By Edward Scicluna, Minister of Finance, Malta There is nothing more undignified than the sight of a bankrupt person begging for assistance. The contrasts between the cosy and sometimes sumptuous living before the event and the state of helplessness and destitution soon after are stark indeed. While generous persons may come forward to offer their […]

Την Τετάρτη, 20 Νοε 2013, στις 18.00, στην αίθουσα πολλαπλών χρήσεων του Δημαρχείου Θεσσαλονίκης το Πανελλήνιο Παρατηρητήριο Οργανώσεων της Κοινωνίας των Πολιτών και ο Ευρωπαϊκός Όμιλος Εδαφικής Συνεργασίας (ΕΟΕΣ) «ΕΥΞΕΙΝΗ ΠΟΛΗ – Δίκτυο Ευρωπαϊκών Πόλεων για τη Βιώσιμη Ανάπτυξη» με την υποστήριξη του Δήμου Θεσσαλονίκης, οργανώνει την, ανοικτή σε όλους, «Πανελλήνια Πλατφόρμα Ενεργών Πολιτών». Η […]

I recently found myself obliged to spend some time in a public hospital. Aside from the obvious benefits to my health, it was a most revealing experience. Ihave no complaints about my treatment. The rather negative opinion I had formed previously about this particular hospital, based largely on the impression of utter chaos and lack […]

By Konstantinos Bouas The ongoing administrative reform effort is one of the most critical issues of concern for administrative science in Greece.  Considering the longstanding structural weaknesses of the public administration, as well as the explicit commitments of the Greek State deriving from the Memorandum, it is easy to realize the urgency of immediate and effective […]

Tasoula Karaiskaki has a commentary out in this past Saturday’s Kathimerini English edition relative to the incidence of graffiti in downtown Thessaloniki, partly celebrating the centenial of the founding of Aris football club. This is a subject that has attracted a lot of commentary in the press and on the social media. Excerpts from the […]

Bit and pieces below from an essay by Nicco Mele in Salon on Anonymous and the threats of hacking to contemporary security. “Anonymous, untraceable private networks—the kind that can be built by technology like FabFi or Tor—are called ‘darknets,’ literally networks that exist in the shadows of the Internet. They are increasingly easy to build, […]

By Lydia Richards. Nailing down a definition of public and humanitarian service is difficult. It is one of those tricky phrases that means something different depending on the context in which it is examined. I think it is important to explore the implications of the definition, especially for me as an intern for an organization […]

The Dukakis Center hosted the inaugural Business  & Politics Forum in Thessaloniki last month. One of the speakers, Efi Stefopoulou of the General Secretariat of the Government, gave a standing room audience at the Elektra Palace Hotel a brilliant taste of what a truly competent public servant can do. Thankfully, she told her audience that […]

By Elizabeth B. Seliotes Bolling [Editor’s note: Politis welcomes Alaska-born Hellene Elizabeth B. Seliotes Bolling, who will contribute notes on the experience of a diaspora Greek during the crisis.] Being an American of Greek blood who grew up in Alaska but is living in Greece, I experience treatment from the older Greek generation that sometimes […]

By Christina Flora Immigrant children living in Greece made their case for citizenship on Feb. 27 at a news conference held at the offices of the Journalists’ Union of the Athens Daily Newspapers, under the title Citizenship for All Children. “We claim citizenship for all children. They are our children, children who live at the […]

SEQUESTRATION ORDER FOR FISCAL YEAR 2013 PURSUANT TO SECTION 251A OF THE BALANCED BUDGET AND EMERGENCY DEFICIT CONTROL ACT, AS AMENDED By the authority vested in me as President by the laws of the United States of America, and in accordance with section 251A of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, as amended […]

Politis is interested in citizen activism round the world, not only in Greece. We report here about an interesting article in Deutsche Welle on a grass roots initiative aiming to monitor the upcoming election in Kenya, using a platform developed by a company called Ushahidi. Ushahidi calls itself a “non-profit tech company that changes the […]

By Politis “A year in a word: Grexit,” runs the headline of this article in yesterday’s Financial Times. Coined in February 2012, when speculation on Greece’s fate in the eurozone was reaching frenzy, the term later spawned its very own progeny — the Brexit. Sounds like a very bad sequel to the Hobbit. What has […]

“To me, achieving a global classroom means using education to erase barriers between people of different cultures and backgrounds; it means giving people the opportunity to learn without the limits imposed by physical or socio-economic circumstances; and it means giving schools and instructors around the world the ability to transcend boundaries to bring high-quality education […]

A new academic year is beginning at the American College of Thessaloniki and the Dukakis Center is planning another banner year of events and public service initiatives. Politis caught up with Dr. David Wisner, Executive Director of the Dukakis Center, to get the inside story on the many events he has organized at ACT over […]

By David Wisner I have been on a quest over the past several months. I am looking for a vision of active citizenship suitable for our times. I admit to suffering from a bit of unease in this quest. In fact, the relative certitude I felt about the classic Anglo-Saxon model of public service I […]

The Guardian has an article today on the plight of a large number of disgruntled British civil servants. “Two-thirds of Britain’s most senior civil servants are so demoralised that they are considering leaving their jobs, according to the first survey of mandarins to be conducted since the coalition’s reform plans were published,” they write. The […]

Ezra Klein spoke with Desmond Lachman of the American Enterprise Institute about the crisis of the eurozone, and recorded their conversation in his Washington Post Wonkblog. When asked about the political dimension of the crisis in southern Europe, Lachman replied: “My view is that what you’re seeing already is the politics coming unstuck in a […]

Speaking recently in Ankara at a Greco-Turkish forum dedicated to tourism, the current mayor of Thessaloniki, Ioannis Boutaris, suggested that he felt a feeling of kinship with Turks, acknowledging among other things the important monuments in his city dating from the Ottoman occupation of Greece. “I feel myself to be a brother with the Turks, […]