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Christiana Stilianidou
Delays in Publication of Gift Registers for Government Members
10 • 05 • 2025

Despite the explicit provision of Law 4829/2021 requiring the annual publication—within January of each year—of a list of items offered as gifts to members of the Government and Deputy Ministers, this obligation does not appear to have been fulfilled in practice. To date, only two such gift registers have been published on the website of the Presidency of the Government: one covering the years 2022–2023 and one for 2024. In both cases, publication occurred with significant delay, in May, and only after access to the relevant documents was requested by Vouliwatch. These developments give rise to reasonable concerns regarding both the practical implementation of the law and the actual achievement of its stated goals of transparency and accountability.

Α. Part B of Law 4829/2021 (Articles 14–19) regulates matters pertaining to the “gift policy.” According to Article 17 of the aforementioned law, under the General Secretariat of the Prime Minister within the Presidency of the Government, a special electronic register is maintained under the responsibility of the competent Secretary-General, in which items offered as gifts—whether domestically or abroad—are recorded in chronological order and are, in accordance with Article 16, under the administration and management of the Presidency of the Government, published as a list every January on the website of the Presidency of the Government, including a description of the items offered as gifts to the … members of the Government, and Deputy Ministers during the previous year, as well as the names of the donors.

With the establishment of these obligations for the recording and publication of gifts, the legislator aims to promote transparency, integrity, and accountability, as stated explicitly in  the regulatory impact analysis.

a) Vouliwatch submitted three requests for access to documents—in July 2023, February 2024, and March 2025 respectively—seeking the release of the aforementioned gift registers.

b) Due to the lack of response to these requests, Vouliwatch filed two complaints before the National Transparency Authority—in March 2024 and April 2025 respectively—seeking the annulment of the implied rejection of its requests and the release of the registers. c) By decisions dated 10 April 2024 and 25 April 2025 respectively (see 1, 2), the National Transparency Authority accepted Vouliwatch’s administrative appeals and ordered the publication of the gift registers on the website of the Presidency of the Government within a specified timeframe. The registers were ultimately published only after the expiration of those deadlines.

This practice—namely, the delayed and “pressure-induced” publication of the registers—raises legitimate questions as to whether the provisions of the law are being meaningfully implemented and, more importantly, whether the manner of their implementation ultimately serves the fundamental objectives of the legislation on transparency, accountability, and strengthening public trust in institutions. Further information on Vouliwatch’s actions regarding the issue of gifts can be found here.

Christiana Stilianidou
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