Perceptions of Greek Bureaucracy

From "Blue Skies and Black Olives", John Humphrys and Christopher Humphrys, Hodder and Stoughton, 2009:

"The population of Greece is about ten million. Most of the middle class in the cities is made up of lawyers. Outside the cities there are farmers. But everywhere there are bureaucrats...

Obviously, every country has its army of bureaucrats, but Greece is in a league of its own. That may be because working for the public sector is just about the only way to guarantee a secure income and a pension or it may be because the only way to defend yourself against the bureaucrats is to become one. I would estimate that approximately seven million of the ten million Greeks are bureaucrats. The entire public sector is one massive job creation scheme- creating jobs for more bureaucrats- and most of them are dedicated either to stopping people doing things or making it so difficult that still more bureaucrats will be needed to deal with the problems...

I suspect every bureaucrat in Greece is given a copy of Little Dorrit on their first day in the job and told to go away and learn from it".

Such ironical exaggeration seems somewhat unfair, even if intended for humorous effect. Unfortunately it reflects the persistent perceptions of many foreigners, however much they may love Greece. It makes Greece sound as much Kafkaesque as Dickensian, in terms of its bureaucracy.


The book is a good, entertaining read, in spite of this observation.


Government Plans (Kathimerini)

Pension cuts (Kathimerini)

Progress with Privatisation? (Athens News)