Shaping up the public administration

As any minister, current or past, will be the first to admit, Greece does not have a functional state apparatus. Foreign technocrats working on the Greek bailout program were shocked by the state of the country's state sector, which is a far cry from European standards.

That has not always been the case. Until the military coup of 1967, the Greek state apparatus was known to be run by respected general directors, career officials with excellent knowledge of their portfolios. Whenever the late Constantine Karamanlis had a query about some major project, he would turn to these people, and not his ministers. Many of them had been appointed through an examination system introduced by Eleftherios Venizelos. Their job was safe regardless of government changeovers. Sure, they did not have a left-wing background given the Cold War atmosphere of the time, but they included a...