Greece

Current Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, has had a personal Twitter account since 19 October 2009; however, he has not been particularly active. It is a campaign account originally used before the elections for the leadership of the New Democracy party, it remained dormant until the May 2012 elections and has again gone silent since he became Prime Minister in June 2012. @samaras_antonis only follows four accounts: @neademokratia, @EPP, @PrimeministerGR and @ONNED. The account has been mainly used to tweet about upcoming campaign appearances. Antonis Samaras himself has not signed any tweet, however, there is an obvious shift to a more personal tone in his last tweets before the election.

@PrimeministerGR is an institutional account set up on 12 January 2010 by digitally-savvy Prime Minister George Papandreou. The account tweets the agenda of the Prime Minister, short statements and pictures with foreign leaders. On certain occasions, the account has been used to live-tweet the Prime Minister’s speeches, using hashtags such as #greekpmlive (47 times), #greece (45) and #euco (38). Since Papandreou stepped down, the account has passed on to Prime Ministers Papademos, Pikrammenos and Samaras with a slight shift to a more formal tone. The account has been silent since 18 June 2012, the last tweet being a photo of the new Prime Minister taking over.

The Greek government has been fairly active on Twitter since 25 October 2010, tweeting almost twice a day. The twitter stream is clearly dominated by official news about government activities and statements, linking back to the official website of the government (government.gov.gr). It often retweets other Ministry accounts, as well as personal accounts of Ministers. @govgr is not connected to any foreign leaders or government accounts.