Editorial: A revolution in Greece’s bureaucracy

We had become accustomed – as part of our daily lives and as a sort of deeply-rooted Greek tradition – to the fact that any transaction with the public sector would entail huge hassles.

Whenever one submitted any request, one was obliged to arduously collect many documents, only to find that they were not sufficient, that something was missing, as if the state had to punish us for a crime that it alone knew that we had committed.

All that will now be a thing of the past with the government’s new “Constitution of the Citizen”, which will regulate relations between the state and citizens.

As Ta Nea Weekend reveals, the ministries of digital governance and of the interior are preparing to table draft legislation in Parliament that will include a series of revolutionary provisions.

They include unifying and making more rational the process of issuing certificates, abolishing the requirement that a state authority confirm the authenticity of a citizen’s signature (based on their police/state ID), establishing that public services and not the citizen will be obliged to collect the necessary documents for a request to be processed, and the requirement that a cases be completed by specific deadlines.

It is of particular importance that the plan provides for competent administrators to visit the home of members of social groups that are demonstrably unable to be transported to public services.

Was it all that easy?

No.

It simply required political will, decisiveness, and administrative capabilities in order to combat bureaucratic red tape, to streamline procedures, and to adopt smart ways to improve the operation of Greece’s public administration.

It also required a change in the predominant mentality in state bureaus and services, which viewed citizens as a burden and treated them as such.

Until now, employees at public services behaved as if they were doing citizens a favour.

From now on, these services will be reviewed and evaluated, and they will be obliged to pay compensation if they do not meet deadlines.

In this manner, the public sector will no longer be a vehicle for hiring political parties’ supporters-clients.

It will be transformed into a vibrant organism that will operate in cooperation – and not competition – with citizens, who in turn must understand that aside from rights, they also have obligations.