Greece: Government

Principal Government Officials

Chief of State: President Karolos Papoulias
Head of Government: Prime Minister

Greece is a parliamentary republic and last amended its constitution in May 2008. There are three branches of government. The executive includes the president, who is head of state, and the prime minister, who is head of government. There is a 300-seat unicameral "Vouli" (legislature). The judicial branch includes a Supreme Court. Greece is implementing a program (“Kallikratis”) that reorganized and consolidated its system of local governments into 13 regional districts and 325 municipalities. Suffrage is universal at 18.

Domestic Terrorism
Greece has recently confronted an upsurge in domestic terrorism after successfully dismantling groups that had been active from the 1970s to the early 2000s. In the summer of 2002, Greek authorities captured numerous suspected members of the terrorist group "November 17." In 2003, 15 members of the terrorist organization, which since 1975 had killed many prominent Greeks and five U.S. Mission employees, were found guilty and convicted of a number of crimes, including homicide. In 2007, an appellate court acquitted two of the defendants, but otherwise largely upheld the results of the initial trial, leaving the leadership of the defunct group serving multiple life sentences and others serving long prison terms. The defendants exhausted their appeals in the Greek legal system in 2010.

On January 12, 2007, terrorists fired a rocket-propelled grenade that struck the U.S. Embassy. The terrorist group Revolutionary Struggle later claimed responsibility for the act. Revolutionary Struggle also claimed responsibility for a number of other attacks on Greek officials, police, financial institutions, and other targets. In April 2010, police arrested six suspected members of Revolutionary Struggle, and discovered hideouts containing bombs, rocket launchers, attack plans, and other evidence connected with the group. An additional new group, Sect of Revolutionaries, has claimed responsibility for shooting attacks on police, including the murder of an anti-terrorist unit officer in June 2009, as well as the murder of a Greek journalist in July 2010. A domestic terrorist group called Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei has claimed responsibility for a number of bomb attacks of varying size. Two suspects believed to be connected to the group were arrested for taking part in an October 2010 attack designed to send over a dozen parcel bombs to foreign embassies in Athens and political leaders in Europe. Unknown domestic terrorists carried out bomb attacks that killed a 15-year-old Afghan immigrant boy in March 2010 and an aide to the Minister of Citizen Protection in June 2010.

FOREIGN RELATIONS
Greece's foreign policy is generally aligned with that of its EU partners. Greece maintains full diplomatic, political, and economic relations with its Southeast European neighbors, except with the Republic of Macedonia (see below), and has played an important role as a leader of the region's Euro-Atlantic integration process. It provides peacekeeping and training contingents for Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Prominent issues in Greek foreign policy include Balkan integration and the name dispute with Macedonia, Greek-Turkish differences in the Aegean, the reunification of Cyprus, illegal migration, Turkish accession to the EU, regional energy development, Middle East relations, international peacekeeping operations, and Greek-American relations.

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