The Greek government will fully adopt a recent Supreme Court ruling on borrowers covered by the Katseli law, abandoning its earlier stance that it would examine how and to what extent the judicial decision should be applied.

The Katseli law, named after former Economy Minister Louka Katseli, was introduced during Greece’s debt crisis to shield over-indebted households from losing their primary residences. The Supreme Court, recently issued a ruling that affects more than 100,000 borrowers awaiting a final resolution of their cases.

The decision to accelerate the government’s plans followed a wave of reaction to initial comments by government officials, and reflected the social weight of an issue affecting a large group of citizens who bore the brunt of years of economic crisis.

According to government sources, the legislative measures that were agreed on Tuesday will fully incorporate the spirit and content of the Supreme Court decision, ending the uncertainty of recent days. The move reflects a choice made by the ruling party in an effort to avoid a head-on clash with a broad social group. Government officials seem to have concluded that leaving any doubt over the ruling’s application could carry a serious political cost. Setting tens of thousands of borrowers against the government, and alienating the wider public in the process, was a fight no one wanted with the prospect of national elections already looming.

Pressure from Samaras

Former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who has become a thorn to Mitsotakis over the last few months and appears to be preparing to launch his own party to the right of New Democracy, has taken up the borrowers’ case alongside the opposition.  When the Supreme Court ruling was issued, Samaras intervened publicly to warn the government against turning an irrevocable judicial decision into a field of political negotiation. After Tuesday’s announcement, he said his position had been vindicated, noting that the government had ultimately chosen full compliance with the court. He added that the measure should also cover borrowers who have already completed the repayment process, or who defaulted and lost their protection.

The government’s response

The government has pushed back suggestions that it has either delayed the implementation of the decision or retreated. Government officials argue that the proposed legislative measure aims to ensure the correct and universal application of the ruling without legal gaps.

As for extending the measure to borrowers who have already paid off or defaulted on their arrangements, the government says it must move carefully to avoid creating new legal and fiscal problems. Officials say the ruling cannot be broadened, for one of two reasons. In some cases the debt has already been repaid and the home saved, usually by paying off the remaining balance in a lump sum. In others, the borrower stopped paying long ago, and the case has already been closed.

Reopening those cases would mean revisiting thousands of old disputes, the government argues, many of them decided by courts more than a decade ago. And where a borrower defaulted, officials note, there is no money to return, because the installments were never paid.

An eye on 2030

The borrowers’ case is part of a wider political calculation, as the ruling party reshapes its message ahead of national elections, whenever they are called. Mitsotakis offered a glimpse of that while discussing the overhaul of the Land Registry on Tuesday, which he framed as another attempt to fix the chronic problems plaguing the Greek state: red tape, a lack of transparency, and corruption that has built up over decades.

The prime minister’s growing emphasis on the year 2030 is also deliberate. It is the timeframe he uses to link his current term to the case for stability and continuity beyond the next election, the argument being that fixing the country takes time and a steady hand. The same idea drives New Democracy’s slogan, “We said it, we are doing it.” The present tense is the point: the work is under way, not finished. The line has already featured in ministers’ and lawmakers’ tours and anchors the material handed to party officials around the country.

Work is also under way on a new government program, “Agenda 2030,” coordinated by Deputy Prime Minister Kostis Hatzidakis. Described as a new contract with citizens, it is built on what the government calls realistic commitments and aims to tie economic growth to higher household disposable income. The program rests on four social pillars: strengthening the family, tackling the housing problem, ensuring equal opportunities regardless of where people live, and boosting regional development, with particular emphasis on Macedonia and Thrace.

New Democracy also wants the next election fought on stability and security. Its officials argue that Greece still faces pressures abroad and at home, and that political continuity is needed to carry the reforms through. They will keep casting the opposition as toxic and populist, with no credible alternative for government, and the prime minister’s aides believe the opposition’s traditional call for “change” no longer holds up coming from Mitsotakis’s rivals.