In a sharp public statement, Maria Karystianou — president of the political party Elpida gia ti Dimokratia (Hope for Democracy) — has challenged Adonis Georgiadis, opening two lines of criticism: one concerning Greece’s potential veto power over the establishment of two new NATO strategic centers in Turkey, and another regarding Georgiadis’s recent remarks on the 2019 criminal code reforms and former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
NATO Strategic Centers in Turkey
Karystianou addressed the planned creation of two new NATO strategic headquarters in Turkey — one in Istanbul and the other in Adana. She argued that these centers would significantly bolster Turkey’s influence and strategic role in regions of critical importance to Greece. In doing so, she accused Georgiadis of ignorance regarding Greece’s right to exercise a veto in such matters within the alliance.
The 2019 Criminal Code Reforms
The second, and more weighty, part of her critique concerns the criminal code amendments passed in 2019 near the end of SYRIZA’s government. While Georgiadis had referenced the reclassification of bribery by a public official — downgraded from a felony to a misdemeanor — Karystianou stressed that he omitted other pivotal changes introduced in the reform.
She described several provisions as ‘targeted amendments’ and called for a full investigation into who benefited from them. Specifically, she pointed to legal clauses she claims led to the statute-of-limitations expiration of certain cases or eased acquittals for defendants.
Case of Nikos Georgiadis
Karystianou cited the case of Nikos Georgiadis — Adonis Georgiadis’s brother — who, she asserted, was acquitted due to statutory limitations triggered by the revised criminal code. She also highlighted a provision in the new Code of Criminal Procedure that, according to her, allowed the Supreme Court (Areios Pagos) to declare a case time-barred without requiring the appeal for annulment to be substantively justified.
A Call for Full Accountability
Karystianou concluded her statement with a demand for comprehensive scrutiny. She urged transparency on who stood to gain from the contested amendments to both the criminal code and the code of criminal procedure. Emphasizing democratic accountability, she insisted the Greek public deserves clarity on whose interests those legal changes served — and called on members of the parliamentary drafting committees to publicly clarify their positions.