Greece has strongly reformed its local government architecture during the last decade, mainly through the Kallikratis Law in 2010 and the Cleisthenes Law in 2018. Under this framework, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) has identified as key priority, among others, the development of Inter-Municipal Cooperation (IMC). IMC can be a powerful tool that strengthens local authorities in delivering quality services to citizens while addressing their limitations regarding financial and human resources. However, IMC is far from being a usual practice in Greece.

Through the previous project, the Centre of Expertise for Good Governance of the Council of Europe (CoE) supported the creation of an IMC Network among a pilot group of island Municipalities, in line with the Greek legislation and building on European best practices.

Main activities

The objective of this EU-CoE funded action is to enhance the service delivery of Municipalities through IMC. Building on the results already achieved, the CoE will support the MoI and the Greek local authorities in the following areas:

a) develop a Handbook on IMC in Greece, to raise awareness and facilitate Municipalities to explore IMC tools and utilise guidelines and templates;

b) provide technical support to activate the existing IMC Network of island Municipalities and to develop an action plan;

c) establish IMC among pilot municipalities to strengthen their capacity on internal audit.

In particular, the Centre of Expertise will organize workshops on strategic municipal planning and performance management, addressing elected representatives and staff from the involved Municipalities. These activities will support the IMC Network of island Municipalities and the selected pilot Municipalities cooperating on internal audit to prepare action plans that will serve as guiding star in their joint work.

In addition, through the creation and dissemination at national level of the Handbook on IMC, the CoE will raise awareness among Greek Municipalities on the potential of IMC. The Handbook will provide a review of the current legal framework and the available set of solutions, analysing case studies, exploring best practices and providing templates to facilitate the creation of new IMC initiatives.