The government is intervening to prevent an urban chaos and each municipality makes its own decision, the Minister of Environment and Energy, Theodoros Skylakakis, said on SKAI 100.3 radio.

Referring to the decision of the Supreme Court that ruled unconstitutionally the incentives to increase the construction rates, the minister noted that the problem arose when the municipalities began to interpret what it means to start work, before the clarifications of the Council of Ministers and threaten to revoke all legal permits based on whether they have failed or not.

Mr. Skylakakis underlined that the supreme court did not clarify what it means to start work and emphasized that “we have to wait for the issuance of its decision”.

As he said, anyone who has obtained a permit must prove the start of work, which, however, we do not know exactly what that means and he does so at his own risk.

The minister noted that it is not possible to act punitively against the legal ones and at the same time to have legalized millions of abuses.

Yesterday, with an urgent order, the Ministry of the Environment “froze” the issuance of building permits and pre-approvals that make use of the incentives of the New Building Regulation until the issuance of the decision of the Council of Ministers.

By the same decision, building permits that have been issued using NOK incentives are not revoked until the publication of the decision of the Council of State.