The biggest barrier to Karamanlis’ reforms, however, was opposition from the media. Most Greeks get their news from television, and eight private channels, all controlled by well-known businesspeople, share over 90 percent of the market. Some of the owners, such as Yiannis Alafouzos, who founded the Skai media group, are shipping magnates whose businesses rely little on state contracts and licenses. But most have their hands in a broad array of businesses that depend heavily on government patronage. Vardis Vardinoyannis, a lead investor in Greece’s largest television station, Mega, controls two petroleum companies, Motor Oil Hellas and Vegas Oil & Gas, in addition to holding a significant stake in Greece’s biggest bank, Piraeus. Other Mega shareholders include George Bobolas, whose gold-mining operation relies on government licenses and whose construction company built facilities for the 2004 Olympics, and Stavros Psycharis, whose business interests range from printing to real estate to tourism.
<snip>
Just as the oligarchs and their political allies use the media to avoid public scrutiny, so they rely on government regulations to retain control of the state. For the past three decades, two highly organized interest groups have profited the most under Greek law: first, elite professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, and engineers, and second, unionized employees of utilities owned wholly or partially by the state, such as the Public Power Corporation and the Hellenic Railways Organization. The memberships of such groups are not large. Greece has only about 40,000 lawyers, 60,000 doctors, and 87,000 engineers. Public-sector employees number around 600,000. Yet what these groups lack in numbers they more than make up for in organization. By leveraging their ability to drive voter turnout in key urban constituencies, the professionals and the unions have won extraordinary privileges. For example, many professional associations can set standard prices for basic services, a form of collusion that is illegal in many economies but not in Greece. They are also permitted to self-regulate. When accusations of malpractice arise, the associations themselves have the exclusive right to discipline their members. Moreover, special taxes fund their health-care and retirement accounts: since 1960, the pension fund for lawyers and judges has collected a stamp duty on all property transactions amounting to 1.3 percent of each sale price. And for decades, the doctors’ pension fund benefited from a 6.5 percent charge on the value of all drugs prescribed.
