"The entire state, local governments, scientific community and social bodies have for years being trying to hide behind their finger"

Dora Bakoyannis (Athens News Agency 19:11:07), ex-mayor of Athens and now Foreign Minister of Greece, gave the finishing speech to the Central Union of Municipalities and Communities of Greece (KEDKE) conference in Ileia last Friday. She underlined the work done by the government and the interior ministry to strengthen and support local authorities since 2004.

They have acted to boost local government developmentally and institutionally through the Thiseas programme [this link - para C - shows where DB is coming from. Thiseas* is referred to halfway through] and by revising the Municipalities and Communities Code.

Bakoyannis stressed the role of local government in the protection of the environment, saying that they should be at the forefront of this struggle:

Development cannot exist unless it is combined with organised environmental actions. Urban waste management as the greatest of these problems...the most important threat now before us. The entire state, local governments, scientific community and social bodies have for years being trying to hide behind their finger. The time to act responsibly is here. Solutions are needed and solutions exist. There is national and regional planning, that must finally be put into action. But there are also new technologies that we must adopt in order to protect the environment.

[see my Flickr group 'International flytipping - fouling our nest'. See this image of flytipping on the road to Ano Korakiana] [*Thiseas supports investments and local development projects and has allocated around €174 million to the region’s local authorities, i.e. 81% of a total of €214 million earmarked for them. Bakoyannis Feb 2007] [Back to the future 14 July 2008:John Aravosis, AMERICAblog.com, interviews Dora Bakoyannis] * * * The nutter on the bus? I was stirred by a remark on a cycling forum. A fellow member said he didn't do buses, adding remarks about his dislike of associating with passengers because 'I always get the nutter':

Pompous I know, but the nutter is your brother or sister. This reason for not ‘doing’ buses is familiar and widespread, evidence of apprehension about the ‘other’ helping create suburban sprawl and autodependent isolation. The ‘nutter’ on the bus parallels the ‘nutter’ in the car – the hitchhiker to whom you'd never give a ride. Cycling the line to work, the majority of queueing cars hold one person. This fear of associating with passengers – in trains and buses and trams – removes the experience of negotiating difference in public. Fellow passengers remind us of how multivariate is the population. I meet people on buses who understand football – a game I find a wee bit tedious – who make it exciting by their excitement. I get to chat with them about theories of the incorporeality of matter, usually through analysis of the notorious ‘hand of god’ incident (among strangers you can revisit the same story again and again). I've been gently persuaded to give Islam a deeper look in discussion of the Holy Qu’ran which I suggest lacks good yarns compared to the Bible, which gives me a chance to tell a tale of lust and betrayal – David and Bathsheba – before we get to Colmore Row. We compare examples of love “Look mate could you say ‘forgive them they know not what they do while someone was hammering a nail in your wrist?” I may mention my atheism, which will give some a chance to bring a lost soul back to the faith – well, their faith. I’ve been nearly converted on buses, especially in India after hearing a shortened version of the Mahabharata that lasted no more than half-an-hour, a time lengthened by my entranced questions. On buses things happen – a man is taken ill. The driver and all on board try to help and are drawn together in solicitousness. A youth plays loud music! No-one says anything, then ‘DO YOU MIND?’ says a big woman. Music switched off. Fellow passengers grin at each other for their lack of pluck, amused but nervous at having a battleaxe in their midst. On buses, especially, the weather is discussed – even when there’s only one other passenger. I take my foreign students on buses to learn about Britain. Last October I had some young Japanese between Dudley and West Bromwich in conversation with fellow travellers. One of them did origami to an increasingly entertained circle of fellow passengers. No-one said ‘are you from China? Enough different strains of our species share space on city buses for recognition to be pretty accurate. I'd broken the ice in the first instance by asking directions, which I sort of knew, but wanted to check. Advice came from all angles. Conversations followed. I have had moments of animosity and danger on buses. Ever changing bus assemblies require cautious assessment, from the moment one enters their space and sometimes on the road outside as one enters or descends. I dislike the smell of cannabis. Nicotine I don’t mind. Others balk at it. Personal noise I detest – not the noise but the self-isolation of the earphone zombie. I will mischievously ask a question moving only my lips, until and if they remove their headphones. (You’ve guessed. I’m one of the nutters!). I've conducted surveys on buses, showing my camous ID and asking their opinion of the service. Evidence-based policy making! The skills of negotiating a minefield are tested. On buses the concept of respect must be a living practice, quite as much as in the world of Debrett. Buses are where very different people have encounters, where every now and again I see people of enchanting handsomeness and and beauty – not on a billboard or TV commercial - and even get to talk to them. Regular moments of separation make the exchange of complements safer. Buses, even more than trains, are where you can have your concerns about society tested but also where you can be reassured, in ordinary ways, of the kindness of strangers. Best. Simon

Roof repairs continue

... meanwhile back at 208 Democracy Street the roof is being re-repaired amid accounts of chill winds, rain and lightning. Phone bills mount for calls to Greece (Skype at our end doesn't connect to anyone we call yet), images go back and forth by Broadband. We sit at the kitchen table peering at these and discussing by speaker phone the minutiae of what has and hasn't yet to be done. I said to Lin 'You know we keep thinking life will begin when the roof is done, when actually, getting the roof done is life...and the electrics, and the new fireplace and flue, and the floor, and the new window sills and the staircase and bannisters and, and, and...'

