ABTTF President: “Our country, Greece, reaffirms its ‘‘unwavering commitment’’ to democratic values, institutions and the rule of law. However, there is a significant discrepancy between this rhetoric on the international stage and the domestic practices’’.
In a message issued to mark International Day of Democracy on 15 September, the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed Greece’s “unwavering commitment” to the protection of democratic values and institutions and the rule of law.
The Ministry stipulated that democracy is one of the guiding principles of Greece’s foreign policy and of its membership of the United Nations Security Council for the 2025–2026 term, noting that democratic principles continue to shape Greece’s multilateral activities and its contribution to international efforts to safeguard global peace and security.
“Our country, Greece, reaffirms its ‘‘unwavering commitment’’ to democratic values, institutions and the rule of law. However, there is a significant discrepancy between this rhetoric on the international stage and the domestic practices. The European Commission’s 2026 Rule of Law Report also highlights that problems persist in our country regarding the length of judicial proceedings, the limited number of prosecutions and final judgments in corruption cases, the protection of journalists and the scope of civil society’s activities. According to the report, as of 17 June 2026, there are 40 landmark European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments pending execution in our country. Moreover, the oldest of these are the judgments in the Bekir-Ousta and Others group of cases, which are directly related to the freedom of association of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace and have been awaiting execution for 18 years. On the one hand, declaring democracy and the rule of law as the guiding principles of foreign policy, whilst on the other hand failing to execute the binding judgments of Europe’s highest human rights court for years, constitutes, to put it simply, a contradiction. Commitment to democracy and the rule of law gains meaning not through messages delivered on international platforms, but through the genuine, rather than merely nominal, safeguarding of everyone’s rights and freedoms within the country. Our expectation of our country is that it will fully implement these values, which it claims to uphold, for the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace as well”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of the Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
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