Opposition parties demand probe into links between a PR company and the New Democracy party of PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
By Nektaria Stamouli
May 1, 2025
ATHENS — Greece’s opposition parties are demanding an investigation into the government’s ties to a politically connected communications company that they link to shadow financing and online propaganda for the ruling New Democracy party.
The questions about the role of the PR company focus on a host of top New Democracy officials and close associates of center-right Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis — including Thanasis Bakolas, outgoing secretary general of the European People’s Party, the pan-EU grouping of center-right parties.
The little-known communications company at the heart of the political furor is called Blue Skies, and was founded by Thomas Varvitsiotis, the son and brother of former New `Democracy ministers, and Yiannis Olympios.
Blue Skies is an offshoot of the far better known V+O agency, which represents some of Greece’s biggest businesses. It was founded in 2003 with V+O as a shareholder and Varvitsiotis and Olympios as board members. At the time, it shared the same headquarters as V+O.
The opposition’s main allegation is that Blue Skies employed high-profile New Democracy officials as a form of undisclosed political funding and that some 15 of the agency’s employees engaged in social media trolling to promote Mitsotakis’ interests, including attacking the families of victims of the country’s worst rail disaster in 2023. The government denies any link to the agency.
Opposition wants answers
The main opposition center-left Pasok party is demanding “answers about the activities of this company and the links between New Democracy, a propaganda machine and private companies, between which, according to publications, black political money seems to be produced and channelled.”
“After so many revelations, we expect the immediate intervention of the competent judicial authorities,” the party said in a statement on Tuesday.
Opposition Syriza MEP Kostas Arvanitis called on EU Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath and the European Parliament “to act accordingly in order to restore the confidence of Greek citizens in the democratic process.”
New Left MP Nasos Iliopoulos complained: “The evidence raises reasonable suspicions that public funding is being used to sustain the government’s propaganda, in flagrant violation of the Constitution and the laws on transparency of political money. This is an extreme institutional aberration that undermines democracy.”
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