaning the Nikos Karamanlis family) resemble photographic albums of New Democracy. They also maintain relationships and partnerships with other companies in the ‘blue {New Democracy’s color} ecosystem,’ such as Bright Business Solutions by Giorgos Poulopoulos and Kostas Sakkaris, which invests in media, websites, newspapers and leaflets, including those of the Karamanlis group.”

It should be noted that Bright recently attracted publicity because it appears to have become a major success story in the wider field of Recovery Fund project management, despite having had virtually no activity until recently, while also attempting to expand into the media sector through negotiations to acquire the Real media group.

Direct contracts and state money

The Ta Nea report highlighted a series of direct state contracts awarded by public bodies to GK MASTER Consulting, a company providing consulting services. The company was purchased two years ago by Nikos Karamanlis, the 25-year-old son of the publisher, and almost immediately began receiving assignments approaching the 30,000-euro threshold.

However, the financing of Karamanlis’ media outlets through state funds goes even further back, to the period of the “tainted” KEELPNO public health agency. According to a list released through parliament, the publisher of Paraskinio and related media outlets had received more than 490,000 euros in promotional spending for the year 2014.

This prompted a reaction at the time from then-New Democracy MP Marios Salmas, who even tabled a parliamentary question on the issue. It appears that the then-health minister Adonis Georgiadis never responded.

It is also worth noting that the group’s media outlets received substantial funding from the so-called “Petsas List” during the pandemic, despite the fact that most of them have extremely limited circulation according to internet audience measurement systems.

The shadow of Grigoris Dimitriadis and his ‘disappearance’ from the conference program

Grigoris Dimitriadis himself has publicly displayed his appreciation for the family of Nikos Karamanlis, posting photographs either from his office receiving father and son Karamanlis or from social party events where they appeared together.

Many argue that the “flourishing” of such media businesses — which engage in systematic pro-government propaganda, often promoting certain political figures at the expense of others and relying heavily on access to state money and forms of government advertising — was a strategy strongly backed by the once-powerful figure at the Prime Minister’s office, Grigoris Dimitriadis.

And this brings us to a central question regarding the Athens Defence Summit.

As is widely known, there was major controversy over the fact that Dimitriadis had been announced as a speaker at the conference, including on a high-profile panel featuring former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who in the past had collaborated with Intellexa, the company founded by Tal Dilian, which marketed the Predator spyware and whose owner was convicted in Greece by a misdemeanor court.

The controversy centered on why Dimitriadis — who by his own description is merely a volunteer cadre of New Democracy and currently holds no public office, with no governmental background beyond serving as secretary-general to the prime minister — had been invited, and why he was considered suitable for a discussion on national security despite his connection to a wiretapping scandal involving threats to national security, since phones of officials dealing with such matters had allegedly been compromised.

It should be noted that Dimitriadis appeared as a speaker at the conference, as revealed by in.gr, with the sole credential that he had served as “former secretary-general (chief of staff)” to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis until 2022.

As a result of the uproar, Dimitriadis was quietly removed from the conference program and speaker list. No announcement was made. One day he was listed, the next he was gone.

Perhaps the government realized what exactly was happening, or perhaps it read the investigative reports by in.gr and took action. After all, while all the government figures targeted in the surveillance affair — ministers, deputy ministers, secretaries and others — may continue to remain silent and have initiated no legal proceedings against those who monitored them, it is assumed they would not wish to attend a security conference alongside the man who declared that he had “taken responsibility” for the wiretapping affair for the good of the party.

This is a scandal that should not be forgotten, as it concerns one of the largest surveillance scandals in Europe and remains an open institutional wound for the country.

However, the question of why he was included in the first place remains. The answer may lie in the fact that the organization of this conference was taken over by a previously non-existent private company, a newly established start-up, created by individuals linked through various ties to New Democracy party and to the power system surrounding the Maximos Mansion government seat.

This is a system of power to which Dimitriadis does not formally belong today, but which he previously helped shape in a substantial way, while he has recently been making a systematic effort to stage an impressive political comeback. This effort has been highlighted by his interview with the newspaper Real (a Greek media outlet) and his presence at the New Democracy party conference, where he attempted to project an image of being “popular with the people.”

Within this context, the orchestration of his appearance as a speaker at a high-profile conference featuring “heavyweight names” could be interpreted as part of an effort to present him not as the “national bug” (a political nickname used by critics alleging involvement in wiretapping; a claim he strongly denies), but as a statesman ready to claim an upgraded role in shaping the country’s future.

According to Greece’s General Commercial Registry, the private company organizing the Athens Defence Summit shares the same contact details as the accounting department of Karamanlis Publications.

How exactly is public money being managed by the government?

Beyond the questions surrounding Grigoris Dimitriadis, there is a broader political issue concerning the ethics and style of government power.

Who decided that an unknown, newly established private company under Greek corporate law, similar to a limited liability company, would manage millions of euros in sponsorships linked to the defense industry? Through what procedure? Based on which criteria? With what experience in security and conference organization? Who approved the partnerships? Who opened the doors of ministries, banks, and public organizations so that sponsorship funds could begin flowing?

And above all: how is it that every time public money, state visibility, or strategic sectors are involved, the same circles, the same surnames, and the same “insiders” appear? How is it that they accumulate the bulk of available business opportunities? According to the report, the term “Maximos” (referring to the Maximos Mansion, the seat of the Prime Minister) is used as a kind of ultimate protector or a “magic key” that opens all doors.

To put it plainly, there are growing indications that the Maximos Mansion is proposing to various companies “an offer they cannot refuse.” The framework is simple: privileged access to public funds — from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (EU Recovery Fund) to state advertising — must be translated into “gratitude” expressed consistently and tangibly by the pro-government media ecosystem.

This, it is argued, also reflects the nature of the power system. As Ta Nea recently noted, Konstantinos Karamanlis (the founder of New Democracy and former Greek prime minister) once engaged with publishers such as Eleni Vlachou (the late publisher of the Kathimerini daily), Nasos Botsis (the late publisher of the Apogevmatini daily), and Ioannis Vellidis (the late publisher of the Makedonia daily in Thessaloniki). Today, the argument goes, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis talks with Nikos Karamanlis and Haris Pavlidis (of the Manifesto media outlet).

A story of entanglement

The Athens Defence Summit was presented as a matter of national importance with high geopolitical significance. However, behind the flags, panels, and public relations efforts, a familiar picture of “Greece 2.0” appears to emerge: relatives of politicians, figures close to the Mitsotakis inner circle, state backing, opaque financial flows, and business activity that appeared almost from nowhere — only to immediately find itself at the center of power.

And while the government speaks of “reforms,” public opinion is witnessing yet another episode of a system that appears to have turned the state into a closed family-like club.

There is also no reference here to the judiciary, which, the article claims, systematically ignores journalistic investigations (including reporting by Ta Nea) and complaints, and has completely forgotten the concept of “ex officio investigation” (αυτεπάγγελτη έρευνα — a legal procedure where prosecutors initiate investigations on their own authority without a formal complaint).

In conclusion, the fact that opinion polls increasingly show citizens placing their trust primarily in European Public Prosecutors rather than in Greek judicial authorities is, the article suggests, another sign of institutional decline in the country and its democratic system.