Four ministers against Tina about the environment

The pounding received by the minister of Environment Ms Tina Birbili at the last cabinet meeting about the regulations concerning the simplification of the authorization process, shows that at a crucial time in the fight against bureaucracy, the government is moving at an extremely slow pace.

Reppas, Loverdos, Pamboukis and Skandalidis offered sharp criticism about the severity of the depletion observed in minor business activities for environmental reasons, and estimated that valuable time is being lost in improving the institutional framework for environmental approvals that are essential for the development of small and large businesses, claiming that the plan presented by Birbili was made in haste.

The view expressed by members of the government that even a «chicken coop now needs approval in environmental terms», may sound excessive but the truth is that in our country about 10.000 constructions (from manufacturing companies to road works) fall within the process of adopting environmental conditions.

And according to the data recently supplied by the PM, more than 3.000 files per year occupy the employees of county, peripheral and central offices, as to whether to issue new environmental conditions, or revisions of existing studies. However, this causes great delays in the overall process.
 
Papandreou: We have the largest number of environmental studies in the EU

«It is 320 studies per 1mil of population, when abroad it is only 60» said the PM recently, confirming the complexity of the licensing system that richly feeds the study offices, the only ones benefiting from the procedures.

But the ministry of the Environment admits that «in comparison to other member-countries of the EU, Greece has a disproportionately large number of projects and activities in a variety of categories which are subject to environmental permission processes». Albeit belatedly, the ministry is focused on improving the institutional framework to achieve a 50% reduction of the burden of environmental permission services.

To this end, they are planning to standardize the environmental conditions, which will be integrated in the installation or operation permits, as well as the development of specific standards for individual categories of the Environmental Impact Assessment. Reductions are planned for the «co-responsible» signatures for the approval of environmental conditions that currently require consent from up to five ministers or deputy ministers, while it is deemed necessary for the new permits to be handed out for public consultation so that there is an early stage of design work before the EIA is completed.

A 2-3 year extension for the EIA’s (it is 5 years today), is estimated to relieve the burden in the relevant offices while the removal of the pre-approval for the siting of small scale projects is also being designed.

The planning of the ministry, expected to be followed by a rationalization of the current services that issue the environmental conditions by category, does not seem to convince many members of government who have begun to nag, saying that a year has passed and the ministry has not solved one of the major problems for Greek businesses.   

It’s worth noting that the ministry of Regional Development is planning similar legislative measures for businesses that used to get their permits from Prefecture offices. The bill, recently released for public consultation, provides inter alia a merger of permissions (working, establishment, municipal or industrial wastewater and water usage) into one which will be part of the environmental conditions.

However, the most subversive element is the delegation of environmental licensing to chambers (commercial, technical, GEOTEE etc.) that will take over the relevant approvals for a fee.