Public Service Provision by the Greek Local Government

The Greek local self government’s role in public utilities management and, more generally, in the provision of public interest services was steadily increasing for nearly six decades. Mainly from the 80's onwards, when the powers of local government expanded significantly, local government became the major provider of such services. Furthermore, state-owned companies managed large-scale public utilities in metropolitan areas (water supply) or nationwide (electricity). Since such industries in a medium-sized country like Greece constitute natural monopolies, the dominant role of the state and the municipalities in their management was legitimized. Even when, in the 90’s and chiefly the 2000’s, under the influence of ideological but also operational imperatives state and municipal public utility agencies opted more flexibility and market orientation, the solutions adopted weren’t privatizations but businesslike models under municipal and state ownership. While public entities were transformed in commercial enterprises operating under the private law and even listed on the stock-market, the majority of the shares remained with the state, local government and other public entities. Recently, under the pressure of the sovereign debt crisis, major privatization projects are included in the political agenda. Such privatization projects of public utilities seem to be guided exclusively by budgetary and public finance criteria. Therefore they cannot be easily associated with broader public interest concerns in the relevant policy fields.