Laws, Regulations & Policies

Government says that more than 85 percent of Greeks have yet to file applications for new passports. The deadline runs out at the end of this year. To handle the expected barrage of applications, the country’s public order ministry said it would place more personnel at police stations, which accept applications for new passports, as of this month.

The European Commission has prepared several proposals to reform the Single Market legislation for aviation introduced some ten years ago which gave airlines unrestricted market access and permitted them to set fares independently.

A group of foreign real estate developers recently formed an association that aims to pressure government to revamp a golf course development law. The president of the Association of Foreign Investors in Tourism, Clemente Pinedo, says foreign investors thus far have steered clear of the country’s tourism sector because of its notorious bureaucracy and conflicting laws.

Government intends to introduce new legislation shortly that aims to cut huge chunks out of the country’s thick bureaucratic approvals process, said Tourism Minister Fani Palli-Petralia last month during her first press call since her appointment in February. She said the new legislation would help bring investment to the country’s tourism sector.

Legislation to liberalize ferry ticket prices for third class fares and vehicles was signed by the Ministry of Merchant Marine, and includes ferries departing from the ports of Pireaus, Rafina, Lavrio, Kimi, to and from Elefsina, and from Patra to Kerkyra.

Because the construction of a golf course in Greece is more than difficult, and extremely time consuming, Greek government quarters have promised to create legislation that would cut deeply into the time and paperwork required for such construction projects.

There will be little or no delay in Greece’s new tourism legislation, according to the outgoing tourism development minister, Dimitris Avramopoulos. He said the only thing missing from the new legislation is the signature of Greece’s health minister, and “being the country’s new health minister I will rectify that quickly.”

The Hellenic Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies last month expressed concern on how the European Union’s Bolkestein directive, which is designed to open up the EU service sector, will impact the group’s members.

Greece’s tourism ministry says it is working to set up a special agency to provide it’s 13 million foreign tourists each year with quality legal coverage while in Greece.

The European Commission announced it encourages the development of regional airports and that it has adopted new rules that should encourage their development.