Environment? What environment?… Permits now!

Approvals of environmental conditions from four to six months, drastic removal of activities that require the relevant permits and strict controls to meet environmental standards in the operation of a facility; they are all provided for in the new institutional framework expected to be submitted to the cabinet this week by the Environment ministry.

Units with an impact on on the local environment, such as small hotels/ industries/ plants, solar farms, wineries, toll booths and parking lots, are excluded from the licencing requirement.

For large projects such as highways, the plan determines inspections during construction when the greatest environmental impact can be encountered, but also during operation. For the industries that show the largest impact on the environment (e.g. Oinofyta), the inspections will be conducted at regular intervals.

The ministry is once again recruiting the environmental inspectors, a reliable but quite understaffed department, which is also expected to deal with construction inspections within the framework of the new law for issuing construction permits, as well as the demolition of unauthorised buildings.

21.500 files in the queue

Under the current status, the ministry's departments and former prefectures and regions,  screened a total of 21.500 files annually, depending on the classification of activities.

This is an outrageously large number considering that in Austria, a country similar to Greece’s size and a model of environmental sensitivity, the average number of studies per year is 23 (!), and 334 in the United Kingdom. Even in France, which has the largest number of studies, the average per year is 3.867.

The enormous volume of studies results in long delays in approving environmental licenses, starting at 20 months and in some cases even reaching 3 years!

With the new institutional framework expected to be operational in September on the orders of the Troika, the time limit is decreased to 6 months for the approval of projects in the A1 category licensed by the ministry, up to maybe one year for more complex projects. Projects licensed by the Decentralized Administration will require 4 months.