Confidence in Greece’s national government fell over the past two years, declining to 24% in 2025 from 32% in 2023, according to a survey released by the OECD. Nearly two-thirds of Greeks, 64%, now say they have low or no trust in the government, while 11% are neutral. The decline runs against the broader trend: across the 38 countries surveyed, the average held roughly steady, edging up from 39% to 40% over the same period.
The findings come from the OECD’s Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions, which canvasses representative samples of the adult population in each participating country on how they view everything from frontline public services to high-level policymaking.
A puzzle the report itself acknowledges
What makes the Greek result striking is that it arrives alongside clear economic gains. The report notes that Greece achieved a fiscal surplus in 2024 and 2025, the latest in a run of primary budget surpluses stretching back to 2013, and that growth has outpaced the euro area average since the country’s per capita output recovered its pre-pandemic level in late 2021. Unemployment has fallen from 16% in 2020 to 8.5% in 2025.
The OECD frames Greece as a case of trust evolving out of step with conditions on the ground. Its explanation is that trust tends to operate at a lag, particularly in countries where deep, repeated crises have left lasting damage. Greece lost a quarter of its 2008 economic output during the long depression that began in 2009 and 2010, with unemployment peaking at 27%. Trust in government collapsed to a historic low of 7% in 2012, the depth of the crisis, and even at later high points in 2015 and 2020 never climbed above 37%.
Armed forces top the table, political parties at the bottom
Trust varies widely depending on the institution. As across the OECD, Greeks place more faith in law-and-order and administrative bodies than in political ones. The armed forces command the highest confidence at 63%. The police follow at 44%, and the courts at 39%.
Political institutions fare far worse. Trust in the national parliament fell from 32% to 25% over the two years, against an OECD average of 37%. Confidence in the civil service stands at 24%, well below the OECD average of 45%. Political parties, already near the bottom, slipped further from 17% to 15%. Trust in the news media also declined, from 22% in 2023 to 19% in 2025.
Where trust divides most
The widest gaps in trust within Greece fall along political lines rather than demographic ones, again mirroring the wider OECD pattern. The divide between those who feel they have a say in government decisions and those who do not reaches 48 percentage points, close to the OECD gap of 47.
Financial circumstances matter more in Greece than elsewhere: the gap tied to financial hardship is 27 percentage points, against an OECD average of 18. Education tracks the OECD norm, with trust 14 points higher among those holding a post-secondary degree (31%) than among those without an upper secondary qualification (17%). Younger Greeks aged 18 to 29 report less trust (17%) than those over 50 (31%), and women trust the government four points less than men.
Glimmers of improvement, and room to grow
Not every signal points down. The report highlights efforts to modernize public administration and reinforce integrity, including Greece’s 2022 to 2025 National Anti-Corruption Action Plan, and notes that the OECD’s own Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2026 ranks Greece among the countries with the strongest anti-corruption strategies and implementation.
Some perceptions are improving quickly. While overall satisfaction with administrative services held steady at around 50% to 51% between 2023 and 2025, recent users reported gains of four percentage points in their satisfaction with the speed of service and the competence of staff. The share of people who think the government would refuse a corporation’s request that ran against the public interest rose five points. On public health, an average satisfaction score of 4.1 out of 5 among 65,000 users stood out for praise of medical and nursing staff, though hospital catering scored far lower.
Other measures softened. Perceived fairness in how benefit applications are handled fell from 39% to 36%, and confidence that the public sector uses personal data legitimately dropped from 45% to 39%. On complex policymaking, the belief that the government uses evidence in its decisions fell from 37% to 30%, and views on balancing the interests of different generations slipped from 28% to 24%.
The OECD’s conclusion is that improvements in governance rarely translate into quick gains in trust, especially where past crises have eroded it, but that Greece’s recent efforts are likely to support a longer-term recovery.
Greek fieldwork was carried out between September 10 and November 17, 2025.
