Recession-battered Greece is listed in the unenviable second place, among European countries and behind only Hungary, in terms of “authoritarian populism”, according to this year’s Authoritarian Populism Index, compiled by Sweden’s Timbro think tank.
According to its website, the Timbro Authoritarian Populism Index is the “only Europe-wide comprehensive study that aims to shed light on whether populism poses a long-term threat to European liberal democracies.”
The annual study was presented in Athens by the Center for Liberal Studies – Markos Dragoumis (KEFiM).
Based on the Europe-wide study, Italy is in third place. The Swedish think tank notes that Greece is one of four EU member-states where the government is comprised only of populists, while populist parties – whether on the right or left – collected more than 50 percent of the votes in the last general election, September 2015.
