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The Kallikratis Programme ( el, Πρόγραμμα Καλλικράτης, Prógramma Kallikrátis) is the common name of
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
law 3852/2010 of 2010, a major administrative reform in
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...
. It brought about the second major reform of the country's
administrative divisions
Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...
following the 1997
Kapodistrias reform Kapodistrias reform ( el, Σχέδιο Καποδίστριας, "Kapodistrias Plan") is the common name of law 2539 of Greece, which reorganised the country's administrative divisions. The law, named after 19th-century Greek statesman Ioannis Kapod ...
.
Named after ancient Greek architect
Callicrates
Callicrates or Kallikrates (; el, Καλλικράτης ) was an ancient Greek architect active in the middle of the fifth century BC. He and Ictinus were architects of the Parthenon (Plutarch, ''Pericles'', 13). An inscription identifies him ...
, the programme was presented by the socialist
Papandreou cabinet and was adopted by the
Hellenic Parliament in May 2010. The programme's implementation started with the
November 2010 local elections, and was completed by January 2011. It was amended by the
Kleisthenis I Programme
Kleisthenis I Programme ( el, Πρόγραμμα Κλεισθένης Ι, Prógramma Kleisthénis I) is the common name of Greek law 4555/2018 of July 2018, a major administrative reform in Greece. It brought about the third major reform of the ...
(Law 4555/2018), which was adopted in July 2018 and implemented in September 2019.
History
Administrative reforms in the 1990s
1994 reforms under the socialist
Papandreou government turned the largely dysfunctional
prefectures
A prefecture (from the Latin ''Praefectura'') is an administrative jurisdiction traditionally governed by an appointed prefect. This can be a regional or local government subdivision in various countries, or a subdivision in certain international ...
into Prefectural Self-Government entities (PSGs) with prefects and prefectural councils both being popularly elected. In return, the thirteen
administrative regions of Greece
Administration may refer to:
Management of organizations
* Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal
** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, administ ...
, which had already been created in 1987, but in the absence of a working budget remained unable to fulfill even their limited responsibilities, now assumed the prefectures' competences in regard to
tax collection
A revenue service, revenue agency or taxation authority is a government agency responsible for the intake of government revenue, including taxes and sometimes non-tax revenue. Depending on the jurisdiction, revenue services may be charged with ...
,
European structural funding and
treasury
A treasury is either
*A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry.
*A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or i ...
.
Part of the subsequent
Kapodistrias plan Kapodistrias reform ( el, Σχέδιο Καποδίστριας, "Kapodistrias Plan") is the common name of law 2539 of Greece, which reorganised the country's administrative divisions. The law, named after 19th-century Greek statesman Ioannis Kapod ...
, Law 2539/1997 sharply reduced the number of
municipalities and communities from 5.823 to 1.033, after the increasing
urbanization
Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
had left small communities literally dying out.
With a median of just 4,661.5 inhabitants, a large number of small municipalities and rural communities however remained independent. This included 88 communities with a population of less than 1000, down to
Gramos
Gramos ( sq, Gramoz, Mali i Gramozit; rup, Gramosta, Gramusta; el, Γράμος or Γράμμος) is a mountain range on the border of Albania and Greece. The mountain is part of the northern Pindus mountain range. Its highest peak, at the ...
with just 28 inhabitants.
With the territorial reforms of the 1990s, Greece has been cited as the first southern European country to follow a coercive top-down approach for territorial reforms, an approach rather typical for northern European countries.
Though strengthened by the 1990s reforms, the prefectural second-tier level however did not meet expectations. Largely subverted by an uncoordinated but convergent anti-reform opposition, the reformed prefectures lost a number of important competences following court decisions. The numerous controversies largely undermined public trust in the prefectural level.
The failed Kapodistrias II
After the electoral victory of the liberal-conservative
New Democracy
New Democracy, or the New Democratic Revolution, is a concept based on Mao Zedong's Bloc of Four Social Classes theory in post-revolutionary China which argued originally that democracy in China would take a path that was decisively distinc ...
party in
2004, the
Karamanlis government had initially been reluctant to pursue further administrative reforms, as it had opposed the reforms of the 1990s.
In a late implementation of a provision that was already part of the Kapodistrias plan, the 147
provinces
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
, as subunits of the 51 prefectures, were abolished in 2007.
Only after the
2007 reelection did the Karamanlis government decide that further reforms were necessary to bring the territorial structure in line with the European Union's
Lisbon Strategy
The Lisbon Strategy, also known as the Lisbon Agenda or Lisbon Process, was an action and development plan devised in 2000, for the economy of the European Union between 2000 and 2010. A pivotal role in its formulation was played by the Portugue ...
and the requirements of the Fourth Programming Period (2007–2013).
