Cost of Greek Bureaucracy Exceeds 10 Billion Dollars

According to Hellenic Federation of Enterprises’ (SEV) report on the business environment, the annual cost of Greece’s bureaucracy exceeds 10 billion dollars. The report indicates that the required time to complete the process of a public contract is 230 days – the second longest time period in the European Union. The report dates back to 2005 when Greece ranked last among the 17 member-states that the EU included at that time. The report mentions the most significant bureaucratic obstacles in order of fields are: business setup/licensing, financial services, taxation, justice, development incentives as well as public procurements. On the other hand, sectors on which people meet fewer obstacles are imports/exports, standards/certifications, company law, labor relations, supervision and control as well as research/innovation. The most effective operator according to the report is the Citizen Service Centers (KEP), while the less effective sector seems to be the Urban Planning Department along with the Municipalities and the central departments of the Greek government. More specifically, according to the Ministry of Justice’s data, on March 31, 2013, the Greek Council of State had more than 29,000 pending cases and the Administrative Court of First Instance about 333,000. The SEV also noted that the arrangements for facilitating an acceleration of the process for environmental licensing in Greece are not implemented, as the time required is three or sometimes even five percent longer than that provided by law.

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