Country data: Greece

All comparisons are with the figures for 10 December 2020, the previous reporting date.

The last 2 years, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Member State authorities to address pressing priorities and affected their performance in transposing EU rules to some degree. In this context, the Commission has taken a number of extraordinary measures aimed at relieving the strain on Member States’ administrative resources. Nevertheless, it has also made clear that the Member States’ legal obligations to transpose EU directives in time remain unchanged.

 

Transposition deficit (percentage of all directives not transposed): 1.8% (last report: 1%) – a significant increase of 0.8 percentage points. Greece is one of nine Member States whose increasing deficit in the last reporting period made them miss the 1% target set by the European Council.
EU average = 1.6%; proposed target (in the Single Market Act) = 0.5%

Greece’s performance on this criterion is generally good. However, it increased its deficit by 80% between December 2020 (when it stood at 1%) and December 2021 (when it had risen to 1.8%). In addition, it did not transpose 12 of the 26 single market directives (46%) due to have been transposed in the 6 months before the cut-off date for calculating the deficit (1 June to 30 November 2021). This shows that Greece may have some difficulties organising the timely transposition of directives, although the average delay in transposing directives is moderate – see below. Constraints due to the COVID-19 pandemic did not help. However, transposition is an ongoing process and any let-up may result in the deficit quickly increasing.

Overdue directives: 18 (last report: 10), including 5 on financial services. No directive is more than 2 years overdue.

Average delay in transposing directives: 6.5 months (last report: 4.7 months) – an increase of 1.8 months, but the delay is still shorter than the EU average.  
EU average = 8.6 months

Of Greece’s 18  outstanding directives, 5 have been due for between 6 months and 2 years and 13 for less than 6 months.

Conformity deficit (percentage of all directives transposed incorrectly): 1.5% (last report: 1.1%) – an increase of 0.4 percentage points and Greece’s highest deficit ever.          
EU average = 1.3%; proposed target (in the Single Market Act) = 0.5%

The number of new infringement proceedings that the Commission has launched against Member States for incorrectly transposing single market directives has more than halved in 2 years. Nevertheless, the number of ongoing cases is still high. With 15 directives presumed to have been incorrectly transposed, Greece’s conformity deficit is above the EU average. Greece is also one of five Member States that have both a high transposition deficit and a high percentage of incorrectly transposed directives.

Evolution of transposition deficit

 

Evolution of conformity deficit

 

All comparisons are with the figures for 1 December 2020, the previous reporting date.

 

Pending single market cases: 46 (12 new cases, including 3 on taxation, and 15 cases closed, including 6 on the environment and 3 on transport; last report: 49 pending cases) – a decrease of 3 cases but still well above the EU average.       
EU average = 27 cases

Greece is among the 3 Member States with the highest number of infringement cases. However, it managed to slow down its steady increasen in infringements (+48% between December 2018 and December 2020).

The Commission launched 120 new cases against Member States in the reporting period (besides those for late transposition), and these were still pending on 1 December 2021. A total of 12 cases were launched against Greece, which is the highest of all Member States and three time the EU average of 4 new cases launched in the reporting period. However, 15 Greek cases (also the most of all Member States) have been resolved since December 2020, which is almost double the EU average (8).

Problematic sectors: the environment (17 cases), in particular atmospheric pollution, waste management and water protection and management (5 cases each); transport (7 cases), including 3 on air transport; taxation – indirect taxation (3) and direct taxation (2). Together, these make up 63% of all pending cases.

Average case duration: 29.6 months for the 33 single market cases not yet sent to the European Court of Justice(last report: 35.2 months) – this is a marked decrease of 5.6 months (highest decrease among Member States) and the duration of cases is much shorter than the EU average.
EU average = 42.8 months

The average duration of Greek cases has significantly decreased in the last 3 years (-37%) and Greece is now the Member State with the shortest average duration. It recently resolved 12 cases with an average duration of around 3 years (including a 16-year-old case on air transport). In addition, the 3 very old pending cases that push up Greece’s average (2 cases on air transport are respectively 11 and 8 years old; 1 case on late payment is 11 years old) are offset by the launch of a high number (12) of new cases (whose average duration is less than 12 months).