The thirteen regions were planned to be combined to just six major "programmatic supra-regions" that were expected to more successfully compete for
European structural funding. Municipalities would be amalgamated from 1034 down to 400, and prefectural governments reduced from 50 down to 16, in order to overcome fragmentation, to facilitate fiscal control by the state, and to create
economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
.
Putting administrative efficiency first, the top-down reform plan was criticized as subordinating questions of
legitimacy
Legitimacy, from the Latin ''legitimare'' meaning "to make lawful", may refer to:
* Legitimacy (criminal law)
* Legitimacy (family law)
* Legitimacy (political)
See also
* Bastard (law of England and Wales)
* Illegitimacy in fiction
* Legit (d ...
and
participation
Participation or Participant may refer to:
Politics
*Participation (decision making), mechanisms for people to participate in social decisions
*Civic participation, engagement by the citizens in government
*e-participation, citizen participation ...
. Rather than being opposed by the parliamentary opposition, the plan faced obstruction by the more conservative camp within the governing party and ultimately failed.
Kallikratis: New attempt at administrative reform
Following the landslide victory of the socialist
PASOK
The Panhellenic Socialist Movement ( el, Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα, Panellínio Sosialistikó Kínima, ), known mostly by its acronym PASOK, (; , ) is a social-democratic political party in Greece. Until 2012, it ...
in the
early 2009 legislative election, a new attempt at further administrative reforms was started. The Kallikratis plan was presented to the public in January 2010, amidst the beginnings of the
Greek financial crisis
Greece faced a sovereign debt crisis in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007–2008. Widely known in the country as The Crisis (Greek: Η Κρίση), it reached the populace as a series of sudden reforms and austerity measures that l ...
. While in terms of figures rather similar to the failed ''New Democracy'' plans, it was not confined to reducing the sheer number of administrative entities and their state accountability.
In a country which has been widely regarded as the most
centralist
Centralisation or centralization (see spelling differences) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, framing strategy and policies become concentrated within a partic ...
country of the European Union, with many smaller municipalities, especially rural communities being "extremely understaffed and deprived of any possibility to fulfil their tasks," an emphasis was put on strengthening the remaining authorities in terms of autonomy of
self-governance, public transparency and overall accessibility to citizens.
At the same time, the programme aimed at reducing local government employees by 50%, from around 50.000 to 25.000 across the country.
The law was adopted in May 2010 and was implemented following the
November 2010 local elections comprising the constituting regional elections, which replaced provincial elections as they were held before in
2002 and
2006.
Reforms as part of the Kallikratis plan
Local administrative reform
The Kallikratis Programme further reduced the number of
self-governing
__NOTOC__
Self-governance, self-government, or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority. It may refer to personal conduct or to any form of ...
local administrative unit
Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics or NUTS (french: Nomenclature des unités territoriales statistiques) is a geocode standard for referencing the subdivisions of countries for statistical purposes. The standard, adopted in 2003, ...
s by compulsory merging the 1033
municipalities and communities which the Kapodistrias reform had already amalgamated to just 325 municipalities.
Amalgamation of communities led to a number of pre-2007
provinces
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
being reinstated as municipalities. Altogether, Greek municipalities now reached a mean size of 31,000 inhabitants, a level comparable to many other countries in the European Union.
To improve public transparency, local authorities are now generally obliged to make public all their decisions via the internet. Furthermore, a Local
Ombudsman was established to support both citizens and enterprises in coping with local administrations. New ''Financial Committees'' and ''Executive Committees'' were established to help professionalize financial accounting, and to monitor the local administrations. In communities with more than 10,000 residents, a ''Committee for the quality of life'' and a ''Consultation Committee'' is established. Aimed at improving local allocation of municipal resources, the ''Consultation Committee'' consists of representatives of local
stakeholders such as businesses, trade unions, chambers and NGOs.
Regional administrative reform
At the same time the programme abolished the 51 self-governing
prefectures
A prefecture (from the Latin ''Praefectura'') is an administrative jurisdiction traditionally governed by an appointed prefect. This can be a regional or local government subdivision in various countries, or a subdivision in certain international ...
(
NUTS 3
Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics or NUTS (french: Nomenclature des unités territoriales statistiques) is a geocode standard for referencing the subdivisions of countries for statistical purposes. The standard, adopted in 2003 ...
