"text":"Greece achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1830. During the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, it gradually added neighboring islands and territories, most with Greek-speaking populations. In World War II, Greece was first invaded by Italy (1940) and subsequently occupied by Germany (1941-44); fighting endured in a protracted civil war between supporters of the king and other anti-communist and communist rebels. Following the latter's defeat in 1949, Greece joined NATO in 1952. In 1967, a group of military officers seized power, establishing a military dictatorship that suspended many political liberties and forced the king to flee the country. In 1974 following the collapse of the dictatorship, democratic elections and a referendum created a parliamentary republic and abolished the monarchy. In 1981, Greece joined the EC (now the EU); it became the 12th member of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in 2001. Greece has suffered a severe economic crisis since late 2009, due to nearly a decade of chronic overspending and structural rigidities.Beginning in2010, Greece entered three bailout agreements - with the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB), the IMF, andthe third in 2015 withthe European Stability Mechanism (ESM) - worth in total about $300 billion. The Greek Government formally exited the third bailout in August 2018."
"text":"note: Mount Olympus actually has 52 peaks but its highest point, Mytikas (meaning \"nose\"), rises to 2,917 meters; in Greek mythology, Olympus' Mytikas peak was the home of the Greek gods"
"text":"one-third of the population lives in and around metropolitan Athens; the remainder of the country has moderate population density mixed with sizeable urban clusters"
"text":"severe earthquakes ++ volcanism: Santorini (367 m) has been deemed a Decade Volcano by the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior, worthy of study due to its explosive history and close proximity to human populations; although there have been very few eruptions in recent centuries, Methana and Nisyros in the Aegean are classified as historically active"
"text":"air pollution; air emissions from transport and electricity power stations; water pollution; degradation of coastal zones; loss of biodiversity in terrestrial and marine ecosystems; increasing municipal and industrial waste"
"text":"Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Sulfur 94, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands"
},
"signed, but not ratified":{
"text":"Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds"
}
},
"Geography - note":{
"text":"strategic location dominating the Aegean Sea and southern approach to Turkish Straits; a peninsular country, possessing an archipelago of about 2,000 islands"
"text":"one-third of the population lives in and around metropolitan Athens; the remainder of the country has moderate population density mixed with sizeable urban clusters"
"text":"the English name derives from the Roman (Latin) designation \"Graecia,\" meaning \"Land of the Greeks\"; the Greeks call their country \"Hellas\" or \"Ellada\""
"text":"etymology: Athens is the oldest European capital city; according to tradition, the city is named after Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom; in actuality, the appellation probably derives from a lost name in a pre-Hellenic language"
"text":"3 February 1830 (from the Ottoman Empire); note - 25 March 1821, outbreak of the national revolt against the Ottomans; 3 February 1830, signing of the London Protocol recognizing Greek independence by Great Britain, France, and Russia"
"text":"proposed by at least 50 members of Parliament and agreed by three-fifths majority vote in two separate ballots at least 30 days apart; passage requires absolute majority vote by the next elected Parliament; entry into force finalized through a \"special parliamentary resolution\"; articles on human rights and freedoms and the form of government cannot be amended; amended 1986, 2001, 2008"
"text":"president elected by Hellenic Parliament for a 5-year term (eligible for a second term); election last held on22 January 2020(next to be held by February 2025); president appoints as prime minister the leader of the majority party or coalition in the Hellenic Parliament"
"text":"Katerina SAKELLAROPOULOU(independent) elected president by Parliament - 261 of 300 votes; note - SAKELLAROPOULOUis Greece's first woman president"
"text":"unicameral Hellenic Parliament or Vouli ton Ellinon (300 seats; 280 members in multi-seat constituencies and 12 members in a single nationwide constituency directly elected by open party-list proportional representation vote; 8 members in single-seat constituencies elected by simple majority vote; members serve up to 4 years); note - only parties surpassing a 3% threshold are entitled to parliamentary seats; parties need 10 seats to become formal parliamentary groups but can retain that status if the party participated in the last election and received the minimum 3% threshold"
"text":"percent of vote by party - ND 39.9%, SYRIZA 31.5%, KINAL 8.1%, KKE 5.3%, Greek Solution 3.7%, MeRA25 3.4%, other 8.1%; seats by party - ND 158, SYRIZA 86, KINAL 22, KKE 15, Greek Solution 10, MeRA25 9; composition - men 244, women 56, percent of women 18.7%"
