Greece to Allow Unvaccinated Health Workers to Return to Work After Court Ruling

Anti-vaccine demonstrators shout slogans during a protest against coronavirus disease vaccinations, in Athens, Greece, on July 24, 2021. Costas Baltas/Reuters

Greece’s Health Minister Thanos Plevris announced on Tuesday that thousands of health workers who declined to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and were suspended without pay will return to their roles.

The decision comes shortly after a court ruling on the matter.

“It [the ruling] will be implemented, even though I think it is a dangerous decision for public health,” Plevris told Mega TV. “The measure will be implemented after we have taken all the measures so that there is a strict protocol for the protection of public health,” Plevris added.

Greece’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, ruled (pdf) one day prior that the suspension of the unvaccinated medical workers was unconstitutional and in violation of the “legal principle of proportionality.”

This, they said, was due to the fact that officials had failed to evaluate the re-extension of the mandate on “ongoing epidemiological data and credible scientific findings.”

“Provision of Law 4917/2022, which extended the validity of the re-evaluation of the mandatory vaccination of employees in health structures until 12-31-2022, is contrary to the constitutional principle of proportionality,” the seven-judge panel of the Council ruled.

Officials Failed to Refer to Latest Epidemiological Data

“In this specific case, when the decisions in question were publicized (March 31, 2022, and April 14, 2022), a time period of over eight months had gone by from the time the vaccine mandate was implemented for medical workers,” the court wrote. “It is not apparent upon which specific scientific data the decision to shift the date of reexamination to Dec. 31, 2022, was made.”

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by the National Association of Public Hospital Employees (POEDHN) against the Greek Ministry of Health on behalf of the nearly 7,000 health workers that were suspended without pay from Sept. 1, 2021.

Plevris said on Tuesday that the vaccine mandate, which was set to expire on Dec. 31, 2022, will not be extended and that the unvaccinated medical workers would likely be reinstated to their jobs by no later than Jan. 1, 2023, following the ruling, although it could be even sooner.

“They will surely return on January 1st, but based on the protocols which we will develop, I don’t know if their return might be sooner,” the health minister said.

Greece was one of the multiple European countries that implemented strict rules during the COVID-19 pandemic, including requiring that hospital workers, doctors, and care home personnel be fully vaccinated.

The decision prompted widespread protests throughout the country, including hunger strikes. Some protestors who demonstrated outside of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s office were subsequently arrested but later acquitted and released.

It is unclear what will happen regarding the salaries of the thousands of suspended health workers who declined to get vaccinated.

Speaking to local news outlets following the Council of State’s ruling, Mihalis Giannakos, president of POEDHN called the decision a “total victory” for health workers and urged the health minister to provide workers with at least 50 percent of their wages backdated to April of this year.