19.6.2025
Evangelos Venizelos
Emeritus Professor of Constitutional Law at the Law School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, former Deputy Prime Minister, former Minister—among others—of Foreign Affairs, Finance, and National Defence, and General Rapporteur for the 2001 constitutional revision.
Published: Academia & SSRN [PDF]
The Greek Constitution at Fifty:
Continuity, Resilience, and European integration
1. The Anniversary and Its Significance
We are celebrating this year the fiftieth anniversary of the 1975 Greek Constitution[1] (the Constitution of the Hellenic Republic), which was voted on June 7, published on June 9, and entered into force on June 11, 1975. The next day, the then Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis submitted Greece’s application for accession to what was then the European Communities. The country’s participation in the European integration process [2] was one of the fundamental constitutional decisions of the early post-dictatorship phase, even though it is not explicitly mentioned in the core, non-revisable provisions of Article 110 paragraph 1. This became an explicit constitutional rule in 2001, with the addition of a corresponding interpretative declaration in Article 28 of the Constitution.
The fifty-year lifespan of the current Constitution in a state that has a total duration of just over two hundred years—whose birth certificate was its declaration of independence along with the adoption of its first revolutionary Constitution—carries significant meaning. It means that one quarter of its life constitutes a single period of constitutional continuity, beginning with the ‘Metapolitefsi’ (change of the regime), the fall of the dictatorship, and the restoration of democracy. This period unfolded under conditions of political stability in the form of a parliamentary democracy with a President as head of state, and by the explicit constitutional guarantee of the entire set of individual and social rights, enriched by the corresponding provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and EU law, particularly the Charter of Fundamental Rights. This renders Greece a modern constitutional and liberal democracy, a democratic European social state governed by the rule of law, as evidenced by the combination of Articles 2 and 25 of the Constitution.
The fiftieth anniversary of a national constitution should be a moment of national reflection—political, social, and scholarly—on the very meaning of maintaining a long period in which the same constitutional text has remained in force, albeit revised in accordance with its own provisions (Article 110 of the Constitution), that is, within the procedural and substantive limits of its own revision.
The anniversary is not unprecedented in the constitutional history of the independent Greek state, since the Constitution of 1864 lasted a little less than fifty years until the “Goudi movement” of 1911 and the initiation of the revision process, which, in violation of the Constitution’s own provisions regarding its revision, led to the Constitution of 1911. That was a constitution of a crowned democracy that wanted to appear both as the Constitution of liberal and modernizing reform leaded by Eleftherios Venizelos and as the Constitution of state continuity—at least until the national schism of 1917. Many years later, the post-civil-war Constitution of 1952 also presented itself as a continuation—or rather as a re-gluing of the broken thread—of the 1864/1911 Constitution.
However, these fifty post-dictatorship years are fifty years of real validity and continuity of the 1975/1986/2001/2019 Constitution in an institutional environment that does not foresee its transcendence or rupture. Despite the profound value and strategic crisis facing the West as a historical entity after the re-election of President Trump and the emergence of serious differences between the European and American versions of liberal/constitutional democracy, Greece, situated within its Western and European context, has—or at any rate must claim and secure—the conditions for its constitutional stability. This does not mean the absence of disagreements or even conflicts regarding the interpretation and application of the Constitution, nor the absence of violations of the Constitution; rather, it means a broad political and social acceptance of the Constitution as a reference framework—as the foundation and apex of the national legal order.
2. The Endurance and Resilience of the 1975/1986/2001/2008/2019 Constitution
This constitutional description obviously does not mean that Greece is a country that spent the last fifty years without political and institutional tensions, without disputes over the interpretation and application of the Constitution, without political and judicial complaints about violations of fundamental rights and institutional guarantees, without allegations of constitutional breaches, or without court rulings diagnosing the unconstitutionality of laws enacted by Parliament.
The durability, endurance and resilience of the Constitution [3] are proven when it has the capacity to accommodate all of this within its own framework without being overthrown or rendered a hollow shell lacking normative content. Its resilience is demonstrated when it itself provides for the manner of its own revision by setting procedural and substantive limits on that process, which has been successfully carried out and ultimately accepted by a broad consensus, even if sometimes in retrospect.
