South Aegean Region | Initiative to reduce VAT on the islands

The South Aegean Region is taking an initiative to restore reduced VAT rates on the islands.

The issue will be discussed at a meeting of the South Aegean Regional Council, which is scheduled to take place on March 31. The meeting will examine the decision to submit a relevant proposal to the Ministry of Finance.

The agenda of the same meeting also includes a call to the Regional Union of Municipalities (RUM) of the South Aegean to hold a joint meeting of the South Aegean Regional Council with the RUM Board of Directors, with the aim of exploring the possibility of reaching an agreement on the demanding framework for the resources of the Resilience Fee in the climate crisis.

In addition, a Memorandum of Cooperation between the Regions of the South Aegean, Ionian Islands and North Aegean, entitled “Corfu Declaration: A Vision of Sustainable Tourism Development for the Islands”, will be put forward for approval at the meeting.

Regarding the Resilience Fee, the Region of the South Aegean has raised the issue since last year, demanding the establishment of a return to the Region of 75% of the attributable Resilience Fee in the climate crisis, which is collected in its territory.

As the Region had stated, the goal is to utilize it for environmental and sustainable development purposes, which will allow for its faster transformation into a model global sustainable destination and will return to local communities and economies the benefits of collecting revenue from the imposed Fee.

The Region's plan provided for the Resilience Fee allocated to the South Aegean Region (75% of that collected annually from its territory), to be registered in a special account and codified per island, to be allocated for sustainable development and environmental projects and actions, respectively in the place from which it was collected, according to an absolute remunerative distribution, with priority given to water supply projects, port infrastructure, school units and sewage, the responsibility of the first degree of local government.

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