Greece moves up 9 spots in EIU’s Democracy Index; now in 25th place out of 167 countries

Greece moved up a noteworthy nine spots in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Democracy Index ranking for 2022, the London-based Economist announced on Wednesday.

The country’s overall score rose to 7.97 last year, up from 7.56 in 2021, which placed Greece in 25th place.

The annual EIU survey rates the state of democracy in 167 surveyed countries on the basis of five parameters, namely, electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties.

Ten is the top score.

“Greece managed the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic by helping to restore public confidence in politics, parties and government, which had been eroded in the post-2010 crisis years,” the EIB report states, while adding that tourism, which is the “heavy industry” of the east Mediterranean country, would have suffered permanent damage if the pandemic had been mismanaged.

“Similarly, the government handled the economic fallout from the Ukraine war in 2022 competently and in a way that avoided the kind of social and political polarization that characterized the 2010s,” the report further added.