The Depoliticisation of Greece’s Public Revenue Administration

The first two sections of this chapter present the scale of Greece’s problems with tax collection and the nature and basic characteristics of Greece’s public revenue administration at the onset of the crisis. The reform that this book examines is radical in nature in comparison to the status quo ante as well as much of Greece’s public administration. Yet it came about in a country that, according to the prevailing wisdom, has limited reform capacity. The nature of this limited reform capacity and the barriers to reform are examined in the third section of this chapter. The fourth section presents the landscape of the main models of public revenue administrations as they exist in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The final section brings together the key elements of these sections and outlines the book’s puzzle and central argument. Briefly put, the question that we seek to answer is this: what accounts for the switch from the previous model of direct ministerial control to an independent authority that operates at arm’s length from the government in a country that has limited reform capacity? How did reform-averse Greece come to enact and implement this radically different model—indeed one whose effectiveness and efficiency are not certain and is used by a minority of European Union (EU) member states?

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, it places this reform in its broader context, i.e. the increasing use of non-majoritarian institutions and executive agencies that operate at arm’s length from the government in advanced liberal democracies (and beyond). This reform exemplifies this trend. The key element of this reform—and the central idea behind it—is the notion of depoliticisation. The first section of this chapter explores this notion. The second section discusses the logic that underpins the increasing use of these institutions, and then highlights their limitations, especially in terms of design, accountability and effectiveness. The chapter’s second purpose is to set out the logic of the key tool (conditionality) used for the purpose of bringing about this domestic reform in Greece. The final section discusses the logic of conditionality, sets out its main characteristics in the European Union’s context and then presents the three hypotheses that are examined empirically in the remainder of this book.

This is the first of the book’s three empirical chapters. It places the reform of Greece’s public revenue administration in its historical context, namely the huge crisis that engulfed Greece in the late 2000s. It also examines the process of reform that commenced in late 2009 even before the signing of the first Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), discusses the content of that MoU (signed in 2010) and then traces the implementation of its provisions that relate to Greece’s public revenue administration up until the end of 2011. It also highlights (a) the key features of the technical assistance programme that was associated with the implementation of the first MoU and (b) the absence of programme ownership across government.

This is the second of the book’s three empirical chapters. It focuses on the content and implementation of the part of the second Memorandum of Understanding (concluded in 2012) that relates to Greece’s public revenue administration. In particular, it examines the introduction of a degree of semi-autonomy in its operation as a problematic halfway house between the status quo ante and subsequent developments discussed in Chap. 5. Emphasis is placed on the ruling (in particular, the governing) élite’s resistance to semi-autonomy leading to the effective dismissal of the first head of the semi-autonomous organisation. It also shows the relevance of external pressure in bringing about semi-autonomy.

The focus of this chapter is on the introduction of the current institutional arrangement, namely the establishment of the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (IAPR) that is functionally independent and administratively and financially autonomous. Analysis places emphasis not only on external pressure but also on the consequences of systematic domestic resistance to this reform and the internationally perceived lack of commitment to it. It presents a detailed account of the process of reform as well as the most significant innovations introduced in the context of the implementation of the third Memorandum of Understanding (signed in 2015) in relation to the reform of Greece’s public revenue administration. It also discusses the key differences between the new institutional arrangement and its predecessors as well as what has been done (up until the spring of 2019) to implement this reform since its enactment in 2016. Finally, it offers a critical examination of the pitfalls that are associated with the new institutional arrangement.

The book’s final chapter draws on the empirical material presented in Chaps. 3–5 to draw conclusions about (a) the ability of each of the theoretical models outlined in Chap. 2 to shed light on the depoliticisation of Greece’s public revenue administration, (b) Greece’s reform capacity and (c) the link between conditionality and the operation of the European Union.