The preliminary reference procedure is a crucial tool for EU law enforcement. Yet, its usage varies greatly across the Member States. This paper deals with a notable case in which EU justice has not been mobilized: Greece. Until 2023, Greek judges had not made any preliminary references in the migration and asylum fields, despite significant migrant flows. This study investigates why Greece, with its critical migration challenges, became a zero-reference case.

Drawing on empirical and doctrinal research, this paper tests two main hypotheses. The first hypothesis, derived from the “judicial empowerment thesis,” suggests that Greek judges may have been hesitant to refer cases due to political or institutional factors. The second hypothesis, based on scholarship highlighting the role of lawyers and civil society in promoting EU litigation, predicts that the absence of references reflects a lack of activist lawyers, skills, or resources.

The findings challenge common assumptions, revealing that Greek judges are not inherently reluctant to refer cases. Instead, obstacles to access to justice and civil society’s attitudes help understand the absence of references. Going beyond judges, this paper explores how perceptions among migrant supporters, their legal consciousness, and traditional modes of action contribute to the lack of pressure for preliminary references.

This research contributes to understanding the complexities surrounding judicial dialogue and enforcement of EU law. It offers insights into how the interplay of institutional, legal, and social factors shapes legal mobilization and strategic litigation.

Here we present the first high-resolution continuous palaeoecological study from Greece covering the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition at Limni Zazari, a small lake in western Macedonia. We study how interactions between vegetation and climate might have affected the introduction of agriculture to Europe ca. 8500 years ago. We found that mixed deciduous oak woodlands established around the lake once moisture availability began to increase at ~10,300 cal yr BP. Between 8600 and 8000 cal yr BP, climate change, causing drier conditions, led to the decline of the woodlands and the expansion of steppe and grassland vegetation. Concurrently, in agreement with the archaeological record, pollen indicative of arable and pastoral farming indicate the onset of Neolithic farming. After 8000 cal yr BP the forest composition changed, with a major expansion of pine forests and increases in disturbance-adapted trees like Ostrya and Fagus. This change might be linked to changes in moisture availability, but it is likely that land use also facilitated these shifts. We conclude that the introduction of Neolithic farming was advantaged by climate-induced vegetation changes. While the vegetation structure around Zazari was very sensitive to changes in moisture, early anthropogenic disturbances led to changes in the vegetation composition that are still important today.

Numerous transport stirrup jars have been found at the site of Pefkakia. Most were manufactured in Crete with some from the Greek mainland. There were also at least two Canaanite jars from the Carmel coast. These finds and the first results of petrographic analysis attest to the site's role as a major Aegean harbour.

Eleonora's falcon (Falco eleonorae Géné, 1839) is a well-known long-distance migrant of the Afro-Palaearctic flyway, a summer breeder of the Mediterranean region and North-west Africa and a winter resident of Madagascar and surrounding areas, thus characterized as a double endemic. Within the context of a long-term monitoring and conservation programme on Antikythira Island, Greece, which accommodates one of the largest concentrations of breeding pairs of Eleonora's falcons globally, birds were subjected to regular inspections for the presence of ticks from 2017 to 2023. In total, 104 adults and 149 nymphs (all belonging to Haemaphysalis genus) were collected. All ticks, apart from 2 nymphs, exhibited broadly salient palpi and did not possess the pronounced palpal segment 2 spurs or spur-like angles that are characteristic of adults, nymphs and most larvae of Rhipistoma, thus placed them in the Ornithophysalis subgenus. Following comprehensive morphological assessment and genetic analysis of the mitochondrial genome by means of next-generation sequencing of both adult and nymphal stages of the ticks, our empirical findings substantiate the delineation of a previously unclassified species. This taxonomic assignment situates the newly described species within the Ornithophysalis subgenus and the Haemaphysalis doenitzi group, marking its presence for the first time within the Western Palaearctic region.

The origins of Iron Age urbanism in temperate Europe were long assumed to lie in Archaic Greece. Recent studies, however, argue for an independent development of Hallstatt mega-sites. This article focuses on developments in Western Thessaly in mainland Greece. The author characterises the Archaic settlement system of the region as one of lowland villages and fortified hilltop sites, the latter identified not as settlements but refuges. It is argued that cities were rare in Greece prior to the Hellenistic period so its settlements could not have served as the model for urban temperate Europe. Consequently, the social and political development of Greece and temperate Europe followed different trajectories.

