Brussels, 16/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - A report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that red tape costs Greek businesses €3.28 billion a year, some three-quarters of which comes from paperwork connected with VAT (47% of the administrative burden), company law and annual accounts (18%) and public procurement (12%). The OECD report makes 87 recommendations across 13 areas, including VAT, company law and annual accounts, public procurement, agriculture, energy, the environment, food safety, pharmaceutical legislation, statistics, telecoms, tourism, the working environment and employment. The recommendations aim to eliminate unnecessary paperwork, for example, by eliminating obligations to submit several copies of the same document to various authorities.
The OECD recommends the introduction of an electronic portal where businesses can settle all types of administrative matters in one place. It says that, if implemented, the recommendations could make “significant savings for all businesses in Greece”, but would not give exact figures, although it did suggest savings totalling hundreds of millions of euro could be made each year. Moreover, the recommendations could eliminate unnecessary paperwork, make the civil service more efficient, reduce the risk of corruption and boost trust in institutions and government.
Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis regretted that “growth, productivity and innovation are today hampered explicitly by obsolete regulation that restrict market entry and limit market expansion; as well as by an array of implicit barriers (regulatory greyzones, red tape and corruption)”. Horst Reichenback, head of the Task Force for Greece, said that implementing the recommendations “can do much to enhance the competitiveness of the Greek economy, stimulate productivity and promote sustainable economic growth and job creation in the years to come”. (EL)