-6B. Consultations held by the delegation and co-operation encountered 5. In the course of the visit, the delegation held meetings with Eleftherios Oikonomou, Deputy Minister of Citizens Protection, and Sofia Nikolaou, General Secretary for Anti-Crime Policy, as well as with Ioannis Stalikas, Head of the General Directorate of Crisis and Prison Management, Prokopios Prokopiou, Head of the General Directorate of Anti-Crime and Penitentiary Policy, and other senior officials responsible for prison matters from the Ministry of Citizens Protection. The delegation also met Andreas Pottakis, the Greek Ombudsman, and representatives from his Office in their capacity as the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM). 6. On the whole, the CPT’s delegation received excellent co-operation during the visit by the Greek authorities at all levels. The delegation had rapid access to all places of detention it wished to visit, was able to meet in private with those persons with whom it wanted to speak and was provided with access to the information it required to carry out its task. The Committee wishes to express its appreciation for the assistance provided to its delegation during the visit by the management and staff in the prisons visited as well as to the support offered by its liaison officer from the Ministry of Citizens Protection, Mr Georgios Thrapsaniotis. 7. That said, the CPT must recall once again that the principle of co-operation between Parties to the Convention and the Committee is not limited to steps taken to facilitate the task of a visiting delegation. It also requires that decisive action be taken to improve the situation in the light of the CPT’s recommendations. In this respect, the CPT remains concerned about the dire state of the Greek prison system and the lack of action taken to address the Committee’s recommendations contained in previous visit reports to improve the situation (see paragraph 10). C. Context of the visit 8. The decision to carry out an ad hoc visit to Greece was taken by the CPT due to the lack of clear evidence and indicators provided to the Committee that the situation for persons detained in Greek prisons was improving. The response of the Greek authorities to the CPT’s 2019 visit report did not reassure the Committee that concrete steps were being taken to address the very significant deficiencies raised in that report. Further, there appeared to be no strategic plan, with clearly defined goals and benchmarks, to tackle the systematic shortcomings of the Greek prison system as identified by the CPT. The fact is that the situation in Greek prisons has not significantly improved since 2011, when the Committee issued a public statement2 and, more especially, the systemic deficiencies as regards prisons outlined in the CPT’s 2015 and 2019 visit reports3 remain. The definitive action required from the Greek State as a whole to regain control of the prisons and to move beyond a warehousing of prisoners has not materialised. 2 3 See Public Statement concerning Greece: CPT/Inf (2011) 10, 15 March 2011. See CPT/Inf (2016) 4 and CPT/Inf (2020) 15, respectively.