7,000 Cities Do It. Greece Does Not.

More than 7,000 cities around the world let their residents decide how public money is spent. The practice is called participatory budgeting. It has been tested on every continent, across every political system, for over three decades.

Greece uses it in zero cities.

The evidence

Porto Alegre, Brazil, started participatory budgeting in 1989. Within a decade, access to clean water rose from 75% to 98%. Infant mortality dropped. Civic satisfaction increased. The model spread across Latin America, then to Europe, Asia, and Africa.

In India, decentralised democracy gave villagers actual decision making power over local budgets. The result was better targeting of public spending and stronger accountability from officials who could no longer ignore the communities they served.

After the 2008 financial crash, Iceland invited citizens to help draft a new constitution. Ordinary people, not politicians, shaped the document. The process proved that public participation in governance is not a fantasy. It works when institutions allow it.

Not radical. Proven.

Participatory budgeting is not a radical experiment. It is a well documented governance reform practised in cities from Paris to Seoul to New York. The World Bank has studied it. The OECD recommends it. It costs almost nothing to implement because it does not require new spending. It changes who decides how existing money is spent.

Greek municipal budgets already exist. The infrastructure is there. The question is not whether cities can afford participatory budgeting. The question is who gets to decide how public money is used.

What AURIO proposes

Legislate participatory budgeting at the municipal level. Require that 10% of discretionary municipal budgets be decided directly by citizens through open, transparent assemblies.

This is not a spending item. It is a governance reform. It gives people power over decisions that affect their daily lives. It rebuilds trust between citizens and institutions. And it has been proven, across thousands of cities, to produce better outcomes than top down allocation alone.

Greece has spent decades watching decisions made in closed rooms by the same networks. The alternative exists. 7,000 cities already use it.

It is time Greece joined them.

Read the full policy: Democracy and Participation.