Greece’s Ministry of Environment and Energy is steering its most ambitious urban planning overhaul in decades with a gap at the top. Within a short span, it has lost the two figures who had a deep grasp of the upcoming reforms: Deputy Minister Nikos Tagaras, who died at 70 after a battle with cancer, and Secretary General for Spatial Planning and Urban Environment Efthimios Bakoyannis, who has now resigned.
Bakoyannis officially cited personal reasons and a wish to return to academic life, closing a stint at the ministry that began in 2019. According to relevant sources, however, his departure is tied to recent developments in a suspected corruption network operating within urban planning offices, as a relative of the secretary general is among those arrested. The same sources say Bakoyannis informed Minister of Environment and Energy Stavros Papastavrou of the family connection promptly, after which he was asked to submit his resignation, which was accepted immediately. The timing of these two events is significant as major reforms are under way covering town planning, the operation of building permit offices known, and their transfer from municipalities to the central state, along with land use in protected areas and the regulation of out-of-plan construction.
A problem with deep roots
Planning offices have become the focus of a broader debate about transparency, effectiveness and how they function. The recent corruption case at building permit offices is not an isolated incident. Findings gathered by the National Transparency Authority sketch a deeper and more systemic problem. According to audit data, complaints about planning cases rose 32% within a year in 2024, while dozens of cases were under investigation at building offices across the country, from Milos to Crete and especially on the islands of the Aegean that have seen a tourist boom.
When the exception becomes the rule
The numbers reveal only part of the picture. In three cases involving planning office employees, two in island municipalities and one in a municipality in Attica, investigators identified unexplained deposits of more than 350,000 euros, sums that could not be justified by declared income. In many other cases, undeclared real estate, bank accounts, vehicles and business holdings were found that had not been recorded in asset declarations. The related reports were forwarded to the judiciary, the Court of Audit and the Independent Authority for Public Revenue.
The most troubling element was that these cases do not appear as exceptions. In local communities, particularly where land values have soared because of tourism and investment, under-the-table dealings with planning offices are widely known and quietly tolerated. From paying to speed up a legitimate permit to legalizing unauthorized structures or bypassing limits on out-of-plan construction, a setting has formed in which excessive and overlapping legislation, contradictory interpretations of the law and the absence of coherent planning create gray zones.
Greece has operated for decades under piecemeal rules. Properties with identical features are treated differently from one planning office to another. In some cases permits are granted, in others rejected. Where discretion exists, room for arbitrary decisions follows, and where arbitrary decisions exist, corruption follows.
The plan to centralize planning offices
Against this backdrop, the government decided to accelerate plans to move building permit offices from municipalities to the central state, amid complaints of delays and dysfunction. Nearly one in four offices needs more than three months to issue a building permit, while in extreme cases delays have reached five years. At the same time, a third of offices operate with up to two engineers, often serving more than one municipality. The plan calls for the creation of the National Cadastre and Building Control Organization, a new body that will merge the cadastre with planning responsibilities. The aim is a single system for all property matters, with common procedures, digital checks, a registry of independent inspectors and the use of artificial intelligence tools to flag high-risk cases.
The reform is already meeting strong resistance. The Central Union of Municipalities in Greece (KEDE), believes a core pillar of local government responsibilities is being stripped away and is preparing an appeal to the Council of State, Greece’s highest administrative court, as soon as the first administrative act implementing the change is issued. The ground is already being laid. The new Code of Local Government, expected to be enacted within the month, no longer includes the provision assigning municipalities the issuance of building permits and building oversight, which KEDE views as a signal of the changes to come. For mayors, the issue extends beyond planning offices to the overall role of local government. They argue that transferring responsibilities to the central state violates the principle of administrative decentralization and creates an overly centralized model of decision-making.
A race against the clock for planning maps
Another issue is that certain urban planning projects and reforms are being funded by the Recovery and Resilience Facility, which is about to expire in August, making this literally a race against time. Of the 227 Local Urban Plan studies, a significant share of the active studies remains in its early stages. Every delay raises the risk of losing European funds and shifting the cost to the state budget.
Another unresolved issue is the protected areas. Six years after Greece began drawing up Special Environmental Studies for its Natura areas, the European Union’s network of protected natural sites, only 17 of 23 have been approved, and just one, covering Gyaros, has been signed into law by presidential decree. The delay feeds directly into planning, because the land uses set for protected areas have to be written into the local and special urban plans before those can be finalized.
The big bet on out-of-plan construction
At the same time, work is under way to recognize the shared-use roads that will determine whether thousands of plots in out-of-plan areas can be built on. This is one of the largest unresolved matters currently rocking the Greek property market. A Council of State ruling effectively froze much out-of-plan construction, and it cannot resume until the question of which roads count is settled. Unlocking those plots now depends on a chain of steps that leaves no room for a leadership gap: the roads have to be formally recognized, the relevant presidential decrees have to be issued, and the new road network has to be written into the planning maps. The first link is the decree setting the criteria for what counts as a shared-use road, and that is what will ultimately decide which plots can be built on and which cannot.”
A complex portfolio, no margin for delay
All of this now lands on the new deputy minister, Marilena Soukouli-Biliali. She has little time. She must get up to speed and take on an extremely complex file at a moment when there is little room for delay. Political and administrative continuity in one of the ministry’s most demanding areas is being tested precisely when the reform can least afford it.
Source: ot.gr
