Dozens to face charges over loans to political parties
Dozens of banking executives and nine cadres of New Democracy and PASOK are to face criminal charges of breach of faith after financial prosecutors decided to take action against them based on an investigation into the parties’ funding between 2005 and 2011.
The loans in question had been granted to the parties by National Bank, Piraeus, Eurobank, Attica Bank and the now defunct ATEbank, with future state funding as collateral.
The probe had been shelved in 2013 – after the then government of Antonis Samaras passed a law essentially exempting bank executives of any blame in the issuing of loans to charities and political parties – but was reopened in 2017 by Supreme Court prosecutor Xeni Dimitriou.
In his initial report, prosecutor Giorgos Kaloudis deemed that future funding could not be deemed as adequate as collateral for the issuing of a bank loan.