Clearly I shall have to force myself to go out to Corfu next week.

* * *
Time appears to be resolving the Corfu Knickers Crisis. Invasion has been called off and the state, while saying nothing, seems to be agreeing discreetly to drop the matter. That the knickers were hoisted under and not over a Greek courtesy flag weighs with the Court as does the fact that they were taken down so willingly.
* * *
The same may be said for the Corfu Frog Farm dispute. Achilles' apology for criminal assault has been accepted by the court. He's withdrawn his civil action for frog nuisance. Conditional peace exists between neighbours. The frogs sleep with the fishes. It rains and thunders in Corfu - though you wouldn't know it from the photos.
* * *
Dh is now settled near campus, attending lectures and starting a dissertation on the role of faith in the formation of local government in post-Saddam Iraq - a subject about which his insights will be unique, though historical, since fieldwork will be impossible. The various ritual of temporary residence and studentship have been completed - reporting to the police, starting a bank account, getting a SIM card, a printer scanner, registering for post-graduate credentials to use the library, the internet and to access study space and other campus privileges.

* * *
Athens News Agency: Prokopis Pavlopoulos inaugurated the annual conference of the Central Union of Municipalities and Communities of Greece (ΕΤΗΣΙΟ ΤΑΚΤΙΚΟ ΣΥΝΕΔΡΙΟ ΚΕΔΚΕ (ΚΑΣΤΡΟ ΚΥΛΛΗΝΗΣ, 14-16 ΝΟΕΜΒΡΙΟΥ 2007) KEDKE - the English Language version of the website has little yet) at Kyllini Castle in the Ilia Prefecture on Wednesday. He spoke of 'creating strong local administration at the service of the citizen, with firm resources and a development orientation that constitutes an active agency of local democracy and regional development.' On administrative reform, Pavlopoulos said 'the new administrative division of the country can only result from a wide dialogue with the local administration's collective representation bodies...this dialogue has already begun during our previous tenure and it is continuing on the basis of the creation of stronger and more effective local administration organisations.'

Greece ranks at the bottom of EU tables

This is the kind of thing I dislike reading - from Kathemerini:

Remarks by EU Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hubner that Greece ranks at the bottom of EU tables regarding the absorption of community funds spent on road, railway and port projects say a lot about the incompetence of Greece’s political officials and the state apparatus in general. Her words shatter the impression cultivated by Greece’s idle politicians that progress on public works is stymied by a lack of money. The money is there, it’s just that the ministries have not hammered out any plans for how to use it.

I've spent my professional life studying and working with local government in the UK. Birmingham's transformation during the 1980s from a derelict late industrial wreck to a post-industrial European city was vitally dependent on the competence with which the City Council and its partners tapped into EU Regional Structural Funds. Of course that narrative's more complex. How do you rate a city's successful weathering of a 20th century crisis - the almost total loss to the East of its founding identity as the 'city of a 1000 trades' - the source of manufacturing wealth in a map that my school books covered pink to mark an empire?

I have watched our local councils go through compulsory competitive tendering, running intense annual evaluative audit - the Comprehensive Performance Assessment - the development of endless Performance Measurement, shifting from emphasis on inputs to outputs, submitting to efficiency reviews, continually meeting demands to deliver more for less. Now we see central government departments submitting themselves to Capability Reviews. There's still miles to go but that changes over the last 25 years have been dramatic.

The comments in Kathimerini would be supplemented by the curled lip contempt for Greek politicians and government that I encounter from my Greek family when trying to speak up for local democracy. In the flesh they are such fun to be with. They are all - over three generations - daunting in intelligence and talent. Phds, Firsts or nothing less than a 2:1 at Oxford, Cambridge or LSE; papers in journals so prestigious they are read only by a few people a year but last like oaks - Cambridge Journal of Economics; multi-lingual as toddlers; sisters as bright and successful as brothers.

So why am I reading about 'the incompetence of Greece’s political officials and the state apparatus in general'. The brightest star on the Greek side of my family is the son of a genius who started life in a Peloponnesian fishing village who worked as a deck hand.

The Greek students I encounter at my University work hard and are above average in intelligence. So why does someone unwire (if they did) the safety alarms on the gas-fired water boilers and why did police in Corfu accuse six individuals and one or more companies of negligence leading to manslaughter, negligence leading to serious bodily harm and negligence leading to endangering human lives in an apparently successful Corfu hotel (now re-opened) so that two kids died of carbon monoxide poisoning last October half-term holiday? Why do I get jokes like the one about the queue to get into Greek Hell where the devils are too lazy to bother tormenting sinners?

