Dear Prime Minister,
In a few hours, the Hellenic Parliament is set to vote on the new Local Government Code.
A Code that will define not only how municipalities operate, but also the future of democracy in the country’s neighborhoods, villages, and local communities.
You recently stated that «the Greek spirit is synonymous with village life.».
A beautiful, true statement that is hard for anyone to dispute.
Because, in fact, Greece was not born in government offices. It was born in communities of people, in the villages that kept the language alive, in the neighborhoods that kept solidarity alive, in the places where democracy was not a theory but a daily practice.
The question, however, is not what we say about the village. The question is what we do about it. Because, if we truly believe that the Greek spirit still lives on in the Greek countryside, then we have a duty to protect its democracy as well.
Her voice. The person who leaves work to go to a meeting. The person who takes calls in the middle of the night about a break in the water main. The person who will go out in the rain to check if the farm road is still open. The person who cares about matters both big and small, who will keep the flag flying high, the cemetery where our loved ones rest well-maintained, and our War Memorial well-tended.
The Community President. The Community Council member. The neighborhood volunteer.
Those who, for decades now, have kept the most humane form of local government alive. Because the truth is that Greece was not kept alive by legal provisions. It was kept alive by people. By the person who takes care of the town square without getting paid. By the person who clears the road after a landslide. By the person who organizes a celebration, a festival, or a blood drive. By the person who insists on staying put, even when every reason calls for leaving…
And yet, Mr. Prime Minister,
The new Code seems to trust these people less than society itself does.
And that is where the great contradiction lies.
The country’s Constitution enshrines local self-government. The European Charter of Local Self-Government stipulates that public affairs should be administered as closely as possible to the citizens. And yet, the new Code continues to keep decision-making out of the hands of those who best understand the problems.
It is the community that is the first to notice the pothole. The first to notice the landslide. The first to notice the water outage. The first to recognize the farmer’s needs. The first to recognize the danger of a fire. First to notice when a settlement is abandoned. Yet it remains last in the decision-making chain.
And that's not decentralization. It's centralization in disguise.
In Greece, it’s not the villages that are abandoned first. It’s their institutions that are abandoned first. And when the institutions are emptied, the houses are emptied too.
No young person returns to a place where they can’t make a difference. No one takes time away from their family and work to participate in a body that makes almost no decisions. No one is inspired to get involved in public affairs when the message they receive is that others make the decisions and they merely offer their opinion.
And yet, that is exactly what seems to be happening.
Wonderful!