Greece’s socialist PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis has welcomed a landmark state ruling barring the independent privacy authority ADAE from disclosing surveillance data collected by the country’s intelligence agency.
Mr. Androulakis billed the ruling by the Council of State, Greece’s supreme administrative court, as “historic,” a watershed moment for privacy rights.
He said it dealt a major blow to efforts by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his office to conceal a wiretapping scandal that snowballed last year after the government confessed to monitoring the phones of Mr. Androulakis, citing national security reasons.
The phone tapping-scandal shocked the nation and sparked mounting concern in the EU. Subsequent checks showed that Mr. Androulakis, an MEP at the time of the eavesdropping, had also been targeted with the Israeli-made spyware Predator.
On Friday, and in a scathing critique, Mr. Androulakis accused the government, and his conservative rival of overstepping democratic norms, stating that such actions would be inconceivable elsewhere in Europe.
He condemned the government’s use of the EYP national intelligence agency against political rivals and even its own cabinet members, revealing that his surveillance coincided with his candidacy for the leadership of PASOK.
The decision is seen as a pivotal step in upholding the rule of law and human rights in the country.
From the outset of the scandal, Mr. Androulakis and other opposition parties have sought to label the scandal ”Greece’s Watergate,” emphasizing the prime minister’s decision to place EYP under the control of his office.
Mr. Mitsotakis has since then described the wiretapping as wrong but stopped short of saying why his political opponent was monitored.