Institutional Manipulation and Political Control as Methods of Organizing Intergovernmental Relations in Greece

Abstract

Greek local government is an institution of power. Its power is based on popular sovereignty, as local authorities are elected by universal and secret ballot, and its public policies are based on the country's fundamental law, the Constitution. However, the legislator, disregarding this Constitutional Regulation insists on determining the competences appointed to local government and the areas of its competence, acting often beyond the limits of the Constitution. In addition to local government affairs defined by law, central administration grants to local government affairs which belong to the circle of its competences, ie affairs of the central government. This concession regards affairs that the central administration would like to avoid exercising, because they usually have a political cost, which it does not want to bear. The central administration, even if local governments competences are defined by law, or are granted by it, intervenes during the exercise of these affair either by legislative interventions that the majority of the parliament allows, or by decisions of the governing bodies, where it is permitted. This intervention is usually aimed at limiting the affairs allocated to local government, because central government considers that local authorities exercise political influence over the citizens within their administrative boundaries, or because the local authorities belong to opposite political areas from those of the central administration and aim to limit the exercise of policies at the local level, in a way of organizing and operating differently from that of the central administration.