Skip to main content

A short introduction to the structure of the Greek oligarchy

They are industrialists, shipping line owners, landowners and bankers. In Greece, a handful of leading families have ruled over Greece’s economy and politics for decades. And their offspring are only too often the leading shareholders in the privately-owned media.

Taken from the Media oligarchs go shopping report by Reporters Without Borders

Key points:

  • Greece has been controlled for the past five decades by a handful of families – from five to 20 families, depending on your source. They are industrialists (petroleum and construction), shipping line owners, landowners and bankers. And only too often they are also the main shareholders of the country’s media.

  • In an interview for Jean Quatremer’s documentary “Greece, the day after,” Greek investigative journalist Nikolas Leontopoulos explained the workings of this incestuous system [...] “We talk of the triangle of sin (...) but it is more of a square,” he said. “The first side is the entrepreneurial elite, the second is the banks, the third is the media and the fourth is the world of politics. Those who have the entrepreneurial power are the owners of the leading media and are shareholders in the banks and at the same time maintain incestuous relations with the politicians." [...] “For a long time, this system was regarded as a motor of growth and prosperity,

  • In January 2005, Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis’ conservative government tried to have a law adopted that would have limited conflicts of interests between the leading industrial sectors and the media. It would have banned the owner of a company bidding for public contracts from owning a media outlet, either directly or via a family member (as is often the case). All of the Greek media campaigned against the proposed law, which ended up being rejected – not by the Greek parliament but by Brussels. After furious lobbying of European Union institutions by the oligarchs, the European Commission said the law constituted an obstacle to entrepreneurial freedom. Why?

  • In the run-up to the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece was an El Dorado for European construction companies, which enlisted the local savoir-faire of Greek oligarchs to get a share of the juicy Olympic projects [...] Ten years later, amid an economic crisis caused in large part by the insane spending on the Olympics, the Greek oligarchs used their media outlets to try to block Tsipras’ rise to power.

  • ... media also waged a united campaign against the “no” vote sought by Tsipras in the July 2015 referendum in order to defy Europe. They failed in both cases. This may have been because Greek voters had ceased to trust their news media, knowing them to be subservient to the oligarchy’s interests, and had sought information elsewhere, on blogs, social networks and the websites of grass-roots groups.

The creditors, the banking-media dictatorship in Greece and the local oligarchs did everything they could, even before SYRIZA take the power, to put barriers in the new coalition government, to close all the roads and force it either to fall, or, to fully obey on their demands.


Since the eruption of the crisis in 2010, the mainstream media, totally dependent on bank money in a closed system of corruption, especially in Greece, begun the war propaganda against the "bad" public sector of Greece to hide the enormous responsibilities of the banks. The public opinion was brainwashed to believe that this was a Greek public debt problem and that Greece outside the euro-currency would be led to absolute chaos. The reality is that the big banks sacrificed the country to save themselves, despite their enormous responsibilities.


Related:



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

"Kidnapped in Int'l Waters": Israel Intercepts Gaza-Bound Aid Ship, Detains Greta Thunberg & Others

Democracy Now!   Eleven peace activists and one journalist on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla ship, the "Madleen," were detained by Israeli soldiers as their ship carrying vital humanitarian aid for starving Palestinians approached Gaza.    The ship was intercepted by Israeli forces in the middle of the night in international waters. Its supplies were seized and communications jammed. The unarmed activists will likely be transported to Israeli detention or "immediately deported," says Ann Wright, a U.S. military veteran who has participated in four Freedom Flotilla journeys and now serves on the steering committee of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. She calls on citizens of countries around the world to push for the activists' release and an end to Israel's war on Gaza. 

How Israel’s Supporters Play Victim to Justify Genocide & Silence Critics

BreakThrough News   As Israel commits a live-streamed genocide in Gaza, Western media and political elites continue to center one narrative: Jewish fear. But what about the actual victims of this genocide—Palestinians? Journalist Nora Barrows-Friedman joins Rania Khalek on Dispatches for a fearless conversation on Zionist indoctrination in the Jewish diaspora, how antisemitism is being weaponized to silence critics of Israel, and how Jewish identity politics has been manipulated to cover for unspeakable crimes. From the media blackout on Israeli war crimes to the erasure of anti-Palestinian hate crimes—even in the diaspora—Nora lays bare the contradictions and power structures behind it all. 

