Greece plans to rapidly expand government digital services in 2020 to try and slim down its notoriously slow-moving bureaucracy and help the country exit its pandemic recession more quickly.
More than 500 services are available through a new online portal, gov.gr, launched on March 21 during lockdown measures. Kyriakos Pierrakakis, minister of digital governance, told The Associated Press he hopes to add at least 200 more services by the end of the year – roughly one per day.
They currently range from obtaining online medical prescriptions and filing architectural designs for building permits to applying for state assistance for ex-convicts.
“Think simplifications of a life event: The birth of a child. Up until February, getting the (social security) number of a newborn involved visits on behalf of citizens to five different public services,” Pierrakakis said.
“Now, that happens automatically within the hospital, and parents are notified by SMS … We’re making that example universal.”
Barely out of a major financial crisis, Greece is expected to suffer the worst recession in the European Union this year from the impact of COVID-19 on tourism and other key sectors of its debt-burdened economy.
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Administrative costs amounted to a whopping 6.8% of Greek GDP before the global financial crisis more than a decade ago, roughly double the EU average, according to estimates by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Under pressure from bailout lenders, Greece has been digitizing the services of its public and tax administration for years but only put citizens’ services under a single online roof for the first time seven weeks ago.
Read more: AP
