The government on Monday announced an urgent ministerial decision on Monday to transfer reserves from various general government entities to the Bank of Greece, a move that bypassed the legislative process.

The ministerial excludes pension funds’ reserves, but includes a retroactive clause dated March 17, 2015. Pension funds’ board can voluntarily … turn over their reserves to the central bank in return for a repos receipt.
The entities mostly affected by the decision are municipalities and regional governments.

Listed public utilities are also excluded from what critics called an “obligatory loan” to an increasingly cash-strapped central government.

Hours after the unexpected decision, central Greece regional government Costas Bakoyannis, the son of former minister Dora Bakoyannis, charged that the government was overturning the popular mandate for local government in a blink of an eye.

He also announced that his regional entity would appeal to the Council of State (CoS) to have the decision overturned as unconstitutional.