A strong attack on the government, accusing it of taking away rather than adding powers and resources to municipalities, was made from the floor of the KEDE in Alexandroupolis by Charis Dukas, proposing mobilizations to assert the demands of citizens for the benefit of citizens.

The mayor of Athens and head of the “green faction” suggested a symbolic closure of the municipalities and a gathering outside the parliament on the day the Budget will be passed, if no steps are taken to support local government. “I say clearly: We are worse off than last year. The situation of the municipalities has not improved. The government has not only failed to correct mistakes and omissions of the past, but has implemented new measures to degrade the institution and undermine the demos. When the government was not ostentatiously forgetting us, it was dealing with us to make us poorer in resources and powers. And I say this without any inclination of sterile opposition. The facts say it,” Dukas said, attempting to outline the context of the claims.

“I think the first thing we should do after the Alexandroupolis congress is a ten-day information from the KEDE in all municipalities, with a convocation of the PEDs, to the citizens, the parties and the government for our demands, which are demands of civil society. It is also crucial that the amount of 4.5 billion euros be entered in the Budget, as we requested in August from the Prime Minister. I recall that today we are entering EUR 3.5 billion, which is below the ‘cutter’. Let us aim to enter in the Budget the amount that we asked the Prime Minister for. If it is included, it will be a very important success; if it is not, in cooperation with the workers, with the institutions, we should carry out a symbolic closure of municipalities and gather outside Parliament on the day the Budget is voted on, to show and shout for our rights. If we believe it. Our party believes it. It is very important, immediately after this, that there be an immediate Board meeting to take stock and next steps of the demands,” he said.

About the Code of Local Government being put together by the relevant ministry, he added:

-No step backwards in the framework of exercising responsibilities defined by the KEDE itself.

-No step backwards in another loss of statutory resources.

-No step back on changing the election law. Not asked for, solves no problem, stop the bullshit.

Mr. Dukas feels that municipalities are in the red and are having a hard time making ends meet. “We have reached the point where we are asking for a month’s pay to close salaries, not for development measures, fighting for projects. However, if I get funding for flood control and the municipality next to me doesn’t get it, we will all still drown,” he explained to his colleagues and added, launching a firestorm at the government:

1. Law 3852 on finances was not implemented and the cutter on our revenues from the state budget was not abolished. As a result, minus 4.5 billion euros for municipalities and for 2026.

2. No approval of three CAP payments to cover increased energy and salary costs. And of course, we did not repay the retained funds, we did not recover revenues from the fees that were gradually taken away from us since 2010, we did not get a share of the revenues from the resilience fee. This is a world first, if the new election law, one can say it has an application in Fiji. This story of the resilience fee grab is unique internationally. I continue, with unanimous resolution decisions.

3. Municipalities did not share in the revenues – over €9 billion – of the surplus. Instead, schools and public utilities are being merged and closed, very important municipal, social structures, critical for the most vulnerable, are being closed or merged or shrunk.

4. Expenditures for a number of transferred responsibilities have not been covered, and now we are being deprived of the revenue from the Municipal Code fines.

5. I didn’t understand what the Minister said but our unanimous decision was to abolish the Landfill Tax. The Landfill Tax was not abolished, we continue to pay it.

6. No new Special Development Programme for municipalities was created, while the SDA is at 12% of the 2010 SDA, and these are KEDE numbers.

7. All over Europe, and all over the western world, they are informing us and trying to lead us to new actions and measures on how to strengthen our competences to do better spatial and urban planning. Except in our country. In our country, we are being taken away from the urban planning authorities, we have been excluded from waste management planning, we have put forward proposals that we do not agree with, we have all unanimously rejected them. So what, what is the new proposal, are we involved in the new proposal? They reiterated the provisions of the NOC by establishing a financial price for the destruction of our cities.

8. We remain excluded from the energy sector. It was said that we need to become energy self-sufficient and explore and expand energy communities. May I inform the House that the only project that involved energy communities and energy poverty and municipalities, €100 million, the famous Apollo fiasco, was disallowed from the Recovery and Resilience Fund. Let’s “expand” in words and let the 100 million euros go elsewhere.

9. Municipal interventions on the major problems of demographics, housing, and serious infrastructure are undermined by the lack of an institutional framework and resources.

10. The new real reform that we were calling for with the Code is being abandoned, as, at best, we are leading to a codification of legislation.

PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis spoke at the KEDE Conference today and argued that: “For us, you should be neither a long arm of the respective Maximos nor a pariah institution. For us, therefore, this slogan – “Self-government at last” – translates into: Finally, respect for local government. At last, institutional parity. At last, financial autonomy. Things that should be a given in a normal modern European country, but are not.”