Greek Deputy Prime Minister Kostis Hatzidakis has confirmed public sector circulars not published on official agency websites will become invalid on October 1, 2026. The requirement is a core provision of Law 5293/2026, titled Interventions for a state more friendly to the citizen, which was proposed by Hatzidakis to streamline administrative transparency.
Following the passage of the statute, the Greek Ministry of Interior issued an operational directive signed by Secretary General Ioannis Foustanakis to establish the mandatory process public bodies must follow. Under the directive, posting administrative circulars online moves from a recommended voluntary practice to a strict legal requirement for their validity.
In administrative law and civil service systems, circulars are executive guidance documents issued by government departments to instruct employees on how to apply legislation. In Greece, public agencies have historically relied on circulars to manage daily administrative procedures, ranging from municipal permit applications to tax assessments.
Hatzidakis said the mandatory publication rule represents a significant step toward transparency designed to deliver better service for citizens and commercial enterprises. He said that for decades the practical application of legislation was shaped by circulars that members of the public could not easily locate in official records.
The deputy prime minister noted that thousands of operational circulars remained scattered across department archives, with some remaining active while others were silently superseded by subsequent legal amendments. He said citizens and businesses had no way of knowing which instructions governed their cases, while administrative staff often could not verify which guidelines remained legally binding.
New Rules for Digital Publication
A statement from the Vice Presidency of the Government outlined how the new legal framework alters public publishing obligations. Previously, an administrative circular took legal effect once it was posted on Diavgeia, the official online transparency portal used by Greek public institutions to record official acts.
Diavgeia was created to ensure public visibility for state decisions, but under Law 5293/2026, posting on that central registry alone will no longer satisfy legal requirements. Moving forward, every circular must also be published immediately on the specific website of the issuing department, and the absence of either online posting will render the document void.
The law instructs public bodies to categorize all active circulars by subject matter so citizens can locate relevant rules without delay. Agencies must also state clearly which circulars or specific provisions have ceased to apply because of statutory changes, under the coordination of each agency's administrative support division.
The obligation applies beyond core ministerial departments to cover all entities exercising public authority, regardless of their legal form. It binds government ministries, regional and municipal authorities, decentralized state administrations, statutory public law entities, and independent regulatory authorities.
Implementation Deadlines and Technical Standards
To allow public agencies time to comply, circulars in force when the statute took effect will remain valid through September 30, 2026, without immediate website publication. However, any circular that remains unposted on October 1, 2026, will automatically lose legal force without the need for additional administrative decisions or exemptions.
The implementation circular issued by Secretary General Foustanakis was distributed to all ministries, secretariats, local authorities, independent bodies, and the State Legal Council, which acts as the supreme legal advisory organ for the state. The directive explicitly mandates that notice be forwarded to all supervised public and private law entities.
To prevent administrative omissions, the Ministry of Interior recommended that public agencies integrate their websites directly with the Diavgeia program using an Application Programming Interface, or API. Technical documentation for the integration has been published at https://diavgeia.gov.gr/api/help to enable automated dual posting.
The ministry also called on public bodies to issue fresh, unified circulars from scratch rather than marking individual outdated clauses. According to state news agency ANA-MPA, replacing stacks of overlapping amendments with single comprehensive texts will give each department one accessible set of instructions per subject, fulfilling Hatzidakis's goal of an open and citizen-friendly administration.
