Parliament rejects surveillance probe

PASOK person Nikos Androulakis speaks successful Parliament. [AMNA]

After a stormy parliamentary league that signaled mounting governmental tensions successful Greece, lawmakers connected Friday rejected a PASOK connection to found an investigative committee into telephone surveillance allegations.

The connection failed aft 155 lawmakers voted against it. Only six voted successful favor.

The statement opened successful an explosive ambiance aft ruling New Democracy lawmaker Makis Voridis argued that due to the fact that the contented progressive the National Intelligence Service, oregon EYP, and so matters of “national defence oregon overseas policy,” the connection required astatine slightest 151 affirmative votes to pass.

Opposition parties, led by PASOK, reacted sharply. 

They argued that parliamentary rules and the revised Constitution let the absorption to successfully petition an investigative committee with support from astatine slightest 120 lawmakers.

Opposition parties besides noted that successful 2022, when a committee examining the aforesaid contented was established, the authorities had not raised the contented of an enhanced bulk request connected nationalist information grounds.

Voridis and Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis responded that nary caller grounds had emerged since then to warrant different investigation. 

They besides argued that the government’s earlier determination not to request an enhanced bulk did not make a ineligible precedent.

Opposition leaders intensified their disapproval of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis earlier announcing they would withdraw from the process, saying they would not legitimize what they described arsenic a “parliamentary coup” and an “institutional deviation.”

“The halfway enactment of EYP concerns nationalist defence and overseas policy,” Voridis said.

“Parliament tin determine connected such oversight, but it will bash so with the bulk defined by the Constitution,” helium stressed.

PASOK person Nikos Androulakis accused the authorities of “abusing ideology to support power.” SYRIZA person Sokratis Famellos warned, “We will marque your lives unbearable.”

Communist Party person Dimitris Koutsoumbas accused the authorities of routinely covering up scandals.

Voridis defended the quality service, saying EYP remained “critical for the country” and indispensable to nationalist security.