For the second year in a row, Greece came last among EU countries in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2023 World Press Freedom Index, released Wednesday.
Greece now ranks 107th, right behind Qatar and Thailand, and performs worse than Niger, Lesotho and Haiti, the press freedom organization’s ranking shows.
The southeastern European country improved a place compared with last year, but its overall score slightly decreased to 55.2 out of 100, from 55.5 in 2022. Norway, Ireland, Denmark and Sweden are best-in-class, with scores ranging from 88 to over 95.
The main reasons for Greece’s lacklustre score include arbitrary surveillance of journalists by intelligence agencies using the Predator spyware — dubbed the “biggest press freedom violation in the European Union in 2022″ by RSF — but also government interference in media, abusive lawsuits and insufficient legal protections.
The 2021 murder of crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz was also never solved, the report says. Greece was already the worst among EU countries in 2022.
RSF’s Press Freedom Index ranks countries from 0 to 100 (the highest possible level of media freedom).
Greece’s conservative government (EPP) lashed again against Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Wednesday, branding them “unreliable” after the publication of a report ranking Greece the worst EU country when it comes to media freedom for a second consecutive year.
This sparked a furious reaction from the government, which continued a pattern of lashing out against the international media freedom advocacy organisation. In 2022 when similarly displeased with the less-than-stellar ranking, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis described the rankings as “crap”.
