Greece

Greece

The Greek Desk is headed by Amalia Bakaloni, who is the National Member for Greece since September 2022.

In 2023, the Greek Desk was involved in 441 new cases, 11 coordination meetings, 1 coordination centre,  and 4 joint investigation teams.

National Member

Ms Amalia Bakaloni
Ms Amalia Bakaloni

National Member

Ms Amalia Bakaloni studied law at the University of Athens and received her master’s degree in Criminal Law, Criminology and European Criminal Law in 2007 at the University of Thessaloniki. Overall, she has 23 years of experience as a public prosecutor, dealing with all major types of serious crime.

Ms Bakaloni has worked as a prosecutor at the Division of International Cooperation (SIRENE office) of the Ministry of Citizen Protection from 2017 to 2020. She mainly dealt with checking the legality of registrations of European Arrest Warrants in the Schengen Information System.

In the meantime, from 2020 to 2022, she worked in the Department of Judicial Cooperation and Extradition at the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Appeal in Athens. As of April last year, she served as President of the Disciplinary Board of the national independent Authority of Public Revenue.

Between 2008 and 2013, Ms Bakaloni was Director of Public Prosecutions and was supervising prosecutor at the Detention Facilities of Greece. She also was a lecturer at the National School of the Judiciary and the Greek representative at the European Judicial Training Network. In early 2022, Ms Bakaloni was elected Vice-President of the Hellenic Association of Prosecutors.

Deputy National Member

Aikaterini Sakka is Deputy National Member for Greece since September 2022. Ms Sakka is a Public Prosecutor at the Public Prosecutor's Office of First Instance of Athens. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Law and two master’s degrees (‘Master's Degree in Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure’ and ‘Master’s Degree in Law Sociology’), from the University of Athens.

Throughout 15 years of service, she has worked in most of the departments at the PPO of Athens, dealing with organized crimes, economic and corruption cases, drug trafficking, cybercrime etc. Having a well-established experience in judicial cooperation in criminal matters, she has been Member of a JIT under the auspices of Eurojust.

In 2016-2018 she was appointed member of the Committee on European Affairs of the Association of Greek Prosecutors. During 2019-2020 she was appointed prosecutor against Racist Violence at the PPO of Athens and thenceforth she participates as national hate crime expert in European conferences and in working groups for hate crime recording, data collection and encouraging reporting, organized by the FRA. Alongside, in 2019 she participated as an organized crime expert in the meeting of experts on the fight against organized crime and special investigative methods, organized by the European Commission. She was also assigned to Legislative Drafting Committees, such as the project of Integrated Judicial CMS-Civil and Criminal Justice and the Implementation of Enhanced Cooperation for the Establishment of the E.P.P.O, and has been Head of the Criminal Procedure Workflow Support Team of the PMT. In 2021, the Greek Supreme Judicial Council chose her as Deputy European Delegated Prosecutor.

She is fluent in English, French and Spanish and has an expertise in legal terminology in all three languages. She also speaks German and Swedish.

Assistant to the National Member

Ioannis Papathanasiou has been Assistant to the National Member for Greece since September 2018. Dr Papathanasiou is a public prosecutor and holds a bachelor's degree in law with distinction from the University of Athens, followed by a master's degree in civil law from the University of Athens and an LLM from the University of Cambridge. He also earned a master of studies in law and subsequently a DPhil (PhD) in law from the University of Oxford. His doctoral research focused on harmonisation of national laws of the EU member states. In addition, during his appointment as a visiting researcher at Harvard Law School, he has extended his research to the Restatements of the Law as a mechanism of harmonisation within US jurisprudence. Having practiced as a lawyer and a notary public in Greece, he became a public prosecutor in 2016.

Contact the Greek Desk

The Greek Desk at Eurojust may be contacted via the competent National Authority, i.e. the territorially competent Public Prosecution Office of Appeals. Please find relevant contact details in the Ministry of Justice's contact book


Η επικοινωνία με το Ελληνικό Εθνικό Γραφείο στην Eurojust χωρεί μέσω των αρμοδίων Εθνικών Αρχών, ήτοι της κατά τόπον αρμόδιας Εισαγγελίας Εφετών. Παρακαλούμε βρείτε σχετικά στοιχεία επικοινωνίας στον παρακάτω ηλεκτρονικό σύνδεσμο: Τηλεφωνικοι Καταλογοι Υπηρεσιων Υπουργειου Δικαιοσυνης – Υπουργείο Δικαιοσύνης

Casework

 

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

New cases (total)
- of which initiating
- of which participating

213
111
102

196
88
108

323
208
115

341
219
124

374
254
120

305
193
112

441
312
129

Coordination meetings (initiating and/or participating)

6

15

20

16

21

8

11

Coordination centres (organising and/or participating)

3

1

3

2

1

-

1

Joint investigation teams (newly signed and/or ongoing)

1

3

3

4

4

3

4


Case examples

Eurojust-supported action leads to arrest of 29 people smugglers in Italy, Greece and Albania

Joint Investigation Teams - Funded by Eurojust

Crime: A network of people smugglers transfers at least 1 100 migrants irregularly to the European Union. The suspects make illegal gains of at least several hundred million euros.

Action: In January 2021, a JIT is set up involving judicial authorities in Italy, Greece and Albania. In preparation for the action day, the authorities carry out long-term surveillance of the suspects, using telephone and online interceptions of evidence and video recordings. This enables them to document the routes used by the network and identify the perpetrators.

Result: During the action day supported by Eurojust, Europol and Frontex, 29 suspects of Albanian, Turkish, Syrian, Iranian, Iraqi and Pakistani origin are arrested in Italy, Greece and Albania. Eight of them are arrested during an ongoing smuggling operation, and the migrants involved are brought to safety.

Eurojust's role: In addition to supporting the JIT, Eurojust sets up a coordination centre during the action day and provides cross-border judicial support via the Agency’s Italian and Greek National Desks, and the Liaison Prosecutor for Albania.

Flags of IT, EL, AL, logos of Europol, Frontex, Eurojust