Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA)

The Athens-Macedonian News Agency, ANA-MPA, is Greece’s national news agency, based in Athens. It is a wholly state-owned joint-stock company, distributing domestic and international news, photographs and audiovisual material. Aria Agatsa chairs the Board and Christina-Dimitra Synarelli is Chief Executive Officer.

Media assets

News agency and digital: ANA-MPA, supplying text, photographs, video, infographics and other news services to domestic and international customers

Radio: Praktoreio FM 104.9, based in Thessaloniki and also distributed online. The agency’s annual reporting describes its operation in cooperation with TIF–HELEXPO, and ANA-MPA’s own reporting confirms continuing programme production in 2026.

Ownership and governance

The Greek state owns the entire company. Article 6 of its registered articles, amended in July 2024, provides for a single, inalienable state-owned share. The state exercises its shareholder rights through the General Assembly, represented by the supervising minister and the finance minister or their representatives.

Government supervision continues. Article 4 places operational supervision with the minister responsible for the General Secretariat for Communication and Information, and financial supervision with the Ministry of National Economy and Finance. Official recruitment documentation published in December 2025 expressly identifies ANA-MPA as supervised by the Presidency of the Government. The ASEP appointment procedure has not displaced that arrangement.

The Board has eleven members. Article 8 of the amended articles provides for:

• The Chair and Chief Executive
• One representative each from the journalists’ federation POESY, the Athens journalists’ union ESIEA, and the Athens daily newspaper owners’ association EIIEA
• One representative elected by employees
• One academic nominated by a university department, rotating every four years among specified departments at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Panteion University
• Four additional members elected by the General Assembly on the supervising minister’s recommendation

The agency’s current register lists 11 serving directors. The older description of a nine-member board, including a separate ESIEMTH seat and a three-year university rotation, is superseded.

The leadership selection procedure is established in the governing rules. Articles 8, 12 and 13 expressly require selection of the Chair and Chief Executive under Article 4 of Law 5062/2023, involving ASEP, the Supreme Council for Civil Personnel Selection. Their four-year terms may be renewed once.

ASEP assesses candidates and produces shortlists; the government retains a role in the final selection. In its January 2026 announcement the government stated that Deputy Minister Pavlos Marinakis would propose Agatsa and Synarelli to the General Assembly, and that both had ranked first in their respective selection processes. Synarelli had already performed chief-executive duties from August 2024 and held a temporary appointment from April 2025.

The procedure introduces competitive assessment and formal eligibility safeguards. It leaves ministerial supervision and the state’s shareholder powers in place.

Source of funding and budget

ANA-MPA is financed predominantly through state grants, supplemented by sales of news and related services and other commercial activity.

State grants increased while commercial sales declined slightly. The agency recorded a pre-tax profit of EUR 220,905 in 2024, following a pre-tax loss of EUR 157,604 in 2023.

These are annual accounting results, rather than approved budgets. The 2024 statements were the latest complete annual accounts verified for this review; complete 2025 results and the approved 2026 budget were not established.

Editorial independence

The legal framework now expressly protects editorial independence. Article 28 of Law 5253/2025 prohibits state bodies, government officials and political figures from interfering in media providers’ editorial policies and decisions. It also requires appropriate measures to protect editorial integrity, address conflicts of interest and support journalists’ freedom to make editorial judgments.

These protections must be assessed alongside the evidence of editorial practice.

A content analysis conducted for the Media and Journalism Research Center in May 2022 found ANA-MPA’s output relatively diverse and balanced.

There is also documented criticism from journalists’ representatives. In a letter dated 17 November 2022, ESIEA complained of repeated instances in which ANA-MPA carried government responses without the underlying reporting or other positions needed to explain the controversy. The union cited coverage of the surveillance scandal and called for corrective action. This was a union assessment of particular editorial practices.

The November 2025 Media Capture Monitoring Report by IPI and MJRC continued to identify political influence over ANA-MPA, highlighting politicised leadership appointments and supervision through the Prime Minister’s Office. That report predates the January 2026 appointments.

The 2026 appointments are a relevant procedural change, but their effect on editorial practice has not been established by a new content analysis. Competitive selection does not itself demonstrate either editorial independence or government control.

AI and digital policy

No publicly accessible, agency-specific editorial policy on generative AI was identified in this review.

Classification rationale

ANA-MPA remains recorded as State-Controlled (SC), following its reclassification in 2024.

It is wholly state-owned and predominantly state-funded, with continuing ministerial supervision and substantial government influence over corporate appointments.

The editorial component of the classification rests on the existing evidence of political influence, including the concerns documented by journalists’ representatives and the IPI–MJRC assessment. State ownership, public funding and appointment powers alone do not establish editorial control.

The appointment reform and the statutory protections must also be recognised. The ASEP procedure is embedded in the agency’s articles, both appointees ranked first in their respective competitions, and legislation expressly prohibits political interference in editorial decisions.

The classification is retained on the existing evidence, with a clear limitation: this review has not conducted a fresh assessment of editorial output under the management appointed in January 2026. The practical effect of the new selection procedure and editorial safeguards remains the principal issue for subsequent review.

September 2026