Source: European Parliament
Question for written answer E-002183/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Yannis Maniatis (S&D)
The tourism industry, whose contribution in Greece exceeds 30 % of national GDP, certainly also has negative impacts on local communities, leading to environmental degradation, traffic congestion and a general burden on local infrastructure. To address these negative impacts, many European countries have adopted bespoke local ‘accommodation taxes’ with remunerative features. The aim is to address issues and improve the operation of the tourism sector at the local level (cleanliness, infrastructure maintenance, tourist promotion, etc.).
Unfortunately, Greece recently renamed the ‘accommodation tax’ the ‘resilience tax’, increased its revenues by up to 700 % and legislated for the management of these hundreds of millions by central government. The revenue is supposed to finance climate change and disaster recovery actions, despite the fact that all such actions are provided for from other sources, such as, for example, the Recovery and Resilience Fund. Thus, local authorities are left to face their daily problems without help and without their own resources.
In view of this:
- 1.Is the Greek model compatible with best practices in terms of reciprocity for the financial support of local governments?
- 2.What European tools can the Government use to finance climate and disaster actions, to take the place of the revenue from the ‘resilience tax’ and leave that with the municipalities?
Submitted: 1.6.2025