On 13 October 2026, the CEPEJ, in close coordination with Mr Petros Alikakos, President of the Thessaloniki Court of First Instance, held a special session to present to the court’s judges and staff proposed measures to reduce the judicial backlog and improve the overall functioning of the court.

The session was attended by Mr Panagiotis Lymperopoulos, President of the Supreme Court of the Hellenic Republic, and Mr Konstantinos Koussoulis, Honorary Vice-President of the Hellenic Council of State, Director of the Legal Affairs Office of the Presidency of the Hellenic Republic, and CEPEJ member for Greece. A CEPEJ expert was also present.

The collection and subsequent analysis of the court’s judicial statistics for 2024 and 2025 enabled the CEPEJ expert to present an overall assessment of its performance, based on case-processing indicators, showing a general downward trend in the judicial backlog. Direct discussions with the court’s judges and staff provided an opportunity to consider measures to sustain and strengthen efforts to reduce the number of pending cases.

A second day, on 14 October 2026, was devoted to presenting a more focused analysis of data from individual but anonymised reports on judges at the Thessaloniki Court of First Instance. The analysis helped to clarify issues relating to case management and the complexity of certain types of cases, as well as to identify measures tailored to each judge’s circumstances.

These activities were organised as part of the EU–Council of Europe joint project “Supporting the reduction of backlog in the First Instance Courts of Athens and Thessaloniki (pilot courts) - European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ)”. The project is co-funded by the European Union through the Technical Support Instrument and implemented by the Council of Europe, in cooperation with the European Commission.