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Victoria Mindova

The Greek administration costs 14 billion euro annually and absorbs approximately 6.8% of GDP per year. The average cost of administrative services in the European Union is around 2.4% of GDP. This makes the Greek administration one of the most expensive in the European Union after that of Poland. On the other hand, companies spend about two billion euro for public services in Greece, which are not famous for their high quality and promptness.

"The labyrinth of bureaucracy allows corruption and client relationships to flourish," said the Minister of State Reform and e-government, Antonis Manitakis. He spoke at a press conference presenting the new contract of the Greek government with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
 
The organization undertakes to assess the legal framework within which the public administration operates in 13 strategic sectors of the local economy. It will sort out the effective legal standards and those that complicate and aggravate the activities and give a detailed description of the necessary reforms. The assessment will last for seven months and its results will present the advantages of removing the legal burdens from the studied sectors. Then, the government will have three months to put into practice the experts’ recommendations.
 
The cost of the audit and the preparation of the administrative reform platform exceeds two billion euro of which Greece will pay only 5%, whereas EU funds under the National Strategic Development Framework (ESPA) will cover the remaining 95%. The sectors involved in the assessment are agricultural development, corporate law, energy, environment, fisheries, food industry, pharmaceutics, public projects, statistics, tax law, telecommunications, tourism and labour laws.

Minister Manitakis stressed that the adjustments that would be introduced after the completion of the assessment would bring to the budget immediate benefits of seven billion euro. Bureaucratic costs would decrease by 25% by the end of 2013 and the facilitation of administrative procedures could increase GDP by 2.4% by 2025.

The improvement of the public administration is the foundation of enhancing the competitiveness of the Greek economy, said the Minister of Economy and Development Kostas Hatzidakis at the forum. He explained that the improvement of the activities of the sectors of tourism, food processing, retail and construction materials (which are the responsibility of his ministry) depended directly on the elimination of unnecessary administrative burdens.
 
"These sectors are not random," stressed Luiz de Mello from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, who will be involved in the administrative analysis. "They are crucial for the Greek economy and contribute significantly to the GDP." De Melo said that such a cooperation, which explores the excess legal burden on public administration and optimizes its functioning, had taken place in a number of OECD member countries in the past. Some of them were Australia, Canada, Japan and Mexico and the results were improved services, reduced costs and improved competitiveness of the local economies.

"This independent analysis will identify the gaps in the system and the unnecessary legal complications in it," said Louise de Melo, adding that the potential for achieving economic efficiency through the implementation of these reforms was extremely high.