BERLIN – Greece’s public sector is rapidly leaving behind filing cabinets and piles of paper records stacked on the floor, advancing so fast in digitization that it even beats Germany, a German minister said.

Deputy Minister for Housing, Urban Development & Buildings Sören Bartol, of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who is also Germany’s new envoy to the Greek-German Representative Assembly, lauded Greece for its efforts.

He told DEMO, his party’s magazine “Greece is considerably ahead of Germany in some areas,” said Greece’s state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency AMNA.

“The digitization of the public administration is a big issue for us at the moment,” he said. In Greece, he added, “citizens can now carry digital identity documents or driving licenses on their smartphones, and there is already valuable knowledge in local government that we can benefit from.”

Greece’s “rich experience in the field of civil protection and forest firefighting, could also be brought over to Germany,” he noted. Greece also used digitization for its rapid COVID vaccination program.

Under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the country has advanced significantly in electronic records that has also reduced the need to visit public service offices, being able to gather records online more.

Founded in 2010, the Greek-German Representative Assembly is a local-government collaboration between Greece and Germany. Referring to this collaboration, Bartol pointed out that it aims to strengthen the spirit of the European community, and deepen bilateral relations at the local and regional level in terms of sustainability.

This assembly “has become an integral element of the two countries’ bilateral relations,” he underlined.