Country Profile: Greece

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

138

9. COUNTRY PROFI LE: GREECE

Int roduct ion

Greece is a cent ralised count ry where public policies are adm inist er ed, primarily , at a

central lev el. However, some shared com petences are experienced, sin ce som e

decent ralised public ent it ies are in charge of handling public policies. Wit h respect to

State aid schemes, there is a cent ral body in charge of administering and super vising

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 aid schemes

9.1. 1. Obligation or lack th ereof to ev aluate

There are no gener ic legal pr ov isions for m andat ory policy evaluations in the sense of

eit her ex post r esult/ im pact evaluation or ex ante im pact assessm ent. There are tw o

cases of int erest:

− An explicit ex-ante impact assessment is m andat ory for the pr ot ection 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 im pact on t he environm ent, submit it to t he Region al Authority (or

the Ministry for larger investments) and r eceive t he au thorisation to proceed

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

− For EU-support ed development funding, t he nat ional administration follows the

ru les of each ESI fund regard ing evaluation s.

Wit h respect to State aid, t here is no explicit nation al legislation either im posing or

prescr ibing r ules regar ding ex-post evalu at ions. Because of their nat ure 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

aid support schemes, under the GBER pr ov isions, 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 illion ceiling p er y ear) , nam ely:

1) St at e aid SA.49935, Superfast Broadband (SFBB) Proj ect , 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 are not any 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 aid policy is or ganised to comply with com petition rules and the ex-ante

com patibilit y assessm ent. Responsibilities for the ex-post evaluations follow t he same

organ isational setup. Law 4635/ 2019129 (I nvesting in Greece and ot her pr ovisions)

foresees th e necessar y or ganisation stipulat ing that t he r esponsibility for calls for

129 ht tp s: //www.t axheav en. gr/law/ 4 635/ 2019