Kallikratis reform

Scholarly assessments

Scholars of Southern European 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 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, 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 of a subnational entity's activity.