From a horror to a terror by John Kato

Once again, Greece finds itself in the headlines not for progress or principle, but for the same tragic farce it has been playing on repeat for over a decade. After being forced to resign under the crushing weight of a scandal involving the mishandling (read: potential embezzlement) of EU subsidies, Makis Voridis, a man whose career has been built on xenophobia wrapped in a polished suit, has been replaced. But not with a fresh face or reformist voice. No. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has, in his now well-established fashion, doubled down. The new Immigration Minister is none other than Thanos Plevris.

The man whose political legacy is shadowed by his own father, Konstantinos Plevris, a man convicted and well-known for his open Nazi sympathies. A man who once said in an interview that migrants crossing the Aegean should be shot. And this isn’t some long-buried quote from youthful indiscretion. This was a man in full adulthood, a member of the Greek Parliament speaking with chilling conviction.

Let’s not pretend for a moment that this is coincidence or naivety. This is a conscious, political choice by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a man who, when pushed against the wall by scandal, reaches not for ethics or leadership, but for the darkest parts of the far-right playbook. One might argue that Mitsotakis’ cabinet is beginning to resemble a recycling center for authoritarian ideologues. First Voridis, a man who once belonged to a fascist youth organization and never convincingly disavowed his past. Now Plevris, a man who should have been politically exiled long ago, were Greece’s democratic institutions and media held to any sort of consistent moral compass.

But Greece isn’t alone in this grotesque dance. What makes this particular move all the more appalling is that it comes at a time when the European Union is under increasing pressure to account for its own complicity in border abuses, pushbacks, and the quiet criminalization of asylum seeking. And Greece, positioned on the EU’s southeastern flank, has become the testing ground for just how far “liberal democracies” can push the boundaries of inhumanity before anyone blinks.

Under Mitsotakis’ administration, we’ve witnessed systematic pushbacks in the Aegean  condemned by human rights organizations, documented by journalists, but always denied with a cynical smile by government officials. It’s become routine now: deny, deflect, dehumanize. And when international media catches on? Appoint someone even worse to send a message.

Let’s be absolutely clear: appointing Thanos Plevris as Immigration Minister is not just tone-deaf, it is calculated. It signals to the base that “we’re still tough on migrants.” It signals to Brussels that Mitsotakis isn’t afraid of your condemnations so long as the EU cash keeps flowing. And it signals to every refugee, asylum-seeker, or humanitarian worker that their lives and values are expendable props in a nationalist theater.

Some might call this hyperbole. But ask yourself: if a politician who openly advocated for the shooting of migrants were appointed to high office in Germany, or France, or the Netherlands, how would we respond? There would be immediate diplomatic backlash. And yet in Greece, a country still bearing the scars of military dictatorship, still struggling with institutional rot, we’re expected to swallow this as business as usual.

This isn't just about policy. This is about the moral trajectory of a country whose government has chosen fear over facts, cruelty over compassion, and ideology over integrity. Thanos Plevris' appointment isn’t just a symptom of Greek politics. It is a diagnosis.

And Mitsotakis? He is not a technocrat. He is not a moderate. He is not the neoliberal golden boy Athens elites so desperately want him to be. He is the enabler-in-chief. The man who, when handed the tools to build something new, reaches instead for the rusted weapons of Europe’s ugliest past.

The question for Greeks now is not whether this government will change course. It won’t. The question is whether society will find the courage to confront what its leadership has become: a machine fueled by propaganda, wrapped in the flag, and driven by the ghosts of ideologies that should have died in the last century.

Until then, Greece’s Ministry of Migration may as well hang a new plaque outside its doors: Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter.