Greece’s politics were dominated by renewed mobilisation over the 2023 Tempi rail disaster and by the Payment and Control Agency for Guidance and Guarantee Community Aid (OPEKEPE) agricultural subsidies scandal. The government survived a March no-confidence vote but faced sustained pressure over accountability, rule-of-law concerns and corruption. Konstantinos Tasoulas, New Democracy’s former President of the Parliament, was elected President of the Republic in February, while a March Cabinet reshuffle brought Kyriakos Pierrakakis to the Finance Ministry; in December he was elected Eurogroup President. The opposition remained fragmented. PASOK-KINAL retained its main opposition status but failed to capitalise decisively, SYRIZA continued to decline, and Alexis Tsipras resigned his parliamentary seat amid return speculation. Seismic activity on Santorini, a destructive wildfire season, a controversial labour law allowing 13-hour workdays under certain conditions, farmers’ blockades and persistent cost-of-living pressures reinforced a broader picture of governmental turbulence. By year-end, opinion polls pointed to a potential ungovernability scenario after the next parliamentary elections.

This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of morbidity and mortality in Dalmatian Pelican Pelecanus crispus and Great White Pelican P. onocrotalus in Greece. Data were collected over a 24-year period (1998–2021), using specific questionnaires to highlight the temporospatial, age and aetiological causes of morbidity and mortality to advance conservation efforts. Overall, 316 incidents of morbidity/mortality and 23 mass mortality events were recorded while the two species differed significantly in all parameters of morbidity/mortality. Annual rate of mortality was higher in Dalmatian Pelican (44.5 deaths per annum) than the Great White Pelican (2.4 deaths per annum). Dalmatian Pelican mortality tended to occur more during late winter/early spring and late summer/autumn, while Great White Pelican mortality occurred during autumn, matching with the presence of pre-migratory concentrations and migration. Dalmatian Pelican tended to be found dead in areas where pelicans congregated (e.g. colonies, feeding, wintering) while Great White Pelican were equally found in both areas with and without pelican congregations. A total of 30% of Great White Pelican mortality/morbidity happened in south Greece away from pelican areas and along the migration route whilst adult Dalmatian Pelicans and juvenile Great White Pelicans were the prevalent age groups. In Dalmatian Pelicans, 70% of mortality accumulated in the mass mortality events, while the sympatric Great White Pelican was unaffected during these events. Dalmatian Pelican mortality was mostly attributed to environmental (biotoxin) and infectious (viral/avian influenza) causes, while Great White Pelican mostly to anthropogenic (trauma/illegal shooting). Specific causes in Dalmatian Pelican mortality showed significant seasonal variation with viral causes in spring, biotoxin and entrapment in autumn, and illegal shooting and emaciation in winter. In Great White Pelicans, illegal shooting tended to occur in spring. A total of 25% of rescued Dalmatian Pelicans were released. Limitations of this study were that only 1% of the dead pelicans underwent a veterinary post-mortem investigation, in 26% of the dead pelicans the cause was completely unknown, the sex was not determined, and the age remained unidentified in a high percentage (43-46%) of individuals. In future, more veterinary input and a national preparedness plan for mass mortality events are needed.

‘Constantly commending Hellas’ is a metaphorical expression coined by Mao Zedong to label Soviet-backed party rivals as ‘philhellenic’ during the 1941 party purge, reinforcing his leadership under the guise of the Sinification of Marxism. Following the communist conquest of China in 1949, the metaphor remained central to debates over ‘Westernization versus Sinification’. It highlights tensions between philhellenism and mishellenism and provides a valuable lens to explore the intersection of classical reception and modern Chinese thought. This article traces ‘Hellenomania’ in China from the mid-19th-century colonial period to the post-Mao era and addresses issues of nationalism, ideological interpretation and intellectual autonomy. It argues that ‘Hellenomania’, which served as a historical resource for China’s transition from a dynastic empire to a nation-state, has its roots in the intellectual tendency to view Euro-American modernity as descended from classical antiquity. Through five case studies of phil- or mishellenists, including Liang Qichao (1873–1929), Mao Zedong (1893–1976), Xiao Jun (1907–1988), Gu Zhun (1915–1974) and Lin Zhichun (1910–2007), the article explores their roles within the frameworks of classical reception and intellectual history.

This article contextualizes the unique display of two colossal Roman copies of Hellenistic sculptures at the lavish villa of Herodes Atticus at Loukou, located in Arcadia (Peloponnese, Greece). The estate at Loukou is notable for its extensive decorative program, including elaborate mosaics and a large sculpture collection that juxtaposed bespoke copies of famous works with others that were already antiquities at the time of their display in the 2nd c. CE. Both sculptural compositions discussed here belong to the former category and depict two mythological figures in interlocking arrangements (symplegma). The choice of these two sculptures and their unique display at Loukou reflects the preferences of their patron: the sophist, politician, and cosmopolitan benefactor Herodes Atticus. This paper argues that the two paired colossal groups formed the crux of Herodes’s custom decorative program at Loukou, where he fostered elite discourse around themes of conflict and loss.