"text":"Supreme Civil and Criminal Court or Areios Pagos (consists of 56 judges, including the court presidents); Council of State (supreme administrative court) (consists of the president, 7 vice presidents, 42 privy councilors, 48 associate councilors and 50 reporting judges, organized into six 5- and 7-member chambers; Court of Audit (government audit and enforcement) consists of the president, 5 vice presidents, 20 councilors, and 90 associate and reporting judges"
"text":"Supreme Court judges appointed by presidential decree on the advice of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), which includes the president of the Supreme Court, other judges, and the prosecutor of the Supreme Court; judges appointed for life following a 2-year probationary period; Council of State president appointed by the Greek Cabinet to serve a 4-year term; other judge appointments and tenure NA; Court of Audit president appointed by decree of the president of the republic on the advice of the SJC; court president serves a 4-year term or until age 67; tenure of vice presidents, councilors, and judges NA"
"text":"Anticapitalist Left Cooperation for the Overthrow or ANTARSYA [collective leadership] ++ Coalition of the Radical Left or SYRIZA [Alexios (Alexis) TSIPRAS] ++ Communist Party of Greece or KKE [Dimitrios KOUTSOUMBAS] ++ Democratic Left or DIMAR [Athanasios (Thanasis) THEOCHAROPOULOS] ++ European Realistic Disobedience Front or MeRA25 [Yanis VAROUFAKIS] ++ Greek Solution [Kyriakos VELOPOULOS] ++ Independent Greeks or ANEL [Panagiotis (Panos) KAMMENOS] ++ Movement for Change or KINAL[Foteini (Fofi) GENIMMATA] ++ New Democracy or ND [Kyriakos MITSOTAKIS] ++ People's Association-Golden Dawn [Nikolaos MICHALOLIAKOS] ++ Popular Unity or LAE [Panagiotis LAFAZANIS] ++ The River (To Potami) [Stavros THEODORAKIS] ++ Union of Centrists or EK [Vasileios (Vasilis) LEVENTIS]"
"text":"nine equal horizontal stripes of blue alternating with white; a blue square bearing a white cross appears in the upper hoist-side corner; the cross symbolizes Greek Orthodoxy, the established religion of the country; there is no agreed upon meaning for the nine stripes or for the colors",
"note":{
"text":"note: Greek legislation states that the flag colors are cyan and white, but cyan can mean \"blue\" in Greek, so the exact shade of blue has never been set and has varied from a light to a dark blue over time; in general, the hue of blue normally encountered is a form of azure"
"text":"note: adopted 1864; the anthem is based on a 158-stanza poem by the same name, which was inspired by the Greek Revolution of 1821 against the Ottomans (only the first two stanzas are used); Cyprus also uses \"Hymn to Liberty\" as its anthem"
"text":"Greece has a capitalist economy with a public sector accounting for about 40% of GDP and with per capita GDP about two-thirds that of the leading euro-zone economies. Tourism provides 18% of GDP. Immigrants make up nearly one-fifth of the work force, mainly in agricultural and unskilled jobs. Greece is a major beneficiary of EU aid, equal to about 3.3% of annual GDP. ++ The Greek economy averaged growth of about 4% per year between 2003 and 2007, but the economy went into recession in 2009 as a result of the world financial crisis, tightening credit conditions, and Athens' failure to address a growing budget deficit. By 2013, the economy had contracted 26%, compared with the pre-crisis level of 2007. Greece met the EU's Growth and Stability Pact budget deficit criterion of no more than 3% of GDP in 2007-08, but violated it in 2009, when the deficit reached 15% of GDP. Deteriorating public finances, inaccurate and misreported statistics, and consistent underperformance on reforms prompted major credit rating agencies to downgrade Greece's international debt rating in late 2009 and led the country into a financial crisis. Under intense pressure from the EU and international market participants, the government accepted a bailout program that called on Athens to cut government spending, decrease tax evasion, overhaul the civil-service, health-care, and pension systems, and reform the labor and product markets. Austerity measures reduced the deficit to 1.3% in 2017. Successive Greek governments, however, failed to push through many of the most unpopular reforms in the face of widespread political opposition, including from the country's powerful labor unions and the general public. ++ In April 2010, a leading credit agency assigned Greek debt its lowest possible credit rating, and in May 2010, the IMF and euro-zone governments provided Greece emergency short- and medium-term loans worth $147 billion so that the country could make debt repayments to creditors. Greece, however, struggled to meet the targets set by the EU and the IMF, especially after Eurostat - the EU's statistical office - revised upward Greece's deficit and debt numbers for 2009 and 2010. European leaders and the IMF agreed in October 2011 to provide Athens a second bailout package of $169 billion. The second deal called for holders of Greek government bonds to write down a significant portion of their holdings to try to alleviate Greece's government debt burden. However, Greek banks, saddled with a significant portion of sovereign debt, were adversely affected by the write down and $60 billion of the second bailout package was set aside to ensure the banking system was adequately capitalized. ++ In 2014, the Greek economy began to turn the corner on the recession. Greece achieved three