Ministry officials delay opening up closed professions
By Dimitra Manifava
A considerable part of the public administration appears reluctant to apply legislation for the liberalization of the so-called closed-shop professions. This reluctance starts from the top of ministry administration and trickles down to local officials around the country.
Public administrators, often with professional backgrounds in sectors slated for liberalization, are known to operate as mouthpieces for union interests instead of applying the law, which means issuing the necessary implementation circulars or the preparation of the presidential decrees required.
This has been obvious from the start of the liberalization process by the dozens of demands for exemption from the law of 2011 that were submitted to the competent ministries. In fact, delays in the application of the law have been recorded regarding professions such as as lawyers, energy inspectors, actuaries, etc., and here are quite a few cases where ministries have refrained -- deliberately or not -- from submitting to the Competitions Commission the necessary documents to support the exemption claims, resulting in delays to the entire opening-up process.
It appeared on Wednesday that the fate of a contentious anti-racism bill will have to be determined by the leaders of the three parties in the fragile coalition after the government’s genera...
The European Union's leaders took a major step in tackling tax-dodgers Wednesday by pushing to end bank secrecy across the bloc's 27 members by the end of the year.
German Chancellor Angela ...
The league that in the last three years has produced the European basketball champion entered its playoffs on Tuesday and Wednesday with the first games of the quarterfinal round, with AGO R...
Germany's Bjoern Otto recorded the world's leading performance in the men's pole vault at the Athens Street Pole Vault event that took place at Zappio, in central Athens, on Saturday afterno...
One of the biggest problems dragging the Greek economy down is the pressure placed on entrepreneurs aspiring to do business in sectors dominated by the “pirates” and “pimps” of the business ...
Greek taxpayers have had to pay dozens of millions of euros for the restoration and conservation of the capital’s landmark buildings, including Athens Polytechnic and the so-called neoclassi...
