Someone who is slow or reluctant to pay what he owes, a κακοπληρωτής in more formal Greek.
Στα τέλη Αυγούστου 2026, η πρόεδρος της Πλεύσης Ελευθερίας χρησιμοποίησε τον όρο αυτό για να εξαπολύσει σφοδρή πολιτική επίθεση κατά του Πρωθυπουργού. Η Ζωή Κωνσταντοπούλου χαρακτήρισε τον Κυριάκο Μητσοτάκη ως «νοικοκύρη πρωθυπουργό και ταυτόχρονα μπαταχτσή πρόεδρο κόμματος»
It caught my eye as the word was quite unparliamentary. A British equivalent to Zoe Konstantopoulou is Zarah Sultana, who referred to a fellow MP as ‘dodgy’. The deputy speaker instructed her to find a polite synonym or to withdraw the remark. Unable to come up with a word like ‘dubious’, our British loudmouth was forced to withdraw her comment. Zoe, being more intelligent than Zarah, would have had no problem providing her listeners with κακοπληρωτής, αναξιόχρεος or τρακαδόρος.
Konstantopoulou made the comment regarding the vast sums New Democracy owes the banks. I remember at the time of the crisis looking up the amounts PASOK and ND owed the banks. Eye-popping! I think just one of these parties owed the banks more than Labour and the Tories combined. Ironically, earlier this year, Konstantopoulou herself was accused of the very same offence – not paying a former employee. I don’t know the facts, but it wouldn’t surprise me. While she was a minister in the SYRIZA government, she had one of those shameful Do-You-Know-Who-I-Am moments at a petrol station, I believe. Like her British counterpart, she seems to be a megalomaniac.
Anyway, our word is a borrowing from the Turkish ‘batakçi’, the root word being ‘batak’ – a marsh or swamp – and quite close to the English expression ‘mired in debt’.
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