A/HRC/25/50/Add.1 I. Introduction 1. From 22 to 27 April 2013, the Independent Expert conducted an official visit to Greece. The key purpose of his visit was to assess the impact of the economic adjustment programme adopted by the Government of Greece as a condition for financial assistance from the troika’ comprising the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to address the country’s fiscal deficit and debt, on the realization of human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights. 2. The Independent Expert met with senior officials from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Labour and Social Welfare, Finance, Education, Health, Development, Justice, and Public Order and Citizens’ Protection, as well as the Hellenic Coast Guard. He also had meetings with members of Parliament (including those from the main opposition party, Syriza) and representatives of the Bank of Greece, the National Commission for Human Rights, the National Ombudsman, IMF, the European Commission and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Greece, academics and civil society organizations. He also visited two volunteer community clinics in Perama and Helleniko (Attica), which provide free health care to the needy. 3. The Independent Expert is grateful to the Government for its invitation and cooperation during his mission. He also expresses his gratitude to UNHCR for its support, as well as to all those who met with him. 4. Nevertheless, he regrets the lack of support by Greece and other European Union countries for the mandate in the Human Rights Council, despite the fact that several European Union countries (including Greece) face obvious challenges in the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights due to the sovereign debt crisis affecting them and in the context of economic adjustment programmes adopted to address the crisis. II. Framework for analysis: human rights in the context of economic adjustment 5. Austerity and other economic adjustment policies raise important concerns regarding the protection of economic, social and cultural rights, because they are often incompatible with the obligation of States to take steps for their progressive realization and to avoid deliberate retrogressive measures, in particular those that are incompatible with the core obligations of each right and the duty of States to use all available resources in an effort to satisfy, as a matter of priority, these minimum obligations.1 A. Greece’s human rights obligations 6. The Constitution of Greece sets out a number of human rights obligations of the State. Article 2(1) underscores that “respect and protection of the value of the human being constitute the primary obligation of the State”. Part Two of the Constitution explicitly sets out a number of other obligations of the State, including the protection of property (art. 17); family, motherhood and childhood (art. 21.1); the special care for health (art. 21(2) and 1 4 See E/2013/82. See also A/HRC/17/34, paras. 11-24.