Greece’s prolific lawmaking has created a maze of rules that fuels bureaucracy, delays investment, encourages clientelism and weakens public trust in the state, according to a new Dianeosis study covering 2001-2025.
Researchers found that Greece passes about 100 new laws each year, alongside thousands of ministerial decisions and regulatory acts. The number of government gazette issues rose from 1,831 in 2001 to 7,790 in 2024, a fourfold increase that the study describes as evidence of a regulatory explosion. Yet many economic, social and technological developments remain inadequately regulated, producing what the authors call “bad lawmaking.”
The study concludes that successive crises, including the financial crisis, the bailout years and the Covid-19 pandemic, accelerated rulemaking without necessarily improving legislative quality. Instead, they often increased complexity.
“The ideal form of regulation is fewer laws with more general criteria for broader issues. By contrast, our laws contain incredible detail,” said Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos, professor of political science at the University of Athens.
Researchers identified several drivers of legislative growth. They cited a political culture that measures ministerial success by the number of laws introduced, as well as political polarization, which often leads new governments to amend or repeal predecessors’ legislation.
