Greek PM rule out a snap election via phone tapping scandal

Athens 27 August : Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has resisted opposition parties demands for a snap vote over the latest reports of the phone taping of one of the opposition leaders by the Greek National Intelligence Service (EYP).

"We will make it through this winter with each other," he said during the first plenary session of Parliament following the break for summer, Xinhua news agency reported.The conservative governments four-year mandate expires next summer.Ahead of time in July in July, the Greek leader accepted the resignation of the EYPs head as well as the secretary general of his office in the aftermath of reports that Nikos Androulakis, European Parliament member and president of the Movement for Change (KINAL) and the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) was being monitored in 2021.

In a statement on Friday, Mitsotakis reiterated that he was ignorant of the surveillance up until August and that it was "a legal matter however it was unacceptable in political grounds." He promised to reform the secret service, and he agreed to a parliamentary inquiry of the matter.

Concerning national security, Mitsotakis insisted that the motives behind the surveillance would not be openly disclosed.Androulakis has demanded full transparency about the reasons he was being monitored.int/sh.