“Greece was the only country in Europe where there was no law on the basis of which the state and its basic organs functioned”, said Mr. Gerapetritis and referred in detail to the pathologies that the Greek state had developed.
The new governance model applied in our country was mentioned by the Minister of State, Giorgos Gerapetritis, during his speech at the event-discussion on “Governance of the state: International practices and the Greek model” organized at the Athens Conservatory by the Citizens’ Movement for an Open Society.
“Greece was the only country in Europe where there was no law on the basis of which the state and its basic organs functioned”, said Mr. Gerapetritis and referred in detail to the pathologies that the Greek state had developed.
“The lack of procedures was leading to a form of informal democracy. A second weakness was that the state was personalized, precisely because there were no institutionalized procedures to strictly delimit the institutions, it was always up to the one at the top of the state to establish the framework. The way the state functioned was largely determined by the personality of the leader. The third pathology was the lack of basic accountability. The concentration of the state in very few persons and the lack of substantial counterweights to the political power, created a significant deficit of accountability. The latest pathology is clientelism, which resulted in not only corruption being produced, but the state itself being left behind. Today, a new model of the state is being created. We didn’t discover gunpowder. In fact, we have transferred good practices that have been in place for decades in advanced European governance systems”, emphasized the Minister of State and continued:
“The reforms that came with the first bill that was submitted to Parliament in July 2019, just two days after the vote of confidence received by the new government, were a complete set of provisions for a modern operation of the state. The big caveat expressed at the time in Parliament was that this new model would never be implemented in practice. Nevertheless, it was implemented and is today a conquest”.
Then, Mr. Gerapetritis referred to the main points of this new model, starting with the way the cabinet works.
“The cabinet was entirely dependent on when the prime minister called it, which, before 2019, was on average every five or six months. Today, cabinet meetings take place at the seat of government, and with a regular frequency of at least one per month.
“All bills that have been introduced in Parliament have previously gone through the pains of the cabinet.
From 2019 onwards, there is a very systematic structure to the government’s central policy production, and every December the cabinet approves the government’s unified policy plan for the coming year. The unified government policy plan covers all the laws to be passed, recruitment planning, as well as the strategic plan of each ministry. The single plan, after being approved by the cabinet, is then posted on the website of the presidency of the government. This innovation is the most emblematic change that can be made in the relations between the state and the citizen, because the citizen can know in advance the commitments made by the government, not pre-election, but a product of the government’s time, so that the citizen can to evaluate the performance of the government”.
The Minister of State also referred to the other important changes that have been made in the way the state operates. He emphasized that most of the decisive powers of the state have been transferred to the civil service administration, weakening corruption. He also referred to the institutionalization of the position of official general secretary in each ministry, who comes from the administration, is selected by ASEP for a three-year term and oversees the expenditures and personnel of each ministry.
Finally, for the first time, a single public administration control authority, the National Transparency Authority, was established, which has already processed all long-pending cases and evaluates new complaints within 30 days of their filing.
The importance of the role of the public administration in dealing with crises was mentioned by the head of the office in Greece of the Commission’s Directorate General for Structural Reforms Support, Yiannis Hatzigiannis. Public administration must be flexible and adaptable in terms of structures, employees and public policies. For this to happen, there must be an exchange of good practices between member states.
Greece has had significant successes in recent years. It is one of the first countries to submit the recovery plan, and one of the first to disburse. It was the first country whose Just Transition Fund program for 2021-2027 was approved.
“An optimal system of government, a system that supports a government to realize its vision and goals in the most effective way, is when three conditions coexist: The first condition is, when a government’s vision is solely to increase welfare; the quality of life and the improvement of the services provided, and the international competitiveness of the country. The second condition is that the governance of the state is governed by the principles of the quality of government. The third condition is that the State operates based on the model of government excellence”, said the business consultant and member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Business Excellence, Yiannis Lagos.
The event was also attended by the Deputy Prime Minister Panagiotis Pikrammenos. It was moderated by the former head of the EU delegation in Greece, Panos Karvounis.
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