This article approaches the Metapolitefsi as an international event and seeks to historicize the perceptions and concepts that drove Greek and Western policy-making after the fall of the junta. Its main argument is that from 1974 to 1976 and in conjunction with domestic democratization, a parallel process developed when it came to Greece's external relations, which entailed a significant reformulation of Greek foreign policy. The year 1974, then, should be seen as an important turning point not only in Greek domestic politics but in Greece's external relations as well. These two processes were mutually reinforcing and closely interdependent.

The COVID-19 pandemic modified the epidemiology and the transmission of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). We collected data on RSV positivity and incidence from children hospitalized in the largest tertiary paediatric hospital in Greece before (2018–2020, period A), during (2020–2021, period B), and after (2021–2023, period C) the COVID-19 lockdown. A total of 9,508 children were tested for RSV. RSV positivity (%) was 17.6% (552/3,134) for period A, 2.1% (13/629) for period B, and 13.4% (772/5,745) for period C (p < 0.001). The mean age (±SD) of RSV-positive children among the three periods was A: 5.9(±9.3), B: 13.6 (±25.3), and C: 16.7 (±28.6) months (p < 0.001). The peak of RSV epidemiology was shifted from January–March (period A) to October–December (period C). RSV in-hospital incidence per 1,000 hospitalizations in paediatric departments was A:16.7, B:1.0, and C:28.1 (p < 0.001), and the incidence in the intensive care unit was A: 17.3, B: 0.6, and C: 26.6 (p < 0.001). A decrease in RSV incidence was observed during the COVID-19 lockdown period, whereas a significant increase was observed after the lockdown. A change in epidemiological patterns was identified after the end of the lockdown, with an earlier seasonal peak and an age shift of increased RSV incidence in older children.

Watanabeite from the Pefka epithermal deposit, northeastern Greece, was examined using single-crystal X-ray diffraction and electron microprobe analysis. The empirical formula of watanabeite is Cu3.93Fe0.10Ag0.01Pb0.23As1.55Sb0.19S4.99. This mineral is orthorhombic, space group Amm2, with unit-cell parameters a = 10.9601(5), b = 14.6498(8), c = 10.3001(5) Å, V = 1653.82(14) Å3 and Z = 8. The crystal structure was solved and refined to R1 = 0.0471 for 2108 unique reflections with Fo > 4σ(Fo) and 123 refined parameters. The crystal structure of watanabeite can be described as a three-dimensional framework of Cu-centred tetrahedra; cavities of the tetrahedral scaffolding host Cu6S and As2(Pb,Sb,As)2S7 clusters. On the basis of structural data, the formula of watanabeite could be written as [III]Cu3[IV]Cu5As3(Pb,Sb,As)S10 (Z = 4), considering the three independent three-fold Cu sites and the three independent tetrahedrally coordinated Cu sites as aggregated positions. The occurrence of Pb2+ in watanabeite is probably related to the substitution Cu+ + (As,Sb)3+ = 2Me2+, where Me = Pb, Fe, Zn and formally divalent Cu. The relationships with tetrahedrite-group minerals are discussed on the basis of the refined structural model, highlighting possible crystal chemical implications of such relationships.

The matrix of the Pliocene volcaniclastics from the Akrotiri area of the Santorini island (Greece) is dominated by clinoptilolite. Smectite, occasionally illite-smectite, opal-CT, cristobalite and mordenite are also present. The clinoptilolite-rich samples were heated at 460 and 560°C for 12 h and the reductions in the intensity of the 020 diffraction peak were measured. Electron microprobe analysis (EMPA) was then used to study the chemical composition of the clinoptilolite. Statistical analysis proved a strong and quantifiable relationship between the reduction of the 020 diffraction peak of the clinoptilolite and the Na/K ratio. A representative set of microprobe analyses of clinoptilolite was performed before any correlation with thermal behavior was attempted. The presence of K in the structure of clinoptilolite as well as its relationship with Na are most important in the thermal behavior of clinoptilolite.