Close Protection in Greece

Protecting a person is a licensed activity

Greek law does not treat security as a service anybody may sell. Law 2518/1997 lists the activities that require a licence, and there are 7 of them: guarding property and premises, protection of persons, security at events and exhibitions, transport of cash and valuables, installing and maintaining alarm systems, running an alarm monitoring centre, and designing security systems.

Anybody assigned one of those activities is security personnel in law, whoever employs them. The definition reaches in-house staff guarding their own company’s premises, not only the firms that sell the service.

The consequence is the one that matters here. Close protection of a family in Athens is the same regulated act as guarding a bank vault, and it is regulated by the police rather than by a trade body.

The company

A private security company holds an operating licence issued by the Chief of the Hellenic Police, on the recommendation of a three-member committee drawn from the public and state security directorates and the Ministry’s legal adviser.

The licence runs for 5 years, is renewable, cannot be transferred, and covers the whole country. A change in the company’s legal form requires a new one.

The conditions are personal as much as corporate. Everyone on the board, every legal representative and manager, and every shareholder holding more than 25% must be clear of convictions for the listed offences, must not be a weapons or explosives dealer, and must not be under judicial guardianship. In a limited-liability company or a partnership, every partner must qualify.

Two administrative sanctions sit behind that. A licence is revoked automatically the moment a holder loses a qualification, and a breach of the company’s operating duties draws a suspension of 1 to 3 months first, up to 6 months on a second breach, and permanent revocation on a third.

The officer

The company licence is not enough on its own. Every individual doing the work holds a personal work permit, issued by the police directorate or security directorate where that person lives.

Law 3707/2008 splits the permit into two categories. Category A covers the physical activities, protection of persons among them. Category B covers the technical side — alarm systems, surveillance equipment, monitoring centres. A close protection officer needs Category A.

The permit is personal, non-transferable, and runs for 5 years. Behind it sits a professional training certificate in the “Private Security Personnel” specialty, awarded by EOPPEP, the national certification body, on examinations run with KEMEA, the Centre for Security Studies at the Ministry of Citizen Protection. The certificate is the precondition; the police permit follows it.

So there are two documents, not one, and they are held by two different parties. The company shows its licence. The officer standing in the hall shows a permit with their own name on it.

Firearms, and why the answer is usually no

This is the provision that surprises a detail arriving from a jurisdiction where carrying is routine.

Article 5 of Law 2518/1997 starts from a prohibition: weapons and firearms are barred to a security company’s representatives and staff. The exception is narrow and it is written around premises, not around people. A pistol or revolver may be authorised for personnel guarding public institutions, banks, museums, public utilities, and installations that require special protection — and the weapon must be legally owned by the entity being guarded, carried only during duty hours.

Close protection of a family moving between a house, a quay and a restaurant is not on that list. Neither the officer nor the company may supply the weapon even where it is.

Firearms otherwise sit under Law 2168/1993, which prohibits possession without a permit from the police authority and requires every applicant to show an approved reason, assessed case by case. A visiting protection officer is not a category that law contemplates.

The practical position is therefore simple to state and worth stating plainly: executive protection in Greece is unarmed work. What it buys is planning, driving, advance work on venues and routes, and a person whose job is to notice — not firepower.

A detail that arrives with the principal

Licences and permits are open to Greek citizens, to members of the Greek diaspora, and to nationals of an EU member state where no public order, security or health ground stands in the way. A national of a country outside the EU cannot hold either.

That draws the line in a useful place. A team from London, New York or the Gulf may travel with the person it works for, live in the house, sit in the car and hold the diary. What it may not do is perform the licensed activity, because performing it without a permit is an offence carrying up to 3 years imprisonment — for the person doing the work, and for whoever assigned it to them.

Accompanying somebody and protecting them in law are different acts, and the second one has a badge attached. The arrangement that works is a licensed Greek company holding the mandate on the ground, briefed by and working alongside the team that already knows the family.

What an officer may not do

A close protection officer in Greece is a private person with no police powers, and the law is emphatic about not letting the distinction blur.

• No police title, no claim to represent a public authority, and no company name that suggests one.
• No vehicle carrying insignia, colours, sirens or lights that resemble a police car.
• No uniform at all unless its design has been approved in advance.
• No dogs in public or publicly accessible spaces — they are permitted only inside a guarded building or on enclosed private property.
• A numbered identity card carried on duty, and a badge worn on the left chest, in plain clothes as much as in uniform.
• No involvement in managing public gatherings, which is reserved to the police.

The badge rule is the one worth knowing, because it is the check a client can actually make. Plain clothes do not exempt an officer from wearing it.

What to establish before arrival

1. Ask for the company’s licence number and the officer’s work permit, by name, for each person who will be on the detail. Both are documents, not assurances.
2. Ask whether the detail is Category A. A firm strong in monitoring and systems may hold mostly Category B permits.
3. Establish that the work is unarmed and design the plan around that, rather than discovering it on the second day.
4. Ask who drives. A protection officer driving you is also subject to the rules on who may legally drive you in Greece, which are a separate licence again.
5. Settle how your own team and the licensed team divide the work, in writing, before anybody lands. The division is legal, not a matter of preference, and it is easier to agree in advance than at a gate on an island.