Special Rules for the Validation of Decisions of Objection Review Committees (EPEA) forest maps against reforested areas, he resubmitted to Parliament Ministry of the Environment. With this arrangement, which was originally introduced in another bill last May but eventually withdrawn, the ministry horizontally prioritizes EPEA decisions over those of the forest authorities, however without examining the reasons why the area was declared reforested. . A number of other case studies were also submitted to Parliament. urban planning rules.

The provision was included in the bill on the internal electricity market. In accordance with it, areas declared as reforestation, but on authorized (partially or completely) forest maps that do not have a forest character, are mandatory excluded from reforestation, after which decisions on their declaration as reforestation are canceled. This regulation was originally filed as an amendment to the climate law, but due to political backlash, it was withdrawn.

According to the explanatory report, “there are a large number of properties that cannot be identified as ever forested and yet classified as suitable for reforestation”, with the result that “their owners cannot use them economically, and demolition protocols were issued for those existing structures. “This is a big problem, there have been many requests from departments and citizens,” says the Secretary General of Forestry. Konstantinos Arabosis. “The essence of the regulation is to exclude those areas that were erroneously declared suitable for reforestation due to administrative errors.”

However, in the form in which the provision is formulated, it concerns not only these obvious cases. The intent is that when forest map objection committees exculpate the owner for the non-forest nature of the area, reforestation removal will automatically be included. However, the question arises that the horizontal regulation does not address the reasons why the forest service has declared a site reforestation, since the legislation allows this not only after a fire, but also for reasons of strengthening the ecosystem. “If the regulation was intended to combat the erroneous declaration of reforestation and agricultural land after a fire, it should have been more specific,” said Nikitas Fragiskakis, president of the Panhellenic Union of State Foresters. “Especially when it is expressly stated that the state will not assert ownership of these lands.”

Under the legislative initiative of the Ministry of the Environment, the renewable nature of the territory “horizontally” is removed if this contradicts the decisions of the objections.

Various case settings have also been included in the same chapter, such as:

– “Non-existent” building cooperatives, for which the law on urban planning and the construction of basic infrastructure facilities has expired (as significant evidence that they remain “alive” and not an empty shell). The Ministry of Internal Affairs retroactively extends the deadline until 2024.

– By the same logic, the deadline that expired in 2017 is retroactively extended for organized camps to resolve their pending issues with forest management.

– The 300-acre municipal lot in Ano Liosia, which was laid out for a park 25 years ago (but never realized), is allowed to be turned into a site for student housing, public utility and cultural facilities.

– Finally, the creation of a “National Walking Strategy” for the development of pedestrian transport infrastructure is envisaged.