This article examines the role of children’s homes in socialist Czechoslovakia as temporary humanitarian spaces for child refugees fleeing the Greek Civil War (1946–1949) or the Korean War (1950–1953). It challenges the conventional ideological framing of socialist residential care as a tool of social engineering. Instead, it examines the everyday agency of refugee children, as manifest through their experience of space and time. The analysis draws on archival materials, oral interviews, and refugee literature to illuminate the personal choices and coping strategies of these children in the context of socialist education. The refugee children’s homes are conceptualized as socially constructed spaces that required a healthy political and physical environment for the children’s presumed successful development. By situating these facilities geographically and spatially and contextualizing them historically within a broader continuum of care, the analysis elucidates the underlying issues associated with the postwar reconstruction process.

This study aims to analyze how two popular television series, Famagusta (produced in Greece) and Bir Zamanlar Kıbrıs (Once Upon a Time in Cyprus, produced in Turkey), reflect the political approaches of Greece and Turkey toward the Cyprus issue. Television series are often powerful media for national narrative building, and both Famagusta and Bir Zamanlar Kıbrıs series demonstrate the ways historical events are selectively portrayed to reinforce contemporary political perspectives regarding Cyprus. Beyond simply retelling historical events, both series are used to reflect the ongoing efforts of Greece and Turkey to assert rights over Cyprus, a geopolitically significant island with a complex colonial past. This study will analyze how these series engage in narrative framing to legitimize national claims over a distant territory, using television series as a medium for both national narratives and colonial continuity. The study will explore the underlying messages, rhetorical tools, and symbolic elements that each series uses to shape the public perception about the Cyprus issue, drawing on concepts from media studies and international relations.

In a time of polycrisis, internal contestation, and strained transatlantic relations, European identity is timelier and more relevant than ever. Do EU public policies operating in a multilevel governance system contribute to European identity-building, and what can jeopardise the process of identity formation at the level of policy elites? The article adopts a social constructivist and discursive approach and brings to the fore the lacking process of EU socialisation via discursive practices as a key reason leading to failed identity-building. Focusing on EU Cohesion Policy in Wales (UK), Crete (Greece), and Silesia (Poland), the analysis employs primary data and grey literature sources, along with 64 semistructured elite interviews, to show that, despite key differences among the three cases, Cohesion Policy has not contributed significantly to European identity-building among policy elites at different government levels and among the public. This is because the coordinative discourse about EU policies is dominated by ideas about economic goals and practical aspects of policy-making, while the respective communicative discourse is controlled by domestic political elites and the media and is ultimately determined by broader national/regional political cultures about the purpose and limitations of EU membership. Overall, the article contributes to the literature on European identity-building, EU socialisation, and discourse by arguing that the way EU public policies are designed, implemented, and communicated do not favour the achievement of political goals, such as the cultivation of a shared European identity.

Golden Dawn (GD), Greece’s most prominent far-right political organization, strategically utilized antisemitism as its core ideological principle rather than a marginal prejudice or rhetorical device. This article argues that antisemitism served primarily as an epistemological conspiratorial framework central to GD’s ideological worldview, providing a coherent interpretive lens through which all political, economic, and social phenomena were explained as elements of a singular Jewish-orchestrated plot. Drawing on qualitative discourse analysis of over 10,300 GD publications spanning 1993 to 2020, the study illustrates how this epistemological master frame enabled the party to unify diverse domestic and international issues, from foreign policy tensions and immigration debates to economic crises, under a consistent antisemitic narrative. Additionally, by explicitly employing Holocaust denial, endorsing Nazi symbolism, and openly propagating antisemitic conspiracies, GD deliberately violated post-Holocaust European norms. This normative transgression was integral to the party’s identity, positioning it in overt defiance of mainstream moral and political boundaries. The article thus demonstrates how GD’s antisemitism functioned not merely as a rhetorical provocation but as the foundation of a comprehensive ideological system that consciously challenged established European taboos. These findings also suggest broader implications for understanding the role and adaptability of conspiratorial antisemitism and normative transgression in other extremist ideologies beyond the Greek context.

Recent literature argues that with ever‐increasing levels of supranational constraints governments have less ‘room to manoeuvre’; therefore, voters will place less weight on policy outcomes in their voting decisions. The question that remains less explored is how voters fill this accountability gap. We argue that, in this context, voters may move away from outcome‐ to input‐oriented voting. Fulfilling their promises becomes less vital for incumbents as long as they exhibit effort to overturn an unpopular policy framework. We test this argument against a survey experiment conducted in the run‐up to the September 2015 election in Greece, where we find a positive impact of the incumbent's exerted effort to challenge the status quo of austerity on vote intention for SYRIZA – the senior coalition government partner at the time – despite the failed outcome of the government's bailout negotiations.