Development possibilities of the mountain areas of Greece: problems, policy and objectives

Generally, the mountain areas of Greece have “permanent natural disadvantages”, as they are characterized by poor quality of resources and remoteness and distance from main population centres. Theses areas experience depopulation trends, economic decline and deterioration of social fabric. Today a drastic decrease of the population in connection with land abandonment is a real event, owing mainly to low incomes, lack of facilities and services, and negligible civilization opportunities as compared to plain areas and urban centres. Long time ago and for some periods, specific policy measures had been applied in the country for the mountain areas. Since 1950 for some years the so called “programme of mountainous economy” has been under action, with subsidies for livestock, national funds to construct roads, small-scale irrigation works, land reclamation, mechanism to advise farmers to adopt new varieties of crops and new breeds of livestock, etc. Since 1981 a series of policy measures have been provided by the E.U., and Greece has taken advantage of them by encouraging development of mountain and less favourite areas in general, and relaxing their problems. The objectives for the mountain areas must ensure the future of the countryside and mainly refer to specific development strategies on local level, administrative and technical support, income support, infrastructure and restructure of the economy, preserving of local civilization and tradition, and differentiation of market policy. Finally, it must be emphasized that the mountains must always respond to fundamental economic, cultural and social functions, and, therefore, the State must show a specific and continuous interest with suitable policy measures in order to utilise and develop the mountain zones of the country.