Volt Greece (Greek: Βολτ Ελλάδας) is a social liberal political party in Greece and the Greek branch of Volt Europa.
History
Volt Greece was founded in 2018.[1] In July 2022, the group elected its first executive secretariat and an ethics committee, which were tasked with preparing its establishment as a party.[2] On 4 October 2022, the party was officially registered, becoming the 18th registered party of Volt Europa.[3]
In December 2022, Volt founded the new political alliance Prasino+Mov (Greek ΠΡΑΣΙΝΟ & ΜΩΒ / English Green & Purple) together with other parties.[4]
National sections of Volt Europa. The borders of the European Union are shown in red
On 11 and 12 March, the party held its first founding congress in Athens and elected Nikolas Fournarakis and Theodora Famprikezi as co-presidents, and Konstantinos Kalafatakis as the General Secretary.[5][6]
The party planned to contest the national parliamentary elections in May 2023 with the Green & Purple alliance[7] but the alliance was disqualified from the election by the Supreme Court for lack of required documents.[8] In the June 2023 parliamentary elections, the Green & Purple Alliance was admitted to the ballot and participated with 259 candidates in 59 constituencies (51 from Volt), marking Volt's first participation in an election in Greece.[9][10] The alliance achieved 0.31% of the vote.[11] On July 12, 2023, the party announced its decision to leave the Green & Purple Alliance.[12]
In the 2023 regional and local elections, the party officially supported lists in Athens,[13]Pylaia-Chortiatis (with its own mayoral candidate),[14]Thessaloniki,[15]Patras,[16]Larissa[17] and Central Macedonia.[14] In total, Volt won 5 seats.[18][19] The party won one seat on the Athens Municipal Council and two more in the city's seventh district,[20] as well as one seat each in Pylea-Chortiatis and Spata-Artemida. In December 2023, Volt local councillor Olga Dourou was elected deputy mayor of Athens, making her the second in Volt Europa after Federica Vinci in Isernia and the first in her party to hold such an office.[21]
Volt wants to strengthen the European Parliament, a President elected by the European citizens and a unified European government led by a Prime Minister, with joint foreign, finance and economy ministries and a European army.[25][23]
Social and health policy
Volt wants unemployment benefits to be gradually reduced after someone finds a job. This is to increase the incentive to work and reduce unregistered work.[26] A universal basic income is to be gradually introduced to reduce poverty and a decentralised universal health care system is to be created for all inhabitants of the country.[5]
Childcare centres are to be introduced throughout the country. Inequalities based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion and origin should be countered.[26]
Economy
The party wants to modernise the Greek economy and aims to create more high value-added jobs. The aim is to increase productivity and reduce the unemployment rate to below 5%.[5] The role of the European Central Bank is to be expanded to include the fight against unemployment.[27]
Education
Volt aims to strengthen the autonomy of school institutions administratively, financially, pedagogically and academically.[5]
The administrative structure of the Ministry of Education is to be decentralised and its central and regional departments subjected to performance evaluation.[5]
Digitalisation
The party supports the use of open source software as an instrument of a transparent state and wants to digitise the state system and administration.[26]
Volt aims to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to reduce the impact of climate change. Imported products are to be subject to a carbon tax in order to also achieve emission reductions in other regions of the world. Massive investments are to be made in public transport in order to achieve emission reductions in the transport sector.[28] In addition, the energy sector is to be transformed through investments in renewable energy sources and storage.[28] To this end, the party is striving for green growth in connection with the energy transition, the protection of biodiversity and sustainable environmental management.[29]
Immigration and asylum policy
The party advocates a controlled admission of migrants and refugees and their integration, as a means of countering the demographic problem of Greece.[30][5]
Organisation
Leadership
The co-presidents and the General Secretary are directly elected by the party members during a General Assembly. The statutes require different gender identities for the chairpersons.[23]
Executive Board
There is an 8-member executive board (the co-presidents and the General Secretary fully participate in this body ex officio, thus increasing the number of members to 11), which is responsible for implementation and administration in accordance with the decisions of the party's General Assembly and Central Committee.[5][27]
Central Committee
The executive board is the executive branch of a larger governing body of the party (30-member, with the co-presidents and the General Secretary fully participating in this body ex officio, thus increasing the number of members to 33), the Central Committee, which is considered as the supreme decision-making body of Volt Greece after the General Assemblies. The members of the Central Committee are directly elected by the party members during a General Assembly. The 8 members of the Central Committee that receive the most votes in the elections secure a place in the executive board.
Ethics Board – Conflict Resolution & Human Resources management body
The 7-member Ethics Board monitors compliance with the Statue, Rules of Procedure, the Code of Conduct, the decisions of the General Assemblies, the Central Committee, the executive board and the Leadership of the party. It also serves as a conflict resolution body and facilitates proper in-party human resources management.[31] The members of the Ethics Board are directly elected by the party members during a General Assembly.