), leaving them only in place as
regional units. The former prefectures' competences were transferred to the 13
NUTS 2
Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics or NUTS (french: Nomenclature des unités territoriales statistiques) is a geocode standard for referencing the subdivisions of countries for statistical purposes. The standard, adopted in 2003 ...
-level
administrative regions (, ''Diikitiki periferia'' or "administrative region"). Originally introduced in 1987, the regions had been strengthened in 1993 as intermediate administrative units for
regional planning
Regional planning deals with the efficient placement of land-use activities, infrastructure, and settlement growth across a larger area of land than an individual city or town. Regional planning is related to urban planning as it relates land ...
.
Under the Kallikratis Programme, these regions became self-governing, separate entities with a regional council and a regional governor, both popularly elected.
In return, the central tasks of the national administration were transferred to seven larger, newly created "decentralized administrations" (, ''Apokendromeni Diikisi''). Headed by a general secretary appointed by the
Minister of Interior
An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergenc ...
, the decentralized administration is responsible for
regional planning
Regional planning deals with the efficient placement of land-use activities, infrastructure, and settlement growth across a larger area of land than an individual city or town. Regional planning is related to urban planning as it relates land ...
and
environmental protection
Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment by individuals, organizations and governments. Its objectives are to conserve natural resources and the existing natural environment and, where possible, to repair dam ...
.
Subsequently, from
2010 on, subnational elections were held at the regional rather than the prefectural level, and from
2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...
on, they are held together with the
European Parliament elections
Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are considered the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's.
Unti ...
for a five-year period.
Reactions
Scholarly assessments
Scholars of
Southern Europe
Southern Europe is the southern region of Europe. It is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is essentially marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of Southern Europe include some or all of these countries and regions: Alba ...
an studies have described the Kallikratis reform as surprising, as it abolished a great number of prestigious and powerful political posts, which ahead of the looming crisis would have been regarded indispensable for keeping party
clientelism alive. Bertrana and Heinelt described the Papandreou government's decision as using a singular
window of opportunity
A window of opportunity (also called a margin of opportunity or critical window) is a period of time during which some action can be taken that will achieve a desired outcome. Once this period is over, or the "window is closed", the specified ...
to overcome long-standing resistance against reform. While in regard to the massive-scale top-down approach deviating from a ''Southern European strategy'',
compared to federal states such as
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, interaction between national and subnational levels remains relatively weak with the subnational levels remaining strictly separated from the deconcentrated administration of the central government. Also, state supervision remains largely confined to ''
a posteriori'' control of the
legality
Legality, in respect of an act, agreement, or contract is the state of being consistent with the law or of being lawful or unlawful in a given jurisdiction, and the construct of power.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, legality is 1 : ...
of a subnational entity's activity.
Howard Elcock suggested that in spite of all efforts, officialdom's reluctance makes securing transparency a continuing struggle, so the Greek citizen remained an ''administré'' rather than a participant in government
. Unnecessary decimation of local community organization led, in several occasions, to further minimization of participation. In the meantime, the hasty manner through which the law came into action paralyzed local authorities' initiative and independent funding.
Kallikratis and austerity
Akrivopoulou et al. pointed out that the Kallikratis program needs to be seen in the context of the general effort to create a smaller state. They point to specific provisions in the
First
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
and even more so in the
Second Memorandum concerning the role of local governance for overall austerity.
Nicos Souliotis pointed out that the Kallikratis plan fosters the transfer of
austerity policies to the local administrations, as the devolution of responsibilities to the subnational levels has not been accompanied by the transfer of the financial resources required to fulfil the responsibilities.
See also
*
List of municipalities and communities in Greece (1997–2010)
From 1 January 2011, in accordance with the Kallikratis plan, the administrative system of Greece was drastically overhauled. For the current list, see '' List of municipalities of Greece (2011)''. This is an alphabetical list of municipalities a ...
*
Administrative divisions of Greece
Following the implementation on 1 January 2011 of the Kallikratis Plan, the administrative divisions of Greece consist of two main levels: the regions and the municipalities. In addition, a number of decentralized administrations overseeing ...
References
Literature
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
ΦΕΚ A 87/2010, Full text of Law 3852/2010 (Kallikratis programme)in the
Government Gazette of the Hellenic Republic
ΦΕΚ B 1292/2010, List of primary and secondary organizations of local self-government as a result of the Kallikratis programmein the
Government Gazette of the Hellenic Republic {{in lang, el
Greek legislation
Subdivisions of Greece
2010 in Greek politics
Reform in Greece
Mergers of administrative divisions
Public administration