SPANOU, Calliope <br/><br/>
L'institution préfectorale en Grèce :  de la déconcentration à la décentralisation 

 - Paris :  IIAP,  oct./déc. 2000 
<br/><br/> The Greek State has a recent Constitution (dating back to the 1820s). In order to allow for territorial unification under one central power, a network of prefect - placed at the head of departments - was introduced, to represent the centre and control the periphery. This system lasted until 1980s. It was a statute of 1986 which instituted the region as a unit of deconcentrated power within the framework of planning policy; the region to be headed by a Regional General Secretary (RGS), nominated by the government. No form of hierarchy was established between the RGS and the prefect. Moreover, a 1994 statute instituted the prefect, henceforth elected, as the executive power in the department which is a decentralised unit. The prefect must now act alongside the SGR - whose attributions have been extended and who exercise a control over the legality of acts of the department - and the mayors of large constituencies (an office created following the launching in 1997 of a programme of compulsory merger of communes)