General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace

The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace (Greek: Γενική Γραμματεία Μακεδονίας-Θράκης), previously the Ministry for Macedonia and Thrace (Greek: Υπουργείο Μακεδονίας-Θράκης) is a government agency of the Hellenic Republic that is responsible for the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace^[4]. It is located in Greece's second-largest city and capital of Macedonia, Thessaloniki.

History

The General Secretariat was founded in 1912 as the General Administration for Macedonia^[1] following the gain of Macedonia during the Balkan Wars and the subsequent Treaty of Bucharest in 1913. The General Administration kept its name until the mid 1950s, when it was renamed the Ministry for Northern Greece in 1955^[1]. The third name change occurred in 1988, when the Ministry was renamed the Ministry for Macedonia and Thrace.^[5] In 2009, the current appellation of the General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace came into effect, when the General Secretariat ceased to function as a separate ministry.

Two days after the Greek army entered Thessaloniki (on 26 October 1912), King Constantine I demanded that he be given control of the newly-acquired region of Macedonia,^[6] but Prime Minister Eleutherios Venizelos had already decided that the fate of the region would lie with his Minister of Justice, Konstantinos Raktivan, who arrived at the city on 30 October.^[6] His position within the General Administration for Macedonia was so powerful that his power matched that of the Prime Minister and caused disarray to the other ministers in Athens.^[6] Raktivan was later succeeded by other prominent politicians of Greece, such as Stefanos Dragoumis, Emmanouil Repoulis and Themistoklis Sofoulis.

Despite the rather limited freedom of action today, the General Administration for Macedonia managed to produce an astonishing amount of work between its founding in 1912 and the creation of the Ministry for Northern Greece in 1955. Following the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917, the General Administration appointed Ernest Hebrard as the master architect for the redesign of the city. The Administration was also responsible for the complete incorporation of Macedonia to the Greek state despite the difficult circumstances that existed during the interwar period.^[6] Other successes of the General Administration at the time include the establishment of numerous government agencies, including the creation of Courts of Appeal, Courts of First Instance and District Courts, the creation of an independent archaeological department, a forestry department and public services, and also provided shelter to the thousands of refugees from the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the 1920s.^[6]

The General Secretariat

Structure

According to Presidential Decree no. 167 (2 September 2005)^[7] the General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace is made up of the following departments:

• The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace
  • The Office of Solicitor of the State
  • The Office of Financial Control
  • The Office of the Borderland
  • The Office of the Assessor of the Audit Office
  • The Office of the Deputy Minister
    • The Office of Defence and Political Planning in Case of Emergency
    • The Office of Public Relations, of the Press and of Etiquette
  • The Office of the Secretary-General
    • The Secretariat
      • The Office of Foreign Affairs, Defence, Policing and Justice

• Department of Cooperation with the countries of south-eastern Europe
• Department of European Affairs
• Department of the Diaspora
• Department of Defence and the Aegean
• Department of Policing and Justice

• The Office of Education, Culture and Citizen Protection
• The Office of the Economy and Tourism
• The Office of Infrastructure and the Environment
• The Office of Administrative Development and e-Governance
• The Office of the Media
• The Office of Quality and Efficiency
• The Office of Facilitation of People with Disabilities

• The Department of Inspection and Coordination of Services

Political Leadership

Since the Metapolitefsi, there have been 20 Ministers for Macedonia and Thrace from two parties, New Democracy and PASOK. The first minister to take the post following the fall of the Greek Military Junta in 1974 was Nikolaos Martis. In late 2009, Stavros Kalafatis served as the last minister^[8].

The current heads of the General Secretariat are Giorgos Chatzikonstantinou as General Secretary^[9] and Sokratis Xynidis as Deputy Minister^[10].

Role

The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace is a government agency of the Hellenic Republic^[11] responsible for "the carrying out and continuation of government policies in Macedonia and Thrace"^[12]. Additionally, the General Secretariat gathers information regarding the communities that fall under its jurisdiction and later proposes and discusses legislation and policies with the other ministerial bodies of Greece. As of 2009, it is not a free-standing ministry and reports to the Ministry for the Interior of the Hellenic Republic.

The Residency

The building of the General Secretariat, commonly referred to as "The Residency" (Greek: Διοικητήριο, Turkish: Konak), was built in 1891 by Italian architect Vitaliano Poselli. The architect chose eclecticism as the main style for the building, which combines elements of various architectural styles such as neoclassicism.^[13] It sits on top of the ruins of the imperial palace of the Byzantine Emperor in Thessaloniki, and ruins of the actual palace have been found near the secretariat. When it was completed in the late 1890s, it only had three floors and functioned as the konak of the Ottoman prefect of Thessaloniki. It also housed various offices of departments of the Ottoman Empire. The fourth floor, in neoclassical style, was added in 1955.

In 1907, the building housed the Ottoman School of Law, and in 1911 the Sultan Mehmed V Reshad stayed here. Following the Balkan Wars, it was inside this building that the documents of the surrender of Thessaloniki were signed in 1912, making Thessaloniki part of the Kingdom of Greece. From 1912 to 1929 the building housed the general administration for the newly acquired territory of Macedonia. During the fire of 1917, the building sustained no damage, despite widespread devastation in the area, which destroyed much of central Thessaloniki.

It is a listed building of the Hellenic Republic as "The Residency of Thessaloniki" (Greek: Διοικητήριο Θεσσαλονίκης).

References