Not only has Greece been a role model in reducing national debt for some time, the country has also shown a lot in the digitalization of public administration. That’s what the government wanted to convey this Monday in Berlin when Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis met with his counterpart Lars Klingbeil and Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger.
Pierrakakis is an IT specialist trained in the US, and elsewhere. From 2019 to 2023, as Digital Minister, he initiated a number of reforms. The Hertie School in Berlin, where he attended on Monday evening, described him as “one of the most influential figures in Europe on the topic of digital governance and state reform.”
Central in Greece is a government website called “gov.gr”, through which, according to the government, more than 1,500 government services can be accessed digitally – from the issuance of birth and marriage certificates and pension certificates to election documents and payment options. In the “wallet” citizens can have their KTP, SIM and Health Card in digital form.
Fighting tax avoidance with digitalization
Ministries and authorities communicate with each other through a unified network called Mitos, thereby saving paperwork and time. The effort required to register a company, for example, has been reduced significantly. Additionally, digitalization helps fight tax evasion. On platforms like “myData”, companies have to report income and expenses in real time so that tax authorities can spot the discrepancies.
The Ministry of Finance reports that VAT evasion in particular has decreased. The income gap fell from 25.4 percent of tax liabilities to 13.7 percent between 2018 and 2022.
“Administrative digitalization in Greece has made great progress; more than 2,000 services are now available directly online,” reports Ilja Nothnagel, member of the managing board of the German-Greek Chamber of Commerce in Athens. The government is also seeking to use artificial intelligence to process requests more efficiently and quickly. “The first effects were obvious,” Nothnagel said. “It is important that digitalization is controlled centrally; specifications from one ministry must apply equally to everyone,” added Marian Wendt, head of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Athens.
The transition did not go smoothly
In the past, most administrative procedures were difficult to carry out. Some documents can only be published after consultation between the three authorities. Pensions are paid with a delay of up to two and a half years after retirement. According to the World Bank, in 2014 an average of 15 different permits were required to start a business. Everything happens faster today. Four out of five Greeks realize that the digitalization of public and private services has made their lives easier, the EU Commission reports.
However, the transition does not always go smoothly. The Greek information service “healthreport.gr” reports that there are significant delays in the digitization of medical data in hospitals, so there is a risk of losing European funds from the EU reconstruction plan. Greece is using a fifth of the funds decided during the pandemic – around 7.4 billion euros – for digitalization. An additional 2.7 billion euros will come from EU cohesion funds.
According to the EU Commission, Greece’s digitalization also faces a number of challenges. Skilled personnel are very scarce. The number of IT and communications technology specialists in Greece is much lower than the EU average. This is also a consequence of emigration after the debt crisis. Moreover, on the other side of public administration, many small and often financially weak companies in Greece are lagging behind in digitalization. People, especially senior citizens, often lack basic digital skills. Minister Pierrakakis acknowledged that there is another country that is a bigger role model in digitalization: Estonia. Representatives of the country have attempted to carry out reforms in Greece.
Nevertheless, the Greek government has created a number of conditions for modernization. Greece’s 5G telecommunications coverage is among the highest in the EU; Many remote islands are now also connected to the network. Deutsche Telekom contributed to the network expansion through its Greek subsidiary, OTE. Healthy public finances are the basis for such reforms. Finance Minister Pierrakakis will report on progress in Berlin: The national debt will fall by 7.7 percentage points to 138.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2026. By 2029, the figure will be below 120 percent. Debts from Europe’s first rescue package will be repaid in full by 2031, ten years earlier than needed. Lenders such as Germany and France can count on billions in transfers from Athens to help their households.
