A tangle of responsibilities

The failure to control the recent large fire in Corinthia and western Attica may be due to the fact that the state mechanism was blindsided, as it was not ready for such an incident in May.

This failure, however, shows that the threat of natural disasters is now much greater.

The least the state can do is to unravel the tangle of overlapping responsibilities between the central administration, the fire brigade and local government. The state will only be ready if it is clear who is doing what.

If it doesn’t do this, it will continue to find itself stumbling around a maze of bureaucratic irresponsibility.