Alexis Papachelas

Tuesday's incident involving an 89-year-old man who is believed to have shot and injured five people in two separate attacks at a central Athens courthouse and a social security office has once again exposed the country's profound lack of a safety culture.

What Europe has accomplished is no small feat in this day and age, nor can it be taken for granted by anyone who knows their history. We are a continent without war, a major global economic force and a positive magnet for our values and way of life. Someone who was an adult in the 1950s may wonder at how the French and the Germans travel without a passport, and have a joint currency and common market. To a large extent, this was made possible, of course, because the Europeans effectively outsourced their security to the Americans and lived in a predictable, linear world. Now, as the rest of the world increasingly turns into a jungle, Europe's “garden” is under threat. Europe will either have to change or come to terms with the prospect of a prolonged decline.

Ι recently heard an admission from a fierce critic of model schools – selective public schools that admit students based on academic exams – that I did not expect. “They're actually very good schools,” he told me.

He is upholding the legacy of his uncle, Stavros Niarchos, who intended that half the foundation's activities be based in Greece. Andreas Dracopoulos, co-president of the foundation named after the late renowned Greek shipowner, has worked with successive governments to realize ambitious initiatives in culture, education and healthcare.

The dollar continues to be a tool that gives the United States an incredible amount of power in a rapidly changing world. The question now is whether the dollar's status is under threat – and, by extension, America's – and if so, what that threat is. The fact is, America's debt is growing – and everyone is talking about it like the elephant in the room. It has shot up past 100% of gross domestic product for the first time in a decade and all signs point to it rising further in the years ahead.

Athens' frustration over the recent incident with the Ukraine-built sea drone found in the Ionian Sea is perfectly justified. It is outrageous that a country that has been supported by Greece, and at significant cost, should not respect its sovereignty, and acts irresponsibly and dangerously.

As has often been the case before, the country finds itself in a preelection period, despite it not having been officially proclaimed as such. How and when it happened cannot be determined with any certainty. Some attribute it to leaks from the prime minister's office and several ministers. Others believe it to be an initiative by the prime minister himself to put a stop to complaints within his party, to frighten its MPs, ministers and other players, and to prevent any nasty surprises. Another scenario making the rounds is that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is, in fact, thinking about calling snap elections for late September, but will ultimately see out his four-year term because his character will prevent him from doing otherwise.

Watching the excellent documentary by Eleni Varvitsioti and Viktoria Dendrinou on the Greek debt crisis, “To the Millimeter,” there is one character who stayed with me because they may have played a central role in keeping Greece on its feet in 2015, yet 99.9% of Greeks were unaware of their existence. Stavroula Miliakou was a civil servant, the general director for the budget, who was responsible for the State General Accounting Office in the period between 2014 and 2018. I listened to her describe her experience as the country flirted with the abyss. She did not speak like a politician. She was straightforward and brutally honest – and she was compelling. This was not some technocrat with an MBA from a top-flight university and background in a consultancy firm speaking in terms that are incomprehensible to most people. This was a public servant with in-depth knowledge of her field, safeguarding the public interest – and she and others like her are the backbone of the Greek state. We made the mistake in the past of lumping all public servants together with the stereotypical laggard, so it is our duty now to hold up people like Ms Miliakou as the role models that they should be.

Greek-Turkish relations have entered a phase marked by tension. Ankara seems greatly annoyed by Greece's close strategic partnership with Israel, as well as by President Emmanuel Macron's response to the question of what France would do in the event of a crisis in the Aegean. Athens, for its part, believes the Turkish government violated a fundamental rule underpinning the agreement for “calm waters”: not springing any surprises or unilateral actions on the other side.

Athens is waiting to see what Turkey will do with the proposed legislation on maritime zones it is reportedly drafting, while it also thinks a further ramping up of tension in the Aegean this summer is likely. The Turkish side is making all sorts of excuses for its current escalation, both in words and deeds. It claims, for example, that it had to respond to Greek moves like the deployment of a Patriot missile battery on the island of Karpathos.