I've never met a lazy Greek, nor a stupid one. Where are they all? Why the jokes? What's with not only being unable to 'absorb' EU money for infrastructure, but 'ranking at the bottom of the table' for this capacity. You have to work to do so badly. Were the last Olympic Games secretly more of a mess than our Dome! Didn't look like it to me. What is this?

* * *

Of course I'm not being rational. How do you feel if someone's rude about someone you love. How dare they criticise Greece in their own bloody newspaper. I don't want to read this.

Yes yes I know. But you have to admit that Greek local government isn't as good as it could be. It is Greeks criticising Greeks.

Papsi papsi! I'm not listening!

* * *

Professor John Stewart - my colleague, Director for 17 years and original recruiter to Birmingham University in 1973 - told me when I bumped into him last Wednesday that one of his books - 'Modernising British Local Government' - had been translated into Greek. (details at www.epikentro.gr - and search for 'John Stewart; but on 16 nov 2007 I can see his name but not the book) John said he'd lend me his copy "I can't read Greek" he said, "Nor me" I said "but please, yes".

John STEWART
Επιμέλεια-εισαγωγή στην ελληνική έκδοση: Θεόδωρος Xατζηπαντελής

Η κεντρική θέση του βιβλίου είναι ότι τα προβλήματα του εκσυγχρονισμού της αυτοδιοίκησης δεν λύνονται μόνο με αλλαγές στις πολιτικές και οργανωτικές δομές. Η κύρια διαπίστωση είναι ότι πρέπει να ξεκαθαριστούν οι αρμοδιότητες μεταξύ των διακριτών επιπέδων και να αντιληφθεί η κυβέρνηση ότι πρέπει να προχωρήσει σε αναδιάρθρωση ολόκληρου του συστήματος διακυβέρνησης ξεκινώντας από το κεντρικό επίπεδο διοίκησης (δηλαδή τον εαυτό της) που πρέπει να αποκαταστήσει ένα χαρακτήρα συντονισμένης διοίκησης και όχι ένα άθροισμα υπουργείων που μερικές φορές γίνονται αυτονομημένα κέντρα αποφάσεων.
Το βιβλίο βασίζεται στην άποψη ότι μια αποτελεσματική τοπική αυτοδιοίκηση είναι απαραίτητη για την καλή διακυβέρνηση μιας κοινωνίας και αναλύει κατά πόσο το πρόγραμμα εκσυγχρονισμού στην εξέλιξή του μπορεί να διαμορφώσει αυτήν την αποτελεσματική τοπική αυτοδιοίκηση επικεντρώνοντας την ανάλυσή του στη δυναμική αλλά και τις αδυναμίες του προγράμματος εκσυγχρονισμού.
Όπως αναφέρει, μεταξύ άλλων, ο Θεόδωρος Χατζηπαντελής στην εισαγωγή του στην ελληνική έκδοση του βιβλίου «…Η διαπίστωση ότι στον πολιτικό ανταγωνισμό σχετικά με την Αυτοδιοίκηση συγκρούονται δύο διαφορετικές πολιτικές, η πολιτική που θέλει την Αυτοδιοίκηση εκτελεστικό όργανο των σχεδιασμών της κεντρικής κυβέρνησης και παροχέα δημόσιων υπηρεσιών σε τοπικό επίπεδο και η πολιτική που θέλει την Αυτοδιοίκηση θεσμό οργανικά ενταγμένο στο συνολικό σύστημα διακυβέρνησης της χώρας με διακριτές αρμοδιότητες σχεδιασμού και υλοποίησης πολιτικών για το σύνολο της περιοχής ευθύνης της, δεν είναι ούτε καινούρια, ούτε ισχύει μόνο στη Μεγάλη Βρετανία.…»
Πρόκειται για ένα βιβλίο εξαιρετικά επίκαιρο, που έρχεται να συμβάλει στη συζήτηση για το ρόλο και το μέλλον της τοπικής αυτοδιοίκησης όχι μόνο στη Μ. Βρετανία και στην υπόλοιπη Ευρώπη αλλά και στη χώρα μας.

Meanwhile: Athens News Agency KAPODISTRIAS 2

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis on Thursday had successive meetings with the leadership of Greece's main local authority unions, the Central Union of Municipalities and Communities of Greece (KEDKE) and the Union of Prefecture Authorities of Greece (ENAE), in order to discuss legislation for reforming the administrative structure of local government ... meeting was also attended by Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos, who afterwards stressed that the new framework would not be imposed on municipalities ... the new municipalities and communities code, would be tabled in Parliament in December this year. ... Also due for completion by the end of the year was a new code for prefectures, Pavlopoulos added ... the government's goal was to create stronger local government that would receive more funding, in line with the changes also taking place within the European Union. Under the plan, which has been dubbed 'Kapodistrias 2', local authorities are expected to join together and redraw their administrative boundaries - which will also increase the funds at their disposal - along the lines of the original and controversial 'Kapodistrias' plan passed by PASOK in 1998, which forced smaller municipalities and communities to merge with larger ones.