Thus, by celebrating the fifty years of the 1975 Constitution, we are also celebrating its resilience. This resilience is ensured, first and foremost, through the smooth exercise of the derivative constituent power (revision function). A rigid Constitution that incorporates the burdens of Greek constitutional history and sets both substantive and procedural limits on its own revision proves resilient when its revisions are ultimately carried out consensually, because they must secure a supermajority of 180 out of 300 deputies and proceed procedurally through two successive Parliaments (with the 180/300 supermajority preferably required in the second Parliament), thereby passing the test of parliamentary elections, even if the constitutional revision is not a central electoral issue.
During the fifty-year period from 1975 to 2025, four revision processes were completed. The first, in 1986, was conflictual and focused on the powers of the President of the Republic, following the contentious process of adopting the original 1975 Constitution. The second, in 2001 [4], was extensive and exemplarily consensual, resulting in a significant broadening of the political acceptance of the 1975/1986/2001 Constitution, which for the first time was voted for by the then parliamentary majority of PASOK, New Democracy, and almost all of the rest of the opposition. The third, in 2008, was limited in scope and of minor importance. The fourth, in 2019, regardless of its initial intentions and details, ultimately provided for the retrospective and excessive acceptance of the abolition of the expanded powers of the President of the Republic (which had been voted in 1986 by PASOK and the Communist Party) even by the party (New Democracy) that had established those expanded powers in 1975, opposed their abolition in 1996, but in 2019 crowned the reduced powers of the President with the change in the method of election, allowing him to be elected by a single-party relative majority, which numerically could amount to just 75 positive votes in the final ballot—without, of course, the risk of Parliament’s dissolution due to the failure to elect a President.
The resilience of the Constitution has also been ensured through critical, informal constitutional changes that took place during these fifty years, primarily through the judicial interpretation and application of the Constitution. But also, through constitutional practice (as parliamentary practice and as practice relating to the exercise of the President’s regulatory powers over the political system). The interpretation of Article 13 on religious freedom in accordance with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the interpretation of Article 14(9) on the “principal shareholder” in accordance with the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) are two examples of informal change through case law. The appointment of a Prime Minister who does not hold parliamentary office under Article 37, and the automatic acceptance of any Cabinet proposal (essentially by the Prime Minister) for the dissolution of Parliament “to address an issue of exceptional national importance” (Article 41(2)), are two examples of constitutional practice that reach into the realm of the so-called constitutional convention (the unwritten understandings underpinning the political system).
3. The “Augmented Constitution” of 1975
Moreover, the endurance and resilience of a national formal (i.e., written and rigid) Constitution are demonstrated when it gradually loses its monopoly on normative supremacy because the state itself gradually loses degrees of sovereignty and is called upon to coexist with other legal orders that claim their own supremacy and priority of application, while also possessing their own systems of judicial review. This is the case with international law, particularly the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), as well as with EU law and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
The resilience of the Greek national Constitution was safeguarded by the way in which the national courts’ jurisprudence handled the great challenge of relativizing the constitutional phenomenon. Greek jurisprudence, ultimately proceeding with caution and prudence, has effectively followed the theoretical framework of the interpenetration of legal orders, thereby producing as a normative outcome what I call the “augmented Constitution”[5]—one that, in each contested case, offers the highest possible level of protection for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
The “augmented Constitution” is a national Constitution that, rather than engaging in interpretive conflicts with other legal orders, assimilates their contributions interpretively. The constitutional promise of the Metapolitefsi is fulfilled only through this process that safeguards the quality of liberal democracy and the international judicial oversight of behaviors (legislative, administrative, judicial) that undermine it.
Let me present this framework in a little more detail. The national legal order is founded on the Constitution, formed through the law-making procedures that it prescribes, and refers back to it for the review of possible unconstitutionality and for the harmonized interpretation of all subordinate legal norms. However, it is neither solitary nor isolated. It coexists with other legal orders that claim supremacy within Greek territory. For a European country like Greece, these are, as emphasized, the international legal order (mainly that of the ECHR) and the EU legal order, which are self-referential and claim priority of application and supremacy in their respective domains. Regardless of the place that the national Constitution assigns to these two legal orders (Article 28), they position themselves by subjecting every national Constitution to the way in which they ground and perceive themselves.
