The major reforms brought to the public administration by the project “Public Sector Network – SYZEFXIS II” were the focus of the Conference titled “Digital State through SYZEFXIS II: Transforming Greece for the benefit of citizens”, organised by ‘Information Society’ in Thessaloniki.
Representatives of the government and institutional bodies analysed the fundamental changes that the project has already brought about across a wide range of sectors, from Healthcare and Education to the administration of Justice, modernising the state and improving the daily lives and the services provided to citizens.
In his speech, the Minister of Digital Governance, Dimitris Papastergiou, pointed out that the Public Sector Network (PSN)-SYZEFXIS II came to meet the needs of the Greek public sector for broadband speeds, which is why the entire team of the Ministry and ‘Information Society’ is constantly monitoring the project’s progress, reprioritising the needs and addressing the problems in practice. “The entire team of our Ministry and ‘Information Society’ is on the watch to ensure that we can dynamically succeed in delivering a modern project, which will leave a lasting legacy for the Greek public administration”, he noted. He also announced that discussions have begun on doubling the speeds of the PSN – SYZEFXIS II, while he described security and training issues as being crucial, noting that “you may build the most impregnable building with the highest walls, but if you have not trained your people, all this effort will probably go to waste”.
The Minister also referred to the “Ultra – Fast Broadband Infrastructure” project, the contract for the second phase of which was signed approximately two months ago. “We are investing €800 million in a PPP project in order to bring broadband to suburban areas and villages which it would not otherwise reach, as it was not commercially viable”, he noted, emphasizing that this particular project will enhance overall connectivity, provided there is cooperation.
The Secretary-General for Information Systems and Digital Governance, Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos, said that the Public Sector Network – SYZEFXIS II operates as a backbone – neural network interconnecting 34,000 points in public sector bodies. He also mentioned that 772 million data exchanges were recorded in 2025 between public sector bodies to serve citizens’ requests, putting Greece in first place in the European e-Government Benchmark in terms of overall progress. Mr. Anagnostopoulos pointed out that, through the project, the public sector adopts a cloud-first policy that reduces infrastructure and staffing needs, centralised public infrastructure is combined with vendors’ public clouds (such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google), while the interconnection of infrastructure provides secure data storage.
He highlighted that “the project is highly complex and the administrative burden is so great that it does not allow for the immediate completion of all tasks”, adding that the public sector’s involvement is required at a central level, along with the active participation of all stakeholders and full coordination for the project’s implementation. “We will make every possible effort for the good of the country”, he noted and announced that SYZEFXIS III is also being planned, in order to include new bodies and infrastructure.
The Public Sector Network – SYZEFXIS II was described as the most difficult and complex of the total 450 projects currently managed by the institution, as well as its greatest challenge, by the General Director of Projects at ‘Information Society’, Dimitrios Giantsis. He explained that the project consists of 60 different contracts that have been awarded to multiple contractors; its implementation adheres to public procurement laws, which follow a specific procedure, and it requires the coordination of heterogeneous teams. “All this collaboration is necessary in order to reach the desired outcome, which is the provision of modern and secure telecommunications services to all public sector bodies, so that they can ultimately provide better services to citizens and business owners in Greece. We at ‘Information Society’ undertake to continue to make every possible effort in order to ensure the successful completion of this project”, he stated. The goal, he mentioned, is for the project to be completed by June 2027 and to have an additional year of operational use, while at the same time, within the year, the PSN – SYZEFXIS III will be designed in terms of its strategic axes.
Charis Stellakis, Director of the Infrastructure Project Management Directorate at ‘Information Society’ referred to the progress of the project, which consists of five sub-projects. “At present, the percentage of public sector bodies where the process has been completed and which are operating within the framework of the new network is 58%. Another 20% is in the implementation stage and we hope that in the coming months they will also be interconnected, while the remaining 20% consists of entities that are still in the design stage”, he mentioned. Mr. Stellakis explained that the implementation was slightly delayed for various reasons, including the large number of different contracts, multiple sources of funding, additional needs that arose along the way, as well as unforeseen factors such as the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. “PSN-SYZEFXIS is a flagship project both for ‘Information Society’ and for the Greek public sector.” Through the PSN-SYZEFXIS II, infrastructure and telecommunications services are being upgraded across all public sector entities, while the protection of data and infrastructure from malicious activities, which are a common occurrence, is also ensured”, he stated.
