Greece has long been a digital laggard in the European Union.

After the over-indebtedness crisis in the Greek state that became evident at the end of 2009, this slowly began to change.

Under pressure from the creditor institutions, the country's authorities were gradually modernized.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who has been in power since July 2019, has declared the further digitization of government agencies to be a priority.

Even if some authorities, such as the pension insurance agency Efka, are still lagging behind, some things can now be done digitally in Greece for which administrative procedures or postal correspondence are still necessary in Germany.

Michael Martens

Correspondent for Southeast European countries based in Vienna.

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One consequence of digitization is the Greek vaccination register, which gives authorities access to the vaccination status of the entire population.

Employers can also see the vaccination status of their workforce.

This does not only apply to companies in the health sector, where vaccination has been compulsory since last year, and the state has documented violating this with a catalog of penalties that is gradually becoming more severe.

The sanctions began with suspensions without continued payment of wages, which initially affected almost 7,000 people, according to state information.

Although the measure led to isolated bottlenecks, it did not lead to a collapse of the health system, especially since many people who had not been vaccinated up to then apparently decided to have a vaccination at the last minute before the deadline expired.

For those who are still unvaccinated by the deadline, the suspension should be followed by release in the coming month.

Fines of 100 euros per month

All citizens over the age of 60 are also obliged to be vaccinated. Failure to comply will result in a fine of 100 euros per month.

When Mitsotakis announced the fines policy late last year, he described the measures as a last resort after more than half a million people in that age group refused to be vaccinated.

He drew a comparison with Portugal and explained the comparatively higher burden on Greek hospitals with the lower willingness to vaccinate in Greece.

In other sectors and age groups there is no obligation to vaccinate, but unvaccinated people have to submit a negative rapid Covid test twice a week, which you have to pay for yourself.

The state can check compliance with the vaccination and testing requirements by accessing the “Ergani” information system set up by the Ministry of Labour.

Companies can also see the vaccination status of their employees there.

Opposition leader Alexis Tsipras from the left-wing alliance Syriza, which will rule until 2019 and is otherwise desperately looking for topics to melt the stable popularity lead of Mitsotakis' liberal-conservative party Nea Dimokratia, has not criticized the introduction of the vaccination register with regard to data protection issues.

Tsipras also advocates vaccinations.

In addition, criticism of the register would not be the right topic to catch up with the ruling party.

No lawsuits against the register

The vaccination register is hardly controversial and at best a marginal topic in media coverage.

Some companies and employees are not even aware of its existence.

The Ergani database has been bringing together data from the private sector since 2013, such as information on hiring, layoffs and tax payments.

The tax authorities also have access to the system.

So far there have been no complaints.

Although those unwilling to be vaccinated went to court because of the obligation to vaccinate (and were defeated when the highest administrative court declared the state requirement, at least in the healthcare sector, to be constitutional), there was no resistance in the case of the vaccination register.

On the contrary: the government's decisive course is welcomed by a majority of the population.

Prime Minister Mitsotakis recently described the fines for the unvaccinated, which hospitals are supposed to benefit, as a “health levy” and a kind of solidarity surcharge for the unvaccinated.

The principle is that the unvaccinated should bear some of the costs that the consequences of their decision may impose on the healthcare system.

When the deadline for people over 60 expired in the middle of last month, Greek media reported more than 200,000 cases in which fines were due for refusal to vaccinate.