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32-747: The Peloponnese Region was established in the 1987 administrative reform. With the 2011 Kallikratis plan , its powers and authority were redefined and extended. Along with the Western Greece and Ionian Islands regions, it is supervised by the Decentralized Administration of Peloponnese, Western Greece and the Ionian Islands based at Patras . The region is based at Tripoli and is divided into five regional units (pre-Kallikratis prefectures ), which are further subdivided into 26 municipalities . The largest city of

64-425: A change of government. By late February New Democracy's lead in the opinion polls had been cut to 3%. The Athens daily Kathemerini commented: "Now, two weeks before the elections, all opinion polls show PASOK 3 to 4.5 percentage points behind ND. This raises the question of whether PASOK can snatch victory away from ND. The fact is that much is unclear. For example, although PASOK has little support, its leader has

96-455: 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

128-480: A country which has been widely regarded as the most centralist 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

160-463: A good image in public opinion polls." The electoral campaign concluded on in the traditional manner, with huge televised mass rallies in the centre of Athens by each of the major parties. On the evening of 4 March Karamanlis addressed an estimated 200,000 at the ND's concluding rally. PASOK claimed that twice that number attended their rally on 6 March, but these numbers cannot be independently verified. At

192-458: A majority in Parliament. A "threshold" of 3% of the total popular vote is also required by law for a party to be eligible for representation in Parliament. This provision kept all but the four top-polling parties from securing parliamentary seats. The result of the election was not as close as observers expected. It appears that ND regained its earlier lead over PASOK in the two weeks after

224-615: Is the common name of Greek law 3852/2010 of 2010, a major administrative reform in Greece . It brought about the second major reform of the country's administrative divisions following the 1997 Kapodistrias reform . Named after ancient Greek architect Callicrates , 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

256-749: 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 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

288-661: The November 2010 local elections , and was completed by January 2011. It was amended by the Kleisthenis I Programme (Law 4555/2018), which was adopted in July 2018 and implemented in September 2019. 1994 reforms under the socialist Papandreou government turned the largely dysfunctional prefectures into Prefectural Self-Government entities (PSGs) with prefects and prefectural councils both being popularly elected. In return,

320-516: 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 . 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

352-509: The 13 NUTS 2 -level administrative regions ( Διοικητική περιφέρεια , Diikitiki periferia or "administrative region"). Originally introduced in 1987, the regions had been strengthened in 1993 as intermediate administrative units for regional planning . Under the Kallikratis Programme, these regions became self-governing, separate entities with a regional council and a regional governor, both popularly elected. In return,

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384-411: 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

416-552: 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. Greek legislative election, 2004 Costas Simitis PASOK Kostas Karamanlis ND Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 7 March 2004. The New Democracy Party of Kostas Karamanlis won

448-454: The ND rally, Karamanlis said that PASOK had been in power too long and had grown lazy and corrupt. At the PASOK rally, Papandreou evoked the memory of his father but said that he would lead a government dedicated to reform and change, as well as action against corruption. Since publication of opinion polls is banned in the last two weeks of Greek election campaigns, it was not possible to predict

480-479: 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

512-461: The campaign as saying: "We Greeks like to know where our leaders come from. We feel we know these families as well as we know our own." In January New Democracy was leading PASOK in opinion polls by 7%. But Papandreou's election to the party leadership allowed PASOK to regain ground. During February Papandreou campaigned on "the need for change" in Greece, hoping to neutralise the strong sentiment for

544-480: The central tasks of the national administration were transferred to seven larger, newly created "decentralized administrations" ( Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση , Apokendromeni Diikisi ). Headed by a general secretary appointed by the Minister of Interior , the decentralized administration is responsible for regional planning and environmental protection . Subsequently, from 2010 on, subnational elections were held at

576-594: 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. 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

608-484: The elections, ending eleven years of rule by PASOK . PASOK was led into the elections by George Papandreou , who succeeded retiring Prime Minister Costas Simitis as party leader in February. Greek politics is strongly dynastic. Kostas Karamanlis is the nephew of Konstantinos Karamanlis , who was six times (1955, 1956, 1958, 1961, 1974, 1977) Prime Minister and twice President of Greece (1980–1985, 1990–1995), and

640-403: The founder of New Democracy after the restoration of democracy in 1974. George Papandreou is the son of Andreas Papandreou , three times (1981, 1985, 1993) Prime Minister and the founder of PASOK , and the grandson of Georgios Papandreou , a liberal centrist who entered national politics in the 1920s and was twice Prime Minister (1944, 1963). Athens daily Kathimerini quoted a voter during

672-439: The increasing urbanization 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 with just 28 inhabitants. With the territorial reforms of the 1990s, Greece has been cited as the first southern European country to follow

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704-623: 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. At the same time the programme abolished the 51 self-governing prefectures ( NUTS 3 ), leaving them only in place as regional units . The former prefectures' competences were transferred to

736-589: The meantime, the hasty manner through which the law came into action paralyzed local authorities' initiative and independent funding. 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 and even more so in the Second Memorandum concerning the role of local governance for overall austerity. Nicos Souliotis pointed out that

768-497: The number of self-governing local administrative units 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 being reinstated as municipalities. Altogether, Greek municipalities now reached a mean size of 31,000 inhabitants, a level comparable to many other countries in

800-420: The outcome of the election, except to say that ND appeared to have been leading when the last polls were published, and that most commentators expected the result in terms of votes to be close. Greek electoral law ensures, through a complex algorithm of parliamentary seat redistribution, that a party polling a plurality of the vote (that is, more than any other party but also more than 40%) is practically guaranteed

832-497: The prefectural level. After the electoral victory of the liberal-conservative New Democracy 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 , as subunits of the 51 prefectures, were abolished in 2007. Only after

864-670: The region is Kalamata . The region has shrunk by 41,537 people between 2011 and 2021, experiencing a population loss of 6.8%. The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the region was 8.2 billion € in 2018, accounting for 4.5% of Greek economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 17,400 € or 57% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 68% of the EU average. Kallikratis plan Later Political Life The Kallikratis Programme ( Greek : Πρόγραμμα Καλλικράτης , romanized :  Prógramma Kallikrátis )

896-540: The regional rather than the prefectural level, and from 2014 on, they are held together with the European Parliament elections for a five-year period. 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

928-490: 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 . Some prefectures were grouped into larger administrative super-prefectures or "hypernomarchies"), while Attica Prefecture

960-423: The state, and to create economies of scale . Putting administrative efficiency first, the top-down reform plan was criticized as subordinating questions of legitimacy and 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. Following the landslide victory of the socialist PASOK in

992-462: The thirteen administrative regions of Greece , 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 , European structural funding and treasury . Part of the subsequent Kapodistrias plan , Law 2539/1997 sharply reduced the number of municipalities and communities from 5.823 to 1.033, after

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1024-405: Was further subdivided into four administrative prefectures ("nomarchies"). Regions are further subdivided into regional units ( περιφερειακή ενότητα , periferiaki enotita ), often corresponding to the former prefectures, and headed by a vice-regional governor ( αντιπεριφερειάρχης , antiperifereiárchis ). 120 communities ( Κοινότητα , kinotita ) The Kallikratis Programme further reduced

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