Ten former ministers, lawmakers and senior New Democracy party officials have gone public with a blistering open letter against Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Published in the newspaper Dimokratia, the letter charges that he has abandoned the founding values of Greece’s center-right tradition. The government hit back swiftly, with spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis dismissing the signatories as people who ‘have gone to other parties,’ some of whom, he said, ‘collaborated with SYRIZA and contributed to bringing down the then-New Democracy government.’
In the letter, the group takes direct aim at what Mitsotakis has branded as “the executive state” — a governing model the PM and his administration has championed as a modern, streamlined approach to public administration. The signatories argue it has become something else entirely. “Mitsotakis’s ‘executive state,’ cut off from the values of the great center-right political family, governs without vision, without social conscience, without a national strategy,” they write, adding that the government “is only interested in the concentration of power and the manipulation of society.”
The letter also accuses the government of misusing European Union funds. Rather than pursuing economic reconstruction and tackling the cost-of-living crisis, they argue, the administration has chosen “the opaque squandering of European resources,” fostering “a culture of impunity and cronyism” and building “a state friendly to the few and hostile to the many.” They point to interventions by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office as evidence that Greece’s handling of EU funds is attracting uncomfortable scrutiny from European institutions.
The signatories go further, raising concerns about the independence of the judiciary, control over public institutions and the media, and the wiretapping scandal that has dogged the government in recent years. Taken together, they say, these amount to “a deep crisis of trust and democratic function.”
On the broader national picture, the letter warns of a country facing existential challenges: a shrinking demographic base, unchecked migration, a declining productive economy, an emptying countryside, and households unable to meet basic needs.
The letter closes with a call to action. “More and more citizens feel politically homeless,” the signatories write, arguing that the historical continuity of the great center-right party “has been deeply wounded” and that the current system can no longer speak to the needs of the social majority. They call for “a new patriotic, democratic and social political expression” to emerge from within society itself.
The ten signatories are former MEP and ND organizational secretary Emmanouil Angelakas; former OAED (national employment agency) director and ND deputy labor secretary Giorgos Vernadakis; former minister and Larissa MP Christos Zois; former Achaia MP Athanasios Ntavlouros; former minister and Athens MP Argyris Dinopoulos; former Epirus regional secretary and ND Political Council member Dimitris Panozachos; former Laconia MP and ND program secretary Fevronia Patrianakou; former deputy minister and ND director general Thanasis Skordas; former North Aegean regional secretary and ND organizational secretary Sergios Tsiftis; and former Crete regional secretary and former Development Ministry secretary general Serafeim Tsokas.
Government Spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis was unsparing in his daily briefing. “I think it is provocative for some people to talk about the ‘soul of New Democracy’ when they have gone to other parties, some of whom collaborated with SYRIZA and contributed to bringing down the then-New Democracy government, and expressed a rhetoric of extreme populism,” he said. “I think the phrase ‘look who’s talking’ applies here.” Marinakis added that no one individual can claim to be the ultimate voice of the party’s soul or conscience, beyond those who have served it anonymously and selflessly for decades. “So let’s leave the soul of New Democracy, the heart of New Democracy, to those who have fought for its ideas and continue to do so,” he said, “and let’s not have various people who have gone from one party to another abuse such concepts.”
