38% of municipalities in the country have not declared an employee as an energy officer. Specifically, 126 out of a total of 325 municipalities in the country have not designated energy officers as they were required to do based on the ministerial decision of the Ministry of Environment, which was issued last July, and the implementing circular of the Ministry of Interior.
Among three of the six largest municipalities in the country. Specifically, the municipalities of Patraeon, Heraklion and Larissa have not yet updated the relevant platform for energy managers.
But municipalities that have not gone through the process are all over the country. Among others are municipalities: Heraklion, Attica, Grevena, Lefkada, Mouzaki, Daphne - Ymittos, Loutraki, Mesologgios, Korydallos, Pyrgos, Mykonos, Rhodes, Salamina, Tripoli, Nea Filadelfia - Chalkidona, Philothei - Psychiko, Nisyros, Katerini, Kastoria, etc.
We note that for OTAs of the first and second degree, the energy infrastructure/facilities manager is appointed by the relevant Mayor or Regional Mayor, respectively, and is also responsible for the legal entities of the relevant OTA. For the Decentralised Administrations by the relevant coordinator.
Also according to information from aftodioikisi.gr, many development companies and legal entities of municipalities have neglected to appoint an energy manager, while the majority of school committees have not implemented the relevant provision.
A platform has been created for the declaration of both the energy manager and the administrative manager (for the energy manager of buildings housing the services of different public authorities) (https://publicenergysavings.gov.gr/.).
Incentives and Penalties
We recall that last September the Ministry of Interior had announced measures - incentives to achieve savings, such as that services that do not achieve the savings target will not be included in the recruitment or mobility process.
In particular, the Ministry of Interior stressed in its Circular that «the non-immediate response of the institutions will be taken into account in the planning of recruitment for 2023, which will be approved at the regular Council of Ministers in September 2022 and will affect the approval of the relevant requests of these institutions for the next mobility cycles».
Following the issuance of the circular, the Minister of Interior Makis Voridis, through a television interview, announced that those municipalities that do not achieve the target and prove to be energy wasteful will not be able to recruit! «They will not be able to hire, I will not give them staff,» was the Interior Minister's reference.
However, there are also incentives for operators who achieve an energy reduction of 10% compared to the same period of time in 2019, for the first year of implementation of the measures.
By Joint Ministerial Decision (KYA - Government Gazette B3424/2-7-2022) of the Ministers of Environment and Energy, Kostas Skrekas, Interior, Makis Voridis, State and Digital Governance, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, and the Deputy Minister of Finance, Thodoros Skylakakis, Deputy Minister of Finance and Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr. Thiros Skylakakis, stipulates that public bodies that effectively implement the measures - as evidenced by the data recorded in the special application - may, by decision of the Minister of Finance, be granted a reward by means of budget support.