Time taken to comply with Court rulings: 33.9 months for the 10 single market cases at the Court-ruling stage of the procedure and closed in the last 5 years (last report: 30.6 months).   
EU average = 46.8 months

Greece is one of 12 Member States whose average time to comply increased in the reporting period, although only moderately (+3.3 months). Two cases on water protection and rail transport that took 44 and 37 months respectively to comply have now been closed for more than 5 years and are no longer part of the calculation. Six out of the 10 remaining Greek cases took less than 2 years to comply; the other 4 cases took longer, in particular the one on health and consumers that took almost 10 years to comply and significantly increased the average time lag. Of the 10 rulings in the last 5 years, 4 concerned taxation.

Evolution of infringement cases

Performance – Greece performed poorly.

• Results for all five indicators were below the EEA average.
• Performance on requests answered within the deadline increased significantly while the percentage of requests accepted within 1 week decreased slightly.
• Further efforts are needed to improve performance for all indicators.

• Caseload – medium
  Submitted cases – 20 (18 in 2020)
  Received cases – 68 (230 in 2020)

• Cases not accepted – 55 (74 in 2020)

• Resolution rate –  44% (15% in 2020)
• Handling time (home centre)
  Reply in 7 days:  58% (54% in 2020) – poor
  Cases prepared in 30 days: 74% (88% in 2020) – good
  Solutions accepted within 7 days: 50% (45% in 2020 ) – very poor

• Cases not accepted within 30 days:  71% (80% in 2020) - good

• Handling time (lead centre)
  Cases accepted within 7 days:  63% (63% in 2020) – poor
  Cases closed in 10 weeks:  50% (3% in 2020) – very poor
• Staffing
  urgent requiring action

In 2022, the average payment delay (the time exceeding the legal or contractually agreed payment terms)  by Greek public authorities was 13 days.

The average number of days needed for a business to have its invoices paid by other businesses (business-to-business payments) was 50.33 days.

Indicator	2021	EU average
Burden of government regulation (survey replies: 1 = worst, 7 = best)	3.0	3.6
Digital public services to start and run a business (100% = best performing)	47.6%	n/a
Payment delays by public authorities	13 days	15.7 days
Time to resolve insolvency	3.5 years	2.0 years
Impact of regulation on long-term investment decisions (survey replies)	51.9%	n/a

Indicator	2021	EU average
Single bidder	40%	25%
No calls for bids	1%	6%
Publication rate (value advertised on Tenders Electronic Daily, in % of GDP)	4.2%	5.9%
Cooperative procurement (proportion of procedures with more than one buyer)	3%	5%
Award criteria (proportion of procedures awarded to cheapest bid)	89%	64%
Decision speed (days)	246	99
SME contractors	42%	61%
SME bids	87%	73%
Procedures divided into lots	38%	31%
Missing calls for bids	0%	1%
Missing seller registration numbers	89%	29%
Missing buyer registration numbers	83%	11%

Note: A typical (mid-ranking) EU country is used for the EU average for all indicators except the publication rate. Due to delays in data availability, publication rate results are based on 2020 data.

Indicator	2021	EU average
Restrictiveness indicator – architect	2.9	2.5
Restrictiveness indicator – accountant	2.1	1.7
Restrictiveness indicator – civil engineer	2.7	2.4
Restrictiveness indicator – lawyer	3.8	3.4
Restrictiveness indicator – real estate agent	0.0	1.3
Restrictiveness indicator – patent agent	3.8	2.2
Restrictiveness indicator – tourist guide	2.2	1.2
Domestic priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020)	€ 0.72	€ 0.88
Intra-EU priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020)	€ 0.90	€ 1.53
Domestic transit times, day+1 performance, priority letters 20 g (2020)	59.8%	84.2%

Note: The EU restrictiveness indicator (EURI) measures the level of restrictiveness for the cross-border provision of services and the right of establishment for seven groups of professional services with a high share in EU firms’ intermediate consumption or cross-border mobility. The level of restrictiveness is measured on a scale from 0 (least restrictive) to 6 (most restrictive). 

Indicator	2021	EU average
Access to public financial support (% of SMEs indicating deterioration)	13.3%	11.3%
Time to get paid by businesses (2022 survey)	50.3 days	52.5 days
Venture capital investments (% of GDP)	0.27%	0.48%