Country Profile: Greece

• Author: Naldini, Andrea; Pompili, Marco; Peruccacci, Eleonora
• Pages: 138-142

138

9.COUNTRY PROFI LE: GREECE

Introduction

Greece is a centralised country where public policies are administered, primarily, ata

central level. However, some shared competences are experienced, since some

decentralised public entities are in charge of handling public policies. With respect to

State aidschemes, there is a central body in charge of administering and supervising

the int erv ention s, but com pet ences are shared with som e decentr alised agencies.

9.1.Section 1- Nat ional rules for t he evaluat ion of State aidschemes

9.1.1.Obligation or lack th ereof to ev aluate

There are no generic legal provisions for mandat ory policy evaluations in the sense of

either ex post result/impact evaluation or ex ante impact assessment. There are two

cases of int erest:

−An explicit ex-ante impact assessment ismandatory for the protection of the

en vir onm en t: any m anu fact ur in g ac tiv it y nee ds t o pre par e a st udy de mo nst rat in g

its potential impact on the environm ent, submit it to the Regional Authority (or

the Ministry for larger investments)and receive the authorisation to proceed

(legal provisions by Law 4014/ 2011 and Development Law 4635/ 2019);

−For EU-supported development funding, the national administration follows the

ru les of each ESI fund regard ing evaluation s.

With respect to State aid, there is no explicit national legislation either imposing or

prescribing rules regarding ex-post evaluations. Because of their nature and size,

alm ost al l su ppor t schem es fall eit her un der th e De Mi nim is r ule , or , in t he case of Stat e

aidsupport schemes, under the GBER provisions, and are not subj ect to a mandat ory

ex-post evaluation.

Now th ere are only tw o sch emes which need e x-post evaluat ion s un der EU ru les ( GBER

EUR 15 0 m illionceiling p er y ear) , nam ely:

1)State aid SA.49935, Superfast Broadband (SFBB) Project, because it is

considered as an innovative measur e requiring evaluation an d

2)St at e aid SA. 474 12 , “Ge ner al Ent rep re neu rsh ip” of Dev elo pm ent l aw 43 99 / 20 16

because of its budget being ab ove th e GBER t hreshold.

9.1.2.Procedu res to en force the o bligation

There arenotany pr ocedures to enforce t he obligation t o evaluate, since evaluation is

not mandat ory .

9.2.Section 2- Nat ional auth orities responsible for the evaluat ion of State aid

9.2.1.Nat ional organ isation for State aid

State aidpolicy is organised to complywith competition rules and the ex-ante

com patibility assessment. Responsibilities for the ex-post evaluations follow the same

organisational setup. Law 4635/2019129(Investing in Greece and other provisions)

foresees the necessary organisation stipulating that the responsibility for calls for

129https://www.taxheaven.gr/law/4635/2019