EU MP Asimakopoulou sent election advertising to Greeks abroad without being asked. He obtained the email addresses from the Home Office.

Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou in Chalkida, Greece, on January 12, 2019 Photo: Wassilis Aswestopoulos/imago

ATHENS taz | His motto is lofty: “In the European Parliament, for a Greece of confidence and pride.” That's what she still says on her home page. But the trust placed in them no longer exists.

Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou, 57, studied Law and Economics and was a member of the European Parliament from the beginning of July 2019 to the end of April 2024 for the conservative New Democracy (ND) party, which is the only one that governs Athens. There she attracted attention, among other things, with concise statements on refugee and migration policy such as: “We must finally put an end to the smugglers who make a lot of money.”

Now the hardliners, who are part of his party's right wing, have become the center of a political scandal. What the Greek media quickly dubbed the “email gate.” It is spreading in ever-widening circles and once again shines an extremely bad light on the Athens government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Campaigning for a second term in the EU Parliament

Specifically, the case refers to the leak of personal data of voters who dubiously fell into the hands of Asimakopoulou. Asimakopoulou sent unexpected election emails to Greek voters living abroad ahead of the June 9 European elections. His objective: to promote themselves and the ND in order to be re-elected for a second term in the European Parliament. The procedure represents a clear violation of the EU regulation on privacy protection.

The clamor among the voters to whom the Greek politician addressed was great. They complained vehemently in the Greek media and on the Internet that they had never given Asimakopoulou his email addresses, much less given him consent to write to them ahead of the European elections.

Public pressure in Greece

Asimakopoulou only revealed after mounting public pressure in Greece how he obtained the voters' personal data: the Athens Ministry of the Interior had provided him with the email addresses. We are talking about several thousand email addresses that are said to have fallen into the hands of Asimakopoulou.

The case triggered a wave of lawsuits. According to Greek media reports, 230 lawsuits with money demands of 20,000 euros each have been filed against the Greek State and the Athens Ministry of the Interior. In addition, those affected have filed 75 lawsuits against Asimakopoulou personally. They also demand 20,000 euros from each one. In total, this represents monetary claims to date amounting to more than six million euros.

Prime Minister Mitsotakis under pressure to act

Prime Minister Mitsotakis was forced to pull the opening cord. Asimakopoulou, who has headed the ND's digital, telecommunications and information policy working group since November 2016, will not run in the European elections. Furthermore, both the secretary general of the Ministry of the Interior, Michalis Stavrianoudakis, and the ND official responsible for Greeks abroad, Nikos Theodoropoulos, had to resign. Both are close confidants of Prime Minister Mitsotakis.

The case is being investigated by the Athens Data Protection Authority and an investigation by the prosecutor has also been opened. While the case has sparked a heated debate about data protection and political transparency in Greece, another dubious incident has now occurred: last Friday, unknown persons broke into the office of the electoral directorate of the Ministry of the Interior in Athens. It is unclear whether this mysterious theft is related to the “email gate.” Additionally, it is not known if any material was stolen during the robbery and, if so, what.

One thing is certain: Athens' opposition is furious, especially as Mitsotakis clings firmly to his Interior Minister Niki Kerameos. He no longer trusts the Mitsotakis government to ensure clean processes with a view to postal voting that will be possible for Greek voters for the first time in the upcoming European elections.

The background to this is that 202,556 Greek voters registered to vote by mail on the Internet platform created especially for this purpose by the Athens Ministry of the Interior at the end of the corresponding deadline on Tuesday evening. 49,234 Greek postal voters live in a total of 127 countries outside Greece, the rest in Greece.

This is not the first time that the Mitsotakis government has found itself in the crosshairs over data protection and privacy. In the spring of 2022, a gigantic wiretapping scandal came to light in Athens. More than a hundred politicians, businessmen, soldiers and media professionals were allegedly spied on by the Greek secret service EYP. The infamous Predator spyware is said to have been used.

Ironically, Mitsotakis brought the EYP directly under his control in one of his first official acts immediately after taking office in Athens on July 8, 2019. The Athens prosecutor's office involved has yet to achieve any results in its investigations, at least two years after the scandal became known. Additionally: digital traces were erased.