Regional planning and the integrated Mediterranean programmes in Greece

Measuring regional economic efficiency: the case of Greek prefectures

“…Moreover, if these mechanisms do not exist, they must be created before the recourses are allocated. In that respect the results support the previous studies evaluating the Greek regional and economic development policies over the last decade (Papageorgiou and Verney 1992;Georgantas and Psycharis 1999), which in turn suggest that even though the dominant economic and regional development policy in Greece has been changed dramatically over the last decade and after the second Community Support Framework (CSF) the development and economic inefficiencies have been derived from administrative ineffectiveness. The reason behind this situation is mainly because all the efforts for the last decade were directed mainly towards maximising the absorption of the EU funds, whilst very little attention was paid to the effectiveness of the selected interventions.…”

“…Appointed regional councils, consisting of central state and local government representatives were also established, under the chairmanship of the regional secretary (Papageorgiou and Verney 1992). Table 1 provides information regarding the 13 administrative regions (such as population, area in km 2 , and area in miles) and information regarding the 52 prefectures.…”

EU Structural Funds, Regional Capabilities and Enlargement: Towards Multi-Level Governance?

“…19 As Papageorgiou and Verney observed, there was ''no single regional agency in Greece participating in a European consortium or network: few had any knowledge of what they might involve'' and that the Greek government retained ''exclusive political control of all relations with the EC.'' 20 In this context, it was difficult to see how these weakest regions could effectively participate as the new policy anticipated.…”

Representing regions in Europe: The committee of the regions

“…There have been efforts (mainly by PASOK, the Greek Socialist Party) to decentralize and to introduce a regional level of administration (mainly as a result of EU pressure to ensure implementation of the Integrated Mediterranean Programmes). However, these reform efforts have been largely unsuccessful (Papageorgiu and Verney, 1992).…”

“…The Netherlands, too, described as a 'decentralized unitary state' (Toonen, 1993), is experimenting with some regionalization measures although, so far, these have been quite limited (Hendriks, 1996). Greece, Denmark and Luxembourg show little propensity to regionalize their political systems, although Greece has introduced some token regionalization of its administration under pressure from the European Commission for the purposes of implementing the Integrated Mediterranean Programmes (Papageorgiu and Verney, 1992).…”