Trump in SHOCK: Putin & China FLIP His Grave Mistake into STUNNING Victory

Danny Haiphong   Putin & China just gave Trump a rude BRICS awakening, and this bombshell will change everything for generations to come. Geopolitical analyst Ben Norton details the truth about Trump's biggest failure against the rising power of BRICS led by Russia and China, and why the US's role as super power is now in serious question.     Related: Trump's tariffs: A unique opportunity for BRICS and the Global South to fully escape from dollar tyranny

How the EU is using anti-Russia sanctions to criminalise journalism

The EU sanctioned me and my media outlet for covering Palestine protests in Germany. It’s part of Europe’s growing authoritarianism and militarism, cloaked in language of fighting disinformation and defending democracy.   by Hüseyin Dogru   Part 2 - How the EU uses anti-Russian hysteria to smear Palestine solidarity journalism   The official rationale for sanctioning me hinges on red .’s alleged links to Russian influence. The EU sanctions listing cited just two pieces of “evidence”: that some red. staff had previously worked for Russian-funded media, and that we covered “politically controversial subjects” – specifically: Palestine. That’s it. The listing accuses me, through my work with red ., of “facilitating violent demonstrations”, amplifying “radical Islamic terrorist narratives” and claims our staff “coordinated with occupiers”. Not a single piece of evidence is cited, apart from the fact that we published footage of a pro-Palestine student occupation in Berlin. I...

UN report confirms: Israel is a terrorist state and its goal is to exterminate all Palestinians

Israeli attacks on educational, religious and cultural sites in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amount to war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination, UN Commission says.     globinfo freexchange Israel has obliterated Gaza’s education system and destroyed over half of all religious and cultural sites in the Gaza Strip, part of a widespread and relentless assault against the Palestinian people in which Israeli forces have committed war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, said in a new report [yesterday]. While the Commission paid special attention to the situation in Gaza, the report focuses on attacks in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole, and in Israel. “We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza,” said Navi Pi...

Israeli propagandists nervous about Iran war

The Grayzone   The Grayzone 's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate on undeniable signs of anxiety by Israel's top propagandists as they pressured the US to strike Iran. 

Keir Starmer admits Ukraine a proxy war

The Grayzone   The Grayzone 's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate on the British PM's unintentional acknowledgement of an inconvenient truth. 

[LIVE] War in the Middle East after Iran's retaliation against Israel

globinfo freexchange      Explosions in Tel Aviv as sirens sound across Israel amid Iranian missile attacks in response to Israeli strikes.      The Israeli military continues to launch waves of strikes against Iranian military and nuclear sites, as well as major cities.   Updates:  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/6/13/live-explosions-reported-in-iran-amid-israel-tensions  

UNHINGED CNN, FOX War Propaganda After Iran Strikes

Breaking Points   Krystal and Saagar discuss unhinged war propaganda on mainstream media. 

War criminal Netanyahu is pushing the Orange Clown and the US into the abyss

globinfo freexchange   It seems that the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, is rushing to accelerate the decline of the US empire by forcing Donald Trump into an utterly devastating war with Iran.   Trump shot himself in the foot during his first term by killing the Iran nuclear deal just because he wanted to erase everything from the Obama legacy. His insane narcissism pushed him into crazy acts and made him believe that he could make another deal with Iran credited solely on him.   But now he is in big trouble because he has to deal with a corrupted psychopath who won't hesitate to burn the entire planet just to save himself.  As if the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza was not enough, the out-of-control psychopath Netanyahu, is doing whatever he can to drag the US into a war with Iran. As he realized that the Iranians are approaching the negotiating table again, (rather surprisingly with the man that killed the first deal and assassinated Qasem Soleimani), he decide...