The Deputy Minister of Justice, Ioannis Bougas, focused on the overall transformation of the Greek justice system, with a total budget of €220 million. He participated in a relevant discussion with the President of the Thessaloniki Bar Association, Dimitris Finokaliotis, and the Professor of Law and Informatics in the Department of History, Philosophy and Sociology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Ioannis Inglezakis.
The Deputy Minister mentioned, for example, the implementation of a network providing videoconferencing services in courts and correctional facilities across the country, which, according to his words, will be expanded nationwide by the end of 2026; he also referred to the electronic case file and the electronic platform for the publication of wills, which are already in operation. He also announced that, upon the completion of SYZEFXIS II, 578 Ministry entities will be integrated into a unified, secure and high-speed network. “Our goal is that by the end of the current government term, Greece will be close to reaching the average time for issuing a final decision as the countries of the Council of Europe, i.e. approximately 700 days. This way, we will have given Justice a clear social dimension and made it a driver of our economy’s growth”, he concluded.
Out of a total of 13,000 points in the Panhellenic School Network, 5,600 have been connected to the PSN – SYZEFXIS II, as noted by the Deputy Minister of Education, Nikos Papaioannou, when he spoke at a panel on the digital transformation of education. The PASOK – Movement for Change MP, Stefanos Parastatidis, and the Professor of the Department of Applied Informatics at the University of Macedonia, Efthymios Tampouris, also participated in this panel. The Deputy Minister stated that the ministry’s efforts for the digital upgrade focus on three pillars: infrastructure, students and the educational process; they include actions that integrate digital tools and artificial intelligence, such as the transformation of traditional curricula, a digital library and textbook registry, a public digital tutoring platform, the procurement and installation of interactive learning systems with 40,000 interactive whiteboards in all schools across Greece, the utilisation of artificial intelligence through the national Eduplan AI system, e-enrolments for students, training for more than 150,000 teachers and digital services for academic institutions. “These tools are used not only for teaching, but also for inter-university collaboration and for connecting universities with the labour market”, he noted.
Konstantinos Gioulekas, Deputy Minister of the Interior and in charge of Macedonia–Thrace affairs, highlighted the mitigation of interregional inequalities as one of the most important advantages of the digital transformation. “Suddenly, both time and distance are minimised and the structure of our lives changes, at least as we had known it until now. Geographical disadvantage is eliminated. It does not matter where you are; what matters is what you want and how you can achieve it”, he said, adding that the fact that it reduces corruption in transactions with the public sector, which are now carried out electronically, is of equal importance. Mr. Gioulekas expressed the view that the digital upgrade will contribute to the development of the whole of Northern Greece. “If this digital state being built is utilised on our part, together with the capabilities and prospects we have, then Northern Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, and especially Thessaloniki, can indeed very quickly make up for lost ground and move forward”, he highlighted.
The digital applications in the Healthcare sector and the role of the e-Health Cloud in the modern healthcare system were presented by the General Director of Digital Infrastructure at IDIKA S.A., Michail Michalopoulos, the MP for Kilkis and emergency physician, Petros Pappas, and the pathologist and Professor of Therapeutics, Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the School of Medicine of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Theodora Psaltopoulou.
In a special session, the topic of cybersecurity was analysed by the MP for Thessaloniki B, economist and tax official, Theodoros Karaoglou, the President of the Hellenic Association of ITC Companies, Giota Paparidou, and the Professor of Information Security and Dean of the School of Information Sciences at the University of Macedonia, Ioannis Mavridis.