Two ministries, the digital governance ministry and the interior ministry, are cooperating to cut back red tape in a sweeping reform of public-sector processes, their respective ministers said in statements to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA) on Monday. Their cooperation aims to speed up procedures via key reforms and projects, as well as with the cooperation of all those who wish to do so, with the aim of creating a better public sector
This partnership seeks to put an end to the perennial failings of the Greek public sector and to help all those who have sought solutions and could not find them in an unprecedented bureaucracy, armed with digital and other tools that make the lives of both private citizens and businesses easier, with the aim of creating a comprehensive and central service via a a single digital service desk. These tools include platforms such as My Street, Gov.gr, abolishing the requirement for often-requested certificates (marital status, birth) for the completion of administrative procedures with state agencies, introducing evaluation of central government services and agencies by all citizens registered in the National Communication Registry, or of forward-facing state services by proven users.

Dimitris Papastergiou: Together with the Ministry of Interior, we are implementing key reforms and projects

Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou referred to the improvement of the citizens' every day life with the use of digital tools directly adapted to their needs, especially with regard to their service by the public sector, in a statement to Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA).
"We are moving forward digitally, upgrading the daily lives of citizens, increasing the efficiency of public administration, and unleashing the strengths of Greek society and the economy in cooperation with Interior Minister Thodoris Livanios. We are implementing key reforms and projects for a state that is constantly improving and making its interactions with citizens and businesses more modern and simpler. In this logic, citizens acquire an active role in highlighting the problems and failures that we need to solve. Through electronic questionnaires, we are expecting to carry out the largest evaluation of public services ever conducted," said Papastergiou.
"Furthermore, another reform that highlights our plan to reduce even digital layers of bureaucracy is the abolition of the issuance and presentation of certificates. It is unnecessary for citizens to carry analog or digital documents, when interoperability allows agencies to automatically extract the necessary data.  At the same time, with the implementation of the "Unified digital infrastructure for serving citizens and businesses", the CRM, we are making the user experience on gov.gr even simpler, while with MyStreet, which we institutionalised last week in parliament, we are protecting public spaces. Citizens will download the app to their mobile phones and when they notice the arbitrary occupation of squares and sidewalks by tables and chairs, they will easily and simply report it. "We can live better, more simply, with more free time with technological solutions. Every day we put into practice the vision of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for a digitally efficient and fair state."

Thodoris Livanios: Everyone can participate in shaping a better public sector

Interior Minister Thodoris Livanios, speaking to the ANA-MPA, highlighted the implementation, for the first time, of the largest-scale evaluation of the services and bodies of the central government, the regions and the municipalities by the citizens themselves.
"The modernisation of the state and, by extension, of the public sector, is achieved through the implementation of digital tools, so that public services are more efficient and friendlier to citizens. In this context and in collaboration with the Ministry of Digital Governance, we are promoting a series of actions focused on strengthening the smooth and more efficient operation of the public sector. The important steps that have been taken in the last six years, with the development and strengthening of gov.gr and its more than 2100 services, constitute the solid foundation for our next steps."
Concluding, he said that "in addition, by establishing and implementing for the first time the largest-scale evaluation of the services and bodies of the Central Government, the Regions and the Municipalities by the citizens themselves, through an electronic questionnaire, this aims at the active participation of all of us in shaping a better public sector. We are working for a digital state that will constantly stand by the citizen, definitively ending the problems and pending issues of the past," Livanios said.