significant milestones: balancing the budget - not including debt repayments; issuing government debt in financial markets for the first time since 2010; and generating 0.7% GDP growth — the first economic expansion since 2007. ++ Despite the nascent recovery, widespread discontent with austerity measures helped propel the far-left Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) party into government in national legislative elections in January 2015. Between January and July 2015, frustrations grew between the SYRIZA-led government and Greece's EU and IMF creditors over the implementation of bailout measures and disbursement of funds. The Greek government began running up significant arrears to suppliers, while Greek banks relied on emergency lending, and Greece's future in the euro zone was called into question. To stave off a collapse of the banking system, Greece imposed capital controls in June 2015, then became the first developed nation to miss a loan payment to the IMF, rattling international financial markets. Unable to reach an agreement with creditors, Prime Minister Alexios TSIPRAS held a nationwide referendum on 5 July on whether to accept the terms of Greece's bailout, campaigning for the ultimately successful \"no\"vote.TheTSIPRASgovernmentsubsequen
"text":"good mobile telephone and international services; 3 mobile network operators; broadband penetration developing steadily despiterough economic conditions; plans to repurpose 3G network for LTE and 5G by 2022 (2020)"
"text":"microwave radio relay trunk system; extensive open-wire connections; submarine cable to offshore islands; 48 per 100 for fixed-line and 114 per 100 for mobile-cellular (2019)"
"text":"country code - 30; landing points for the SEA-ME-WE-3, Adria-1, Italy-Greece 1, OTEGLOBE, MedNautilus Submarine System, Aphrodite 2, AAE-1and Silphium optical telecommunications submarine cable that provides links to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, Asia and Australia; tropospheric scatter; satellite earth stations - 4 (2 Intelsat - 1 Atlantic Ocean and 1 Indian Ocean, 1 Eutelsat, and 1 Inmarsat - Indian Ocean region) (2019)"
},
"note":{
"text":"note: the COVID-19 outbreak is negatively impacting telecommunications production and supply chains globally; consumer spending on telecom devices and services has also slowed due to the pandemic's effect on economies worldwide; overall progress towards improvements in all facets of the telecom industry - mobile, fixed-line, broadband, submarine cable and satellite - has moderated"
"text":"broadcast media dominated by the private sector; roughly 150 private TV channels, about 10 of which broadcast nationwide; 1 government-owned terrestrial TV channel with national coverage; 3 privately owned satellite channels; multi-channel satellite and cable TV services available; upwards of 1,500 radio stations, all of them privately owned; government-owned broadcaster has 2 national radio stations"
"text":"Hellenic Armed Forces: Hellenic Army (Ellinikos Stratos, ES; includes National Guard reserves), Hellenic Navy (Elliniko Polemiko Navtiko, EPN), Hellenic Air Force (Elliniki Polemiki Aeroporia, EPA; includes air defense) (2019)"
},
"Military expenditures":{
"text":"2.28% of GDP (2019 est.) / 2.48% of GDP (2018) / 2.34% of GDP (2017) / 2.38% of GDP (2016) / 2.3% of GDP (2015)"
},
"Military and security service personnel strengths":{
"text":"the Hellenic Armed Forces have approximately 141,000 active duty personnel (90,000 Army; 16,000 Navy; 25,000 Air Force; 10,000 joint service, support, staff); approximately 35,000 National Guard (2019 est.)"
},
"Military equipment inventories and acquisitions":{
"text":"the inventory of the Hellenic Armed Forces consists mostly of a mix of imported weapons from Europe and the US, as well as a limited number of domestically produced systems, particularly naval vessels; Germany is the leading supplier of weapons systems to Greece since 2010, followed by France and the US; Greece's defense industry is capable of producing naval vessels and associated subsystems (2019 est.)"
"text":"19-45 years of age for compulsory military service; during wartime the law allows for recruitment beginning January of the year of inductee's 18th birthday, thus including 17 year olds; 18 years of age for volunteers; conscript service obligation is 1 year for the Army and 9 months for the Air Force and Navy; women are eligible for voluntary military service (2014)"
"text":"note: details about the history, aims, leadership, organization, areas of operation, tactics, targets, weapons, size, and sources of support of the group(s) appear(s) in Appendix-T"
"text":"Greece and Turkey continue discussions to resolve their complex maritime, air, territorial, and boundary disputes in the Aegean Sea; the mass migration of unemployed Albanians still remains a problem for developed countries, chiefly Greece and Italy"
"text":"note: 1,203,437 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-November 2020); as of the end of December 2019, an estimated 112,300 migrants and refugees were stranded in Greece since 2015-16; 50,215 migrant arrivals in 2018"
"text":"a gateway to Europe for traffickers smuggling cannabis and heroin from the Middle East and Southwest Asia to the West and precursor chemicals to the East; some South American cocaine transits or is consumed in Greece; money laundering related to drug trafficking and organized crime"