This multiplicity of legal orders is now the most critical theoretical issue of an existential character, because it concerns the very sovereignty of the nation-state, its transformation into a “member state,” the nature and limits of its constituent power—both original and derivative. At the same time, however, it is also a strong shell of international and European protection for the national Constitution and its regulatory and protective content for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. The instances in which the protective content of the national Constitution is enhanced through the international legal order (mainly through the ECHR) and through the EU legal order (not only via the Charter of Fundamental Rights but also through many other rules of primary and secondary EU law) vastly outnumber the instances in which the assertion of supremacy by international or EU law may reduce some nuances of the protection provided by the national Constitution. One only has to look at the many ECtHR and CJEU decisions that have broadened the protection of fundamental rights (such as the right to a fair trial, religious freedom, protection of personal data, property, the confidentiality of communications, and the principle of ne bis in idem) and at the decisions of these same courts that have required Greek courts to yield on the priority application of a national constitutional provision (e.g., Article 14(9) on the principal shareholder). These issues are far more critical to citizens’ lives than whether the President of the Republic—now elected even by a relative majority—should serve up to two five-year terms or just one six - year term.
Such a national Constitution, resilient and “augmented,” embedded in European and international normative and value contexts, is subject to additional limitations on its revision. It is not only bound by the substantive and procedural limits of Article 110 but also by substantive, and sometimes procedural, requirements arising from the status of the Hellenic Republic as a high contracting party to the ECHR and other international conventions and as a member state of the European Union. Procedurally, this means that the Greek constitutional legislator and its choices are subject not only to national but also to international and EU judicial review by the ECtHR and the CJEU. This has already happened in recent years with regulations such as the professional incompatibility of Members of Parliament and the conclusive presumption of incompatibility regarding the principal shareholder of a media enterprise and an enterprise that contracts with the state.
Of course, the national Constitution retains its significance, and its formal revision is still important. However, constituent power, both original and derivative —being the highest legal expression of state sovereignty—is subject to the consequences of the latter’s limitations. This applies even to matters that are initially recognized as part of national constitutional identity because they concern the “fundamental political and constitutional structure” (Article 4(2) TEU), since even in this field, states must respect the values of the Union and, above all, the European conception of democracy and the rule of law, which may be affected by national constitutional choices that are seemingly organizational but directly impact the exercise of fundamental rights (e.g., the confidentiality of communications) or the institutional guaranties surrounding such rights (e.g., independent authorities).
The succession of crises from 2010 to the present day (economic crisis[6] , health crisis, energy crisis largely as a result of the war in Ukraine) has also been a succession of judicial challenges. These challenges have successively raised large and complex issues of interpretation and application, but also of coexistence and—as noted—interpenetration of the national Constitution, the ECHR, other international law norms, and EU law, both primary and secondary. Recourse to the common denominator of European constitutionalism (as a movement and as an acquis that is often referred to as “common constitutional traditions”[7] or the European constitutional tradition) helps to bring about this process, which methodologically highlights a form of interpretive monism, whereby the interpretive techniques and normative frameworks of these three systems converge of these three systems of higher legal norms.
4. The Country’s Problem Is Not Constitutional
This Constitution does not prevent any reform necessary for a modern democratic and rule-of-law society. It does not obstruct the exercise of any democratically legitimate policy that respects fundamental rights and the rule of law, including the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary, the independent authorities, and the rights of dissenters, minorities, and even a single individual who disagrees with the political and social majority. The problem of the country is not constitutional but political and developmental. Perhaps it is also educational and cultural. It concerns the acceptable limits of inequalities and the need for social cohesion and solidarity. It concerns our relationship with history and geography. If we wish to address these problems, which lie in the background of our national, social, and political life, the Constitution does not hinder us but instead guarantees the democratic and rule-of-law nature of the choices without drifting outside the constitutional spectrum.
The same applies if we wish, insofar as it concerns the national level, to address the new major challenges of the climate crisis, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and new anthropology, the rights of animals and natural entities. This is the substantive discussion about the constitutional future, rather than the easy and hasty constitutional populism that reproduces clichés and promises a supposedly constitutionally guaranteed paradise that political will has failed to secure legislatively. In reality, it is not because the Constitution did not allow it but because it was hindered by the obligation to assume political costs. This, in any case, is what the decade of financial crisis (2009-2019) taught us, and these lessons must henceforth govern our constitutional understanding.
