Greece’s is judged as one of 25 “full democracies” in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) annual Democracy Index, scoring an overall 8.07 (out of a possible 10) and coming in at 25th place.
The index, for 2024, was unveiled this week by the Economist’s EIU.
The Nordic countries (Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark) continue to dominate the Democracy Index rankings, taking five of the top seven spots, with New Zealand claiming second place and Switzerland moving up to fifth, with Norway first on the list.
According to the EIU, France’s score fell just below the 8.00 threshold and precluded its designation as a “full democracy” because of a decline in its score for the functioning of government. As such, France was downgraded from a ‘full democracy’ to a “flawed democracy” in 2024.
South Korea’s score also fell below the 8.00 threshold for designation as a “full democracy”, mostly due to significant political uncertainty at the end of 2024.
Finally, Portugal was upgraded to a “full democracy”, along with Estonia (for the first time) and the Czech Republic (which returned to the list after 2013) – the only two east European countries given the “full democracies” ranking.
