As a member of the Monitoring Committee of the Just Development Transition Program (PDAM) 2021-27, the Green Tank submitted comments and proposals regarding the two actions to strengthen local enterprises in the country’s lignite regions announced by the Special Service for Just Development Transition (EYDAM).
The programs will subsidize up to 80% of the business activity of existing and new businesses. The total amount of the program for all eligible regional units in the lignite regions of the country will be € 30 million for existing companies and € 20 million for new ones.
Adding these resources of € 50 million to those of the other approved actions from the start of the implementation of the PDAM (October 2022) until today, resources with a total value of € 679.34 million have been mobilized.
Given the immediate need to combat the acute problem of unemployment plaguing the country’s lignite regions, the Green Tank endorsed both programs. However, the think tank submitted three comments and suggestions for the improvement of the respective specialization issues. Specifically:
- The indicators for the program targets should be changes to Full Employment Equivalents (FTE) instead of just number of jobs.
- The sufficiency or lack thereof of the available funds (€ 50 million) to achieve the quantitative goals set for the jobs is questionable and not well justified.
- A criterion related to the climate and environmental sustainability of the proposed projects should be included in assessing funding requests, so that priority is given to investments that change the activity of a company in a more sustainable direction or aim to improve competitiveness and create jobs based on sustainable activities.
You can read Green Tank’s comments in detail here (in Greek).