National “improvisations” of a circumstantial character that use the Constitution as a communicative distraction and institutional regressions that affect the quality of democracy and the rule of law cannot be concealed behind the invocation of national constitutional identity, as mentioned earlier, and fortunately, the ECtHR and the CJEU have well-trained reflexes that do not concern only Poland and Hungary.
We therefore celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of our Constitution in a more substantive way—regarding the level of protection of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights—when we seek and activate its untapped normative and interpretative potential. When we enhance its resilience through jurisprudence and constitutional practice. When we revisit the revisions that have taken place and assess their content and the political conditions under which they were conducted. When we seek from the outset the consensus and the enhanced majorities required by Article 110 of the Constitution and, indeed, when we maintain them for the second Parliament that drafts the revised provisions—through serious dialogue and not by prematurely publicizing raw revisionary ideas that feed costless revisionary maximalism.
For my own scientific and political generation, this fifty-year period is our very own life. Especially when one has had the historical privilege of having proposed and drafted a large part of the constitutional provisions currently in force and of having participated in the interpretative debates and controversies throughout almost the entire period, the challenge of reflection is multiple—scientific, political, and personal. Ultimately, it is historical.-
[1] The Constitution of Greece, Hellenic Parliament https://www.hellenicparliament.gr/UserFiles/f3c70a23-7696-49db-9148-f24dce6a27c8/THE%20CONSTITUTION%20OF%20GREECE.pdf
For indicative documentation, allow me to refer—through the few footnotes that follow—to my own studies, where some specific points are developed in detail.
[2] Ev. Venizelos, ‘Greece's participation in the European integration as a national constitutional decision validated in the crisis’s cauldron’ [2021] Hellenic Review of European Law- special issue for the 40th anniversary of Greece’s accession of the European Communities, 1-16 https://evenizelos.gr/books-studies/studies/studiesforeignlanguages/6661-greece-s-participation-in-the-european-integration-as-a-national-constitutional-decision-validated-in-the-crisis-s-cauldron.html
[3] Ev. Venizelos, ‘The Durability of the Constitutional Phenomenon in the Post-Modern Age’, in P. Häberle, M. Morlok & V. Skouris (eds), Festschrift für Dimitris Th. Tsatsos (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003) 690-702 https://evenizelos.gr/books-studies/studies/studiesforeignlanguages/938-the-durability-of-the-constitutional-phenomenon-in-the-post-modern-age.html
[4] Evangelos Venizelos, The 2001 Revision of the Greek Constitution and the Relevance of the Constitutional Phenomenon, (2001: 13.4) ERPL/REDP, 1291-1316 https://evenizelos.gr/books-studies/studies/revisionconstitution/7079-the-2001-revision-of-the-greek-constitution-and-the-relevance-of-the-constitutional-phenomenon.html
[5] Evangelos Venizelos, ‘ From the relativization of the Constitution to the “augmented Constitution” ’ (2020 32:3) ERPL/REDP, 973-1017 < https://evenizelos.gr/books-studies/studies/studiesforeignlanguages/6497-from-the-relativization-of-the-constitution-to-the-augmented-constitution.html>
[6] Ev.Venizelos, ‘The impact of the financial crisis on the constitutions of Eurozone Member States under rescue programs - Greece as a laboratory of constitutional theory ‘, (2020:32/1) ERPL 295-342 https://evenizelos.gr/books-studies/studies/dimosio-xreos-oikonomiki-krisi/7133-the-impact-of-the-financial-crisis-on-the-constitutions-of-eurozone-member-states-under-rescue-programs-greece-as-a-laboratory-of-constitutional-theory.html
[7] Evangelos Venizelos, ‘Du patrimoine à l’acquis constitutionnel’ in: Ch. Giannopoulos & L.-A. Sicilianos (dir), Le patrimoine constitutionnel européen entre progression et régression / The european constitutional heritage between progression and regression, Actes du colloque organisé par la Fondation Marangopoulos pour les Droits de l'Homme et l'Université de Strasbourg, 4 et 5 mai 2023, (Editions Pedone 2024) 23-40 https://evenizelos.gr/books-studies/studies/theoryinterpretationconstitution/7089-du-patrimoine-a-lacquis-constitutionnel.html
