In an account of the projects and actions of the Ministry of the Interior that were carried out during the current four-year administration that ends in a few days, as well as in a presentation of its plans for the immediate future, the leadership of the ministry proceeded in an event entitled “We are creating the new efficient and reliable state “, which took place in the Technopolis of the municipality of Athens.

The main speaker of the event was the Minister of the Interior Makis Voridis, who noted that the main problem of this government is to be able to communicate to the citizens the amount of legislation and the operational part that has been implemented, thanks to the annual action plans of the ministries.

Referring to the digital facilities promoted by his ministry, he spoke:

a) for the new interoperability services of the “Register of Citizens” Information System through which it became possible to retrieve birth/death/marital status/marriage/cohabitation records.

b) for the new functionality of ex officio data search through the “Register of Citizens” information system, related to registry acts, registrations and census certificates and mayor’s decisions, eliminating the time-consuming search for them.

c) From January 1, 2022, the salaried Greek consulates gained access to the “Register of Citizens” and from this date onwards, all registry entries are carried out exclusively within the information system, without the need to transcribe the consular registry act into the special registry office.

Regarding the modernization of the electoral process, Mr. Voridis said that in the upcoming elections, judicial representatives will have a tablet, through which they will be able to directly transmit the results in a very short time. This will result, very early on election night, around 8:30 – 9:00 p.m., in having 80% of all polling stations.

For the Decentralized Administrations, he mentioned, among other things, their participation for the first time in the mobility system as host bodies and the approval of staff recruitment for the first time after many years for the year 2023, a total number of 151 people of various branches.

He made extensive reference to the redesign of the naturalization process for allogeneic foreigners, through the establishment of a nationwide type of exams to obtain the Certificate of Knowledge Proficiency for Naturalization (PEGP), which is a prerequisite for submitting and completing the naturalization process.

For the public sector recruitment, the minister in charge said that in the current four years it was twice as much as the previous one, as a direct consequence of the acceleration of the relevant procedures and the immediate settlement of pending recruitments. He also spoke about the establishment of ASEP’s pan-Hellenic written competition every two years and the acceleration of recruitment that is achieved, the annual recruitment planning, the institutionalization of service secretaries and the branch of staff members, as well as the new framework for the implementation of evaluation and target setting in the State.

For the pillar of the organization of the public sector, Mr. Voridis referred to the integrated system of multi-level governance, the common evaluation framework, the modernization of the municipal police and the regulation of teleworking in the State.

Regarding the area of ​​accountability, transparency and the fight against corruption, he spoke about the internal control and risk management system for all public bodies, the electronic application for monitoring disciplinary procedures (e-peitharxika), and the introduction of Institution of Public Integrity Advisor.

According to the presentation, for the future, among other things, a new and unified legislative framework is planned for regulating the relationship of the State as an employer, with all employees (new civil service code), recruitment only with skills testing in modern ASEP assessment centers, strategic planning for the optimal staffing of the State with artificial intelligence techniques (workforce planning), transformation and upgrading of skills of 250,000 employees, new selection system for supervisors with demanding selection criteria, career paths for the first time in the State, implementation of the National Multilevel Governance System, establishment of a Disciplinary Justice branch within the Legal Council of the State (with a direct staff of 300 people) etc.

The deputy minister of the interior, Stelios Petsas, emphasized that “28 months without the cooperation of the central administration and the local government, we would not have been able to keep society upright from the multiple crises we have faced in recent years, such as the covid pandemic, the energy crisis, immigration”. He stated that thanks to this government, the governability issue of local governments, which arose from the application of simple proportional representation in municipal elections, was restored, while at the same time a new electoral law was enacted that will be applied in the self-governing elections next October.

As he said, a key point in the ministry’s cooperation with the municipalities and the Regions is the utilization of financial tools such as the “Antonis Tritsis” program, in which projects with a budget of 3.5 billion euros have been included to date, of which 2, 2 billion euros are already auctioned, 1.1 billion euros are contracted, while disbursements reach 430 million euros.

The Deputy Minister of Macedonia – Thrace, Stavros Kalafatis, for his part emphasized that “four years after taking over the governance of the country, we can be proud of the work done in the country in all sectors. For the changes and reforms in public administration and local self-government, for the smooth operation of the state apparatus and more efficient service to the citizen”.

Short greetings were addressed by the regional governors of Attica, Giorgos Patoulis and of South Aegean, Giorgos Chatzimarkos, as well as the mayor of Athens, Kostas Bakoyannis.