ESPN Thematic Report on Access to essential services for low-income people – Greece

In Greece, there is neither a national nor a subnational definition of “essential services” as such. The only relevant definition, which is itself rather broad, concerns the denomination of enterprises providing “services of public interest”. It would also be hard to maintain that there is a national or subnational definition of “low-income people” used in Greece in the context of the delivery of the six essential services under scrutiny, namely water, sanitation, energy, public transport, digital public services and financial services. There are, however, certain measures aimed at facilitating access for certain categories of vulnerable population groups to most of these services. Although no clear reference is made to low-income persons, it may be argued that these categories intrinsically include low-income persons. Eligibility for benefiting from these measures is based mainly on the fulfilment of certain income criteria. Usually these criteria are those applied when granting eligibility for the Social Solidarity Income (a type of guaranteed minimum income) scheme: these are, however, considered very strict, thus covering only the most deprived. Access to water services is facilitated through the provision of reduced prices and/or inkind benefits for those belonging to vulnerable groups, depending on the area of residence and the relevant provider. Water supply and wastewater collection and treatment services are combined together as one service. However, there are no measures available aimed at supporting low-income people in accessing sanitation services. Two main measures are under implementation in Greece at national level aimed at supporting low-income households in using energy services. These are: (a) the Social Residential Tariff (reduced tariffs to households for their energy bills); and (b) the heating oil subsidy (means-tested cash benefit for the heating oil costs of households). As to public digital services in Greece, it appears that, although many public digital services have been developed over recent years, there are no measures specifically aimed at low-income people for accessing these digital public services. The proper implementation of the Directive 2014/92/EU in Greece, which was belatedly transposed into Greek legislation by Law 4465/2017, has been impeded by the restrictions imposed from 18 July 2015 until 31 August 2019 in order to safeguard the country’s banking system. These concerned, among other Some of these measures are part of the National Strategic Framework for Social Inclusion, which was compiled within the framework of the fulfilment of the thematic ex ante conditionality of the European Structural and Investment Funds for the programming period 2014-2020. However, this framework hardly constitutes a strategy for social inclusion, and it contains neither a specific public investment plan for low income persons with clearly defined objectives, targeted measures and solid governance arrangements, nor any appropriate earmarked funding. The only ongoing reform of the measures aimed at enhancing access to essential services concerns the specific commitment by the Greek authorities under the post-programme surveillance framework to review the system of subsidies for local public transport by the end of 2019. However, progress in implementing the reform of transport subsidies is rather slow, while questions have been raised as to whether, and to what extent, this reform will eventually facilitate or impede access for low-income people to public transport services. Although a number of policy measures and actions have been taken by consecutive governments over recent years to facilitate access to public transport services for certain vulnerable groups of the population, these measures are not specifically targeted at lowincome people. Concerted action is needed, taking the form of specific policy measures and initiatives which should be specifically aimed at low-income persons so as to ensure that they have access to transport services at prices they can afford.