Athanasia Triantafyllopoulou
Local government constitutes a democratic institution which exercises its jurisdictions at the nearest possible level to the citizens, local society and local economy. The role of local government and local economy focuses mainly on exploiting local resources in fields and areas where private economy does not show direct interest. Hellenic law in 1984 allowed exploitation of local resources and rendering of services (mainly of social character) by local government. In 2006 reforms were introduced by which local government ability to intervene in local economy expanded in establishing enterprises of commercial character. By the administrative reform in 2010 municipalities were merged and the second degree of local government expanded in regional level. These reforms resulted in the decreasing of the economic entities both those of commercial and social objective. Local economy as 'local affair' constitutes a political and administration institution by which local government has the opportunity to designate its social and developmental role.
