The sudden decision of the Hellenic Post ELTA to close down 204 of its 456 in total branches across Greece has triggered an outrage on Friday, not only among the communities in remote areas on the mountainous areas or the islands but also among opposition parties and MPs of the ruling party New Democracy.
The decision announced on Friday, October 31, by the management of the public organization ELTA, will go into effect on November 3, 2025.
From the 204 branches to permanently close down, 40 are located in Attica and the remaining 164 in several regions.
The reduction corresponds to approximately 45% of the total network.
Finance Minister: Difficult but necessary decisions
Addressing the reactions to the closure of 204 branches, Minister of National Economy and Finance Kyriakos Pierrakakis said then “when it comes to ELTA, all parameters must be taken into account in the decisions. In recent years, the government has provided substantial financial support to ensure ELTA’s survival – not to close them, but to restructure them,” he told the Parliament’s Economic Affairs Committee on the new tax bill.
He acknowledged that the conditions surrounding ELTA “ are of national importance,” explaining that this is precisely why the government supported the organization financially – with a capital increase exceeding 250 million euros and a voluntary exit scheme – aiming at restructuring for long-term viability.
He pointed out that the closure of post office branches “ is not a new issue; it’s a discussion that began under previous governments.”
“ Today, however, we find ourselves where we are,” the minister continued, “ and ELTA still faces major restructuring challenges.”
He noted that the company’s CEO stated earlier that letter mail volumes have fallen to just 10% of what they were a decade ago, underscoring the need for “ difficult decisions.”
“The goal is to survive. ELTA has a problem. Too many problems that they have to deal with. Mail is 10% of what it was. Difficult decisions have to be made. I will agree that every parameter must be taken into account. And this is happening,” the Finance Minister said.
Decline and Fall
This huge restructuring move, which is being attempted once again, indicates in the clearest way that the subsidiary of the Superfund is having difficulty leaving behind it long-standing issues of clumsy handling, severe financial problems, which have been exacerbated by the decline of letter mail, which once constituted its main source of income, and its inability to meet the modern demands of e-commerce.
Despite all efforts, the negative performance picture has not been reversed, as the Organization remains stuck in the area of losses and negative equity.
According to the 2024 statements, ELTA’s revenues reached 249 million euros compared to 243.28 million euros the previous year, recording an increase of 2.3%.
Angry citizens around
Already on social media, Greeks started complaining about the upcoming closure of post offices even in towns with over 20,000 people, some of them with heavy tourism, or military camps and elderly citizens who receive their pension cash by “their” postman as they have not access to ATMs or banks.
Who will replace the ELTA service? The private courier companies, of course, at a higher fee and price.
just to mention that one of the food delivery platforms informed its clients two-three days ago that they can send their packages and/or mails via it. Can you imagine how long they knew it to prepare their new service? Long enough before the Greeks knew it…
PS It’s the usual business among the government and its friends
And to think that the government tries to convince citizens to leave the cities and move to the “waste land” of the countryside.
(Ah, Fck off – excuse my language)
“…the company’s CEO stated earlier that letter mail volumes have fallen to just 10% of what they were a decade ago…”
I bet he has no idea why this has happened? I’ve lived in Greece for 28 years, at first in the far north and now near Chania on Crete. For many years my mail was delivered directly to my house on a regular basis and nothing went missing. A few years ago that changed. Mail stopped being delivered altogether and we had to collect it from the post office. That was only open 2 days per week so you can imagine the queues. If anybody has watched the film “Going Postal” the chaos in the post office was as bad s the scene in that film when they first appoint a new postmaster and ope the office again.
Eventually, after a couple of years, the Dimos paid for boxes to be placed at a number of points around the village and post once again got delivered to the boxes once per week. Except mostly it doesn’t. I estimate that about 10% of the mail sent to me arrives. Where the rest goes I have no idea. Also the delays for that which does arrive are massive. A couple of days ago I received a letter from my bank that was posted one month ago.
similar deal here.. a decade ago mail was reliable, for letters and packages, and delivery was prompt. in the past 5 or 6 years, any standard A-postage letter send domestically seems to have about a 1/3 chance of never arriving at all, and if it does get delivered, it sometimes takes _several months_. christmas cards sent before the holiday, arriving in march! our local delivery here to the village was always just general delivery at the kafeneio, but it used to be twice a week, and now it’s down to once every three weeks or so. Routine things like the electric bill almost always arrive past the due date of the bill. One mailman i think now has all the routes in the whole region. postage for both domestic and international letters (forget packages, the prices are now absurd) have gotten sky-high expensive – far more expensive than postage in other countries.
smells more like another example of this schizophrenic modern version of false ‘privatization’ where the profits get ‘privatized’ but the expenses get heaped onto taxpayers or the general public by way of legalized monopolies.
I have to agree with Warwick. My wife and I moved to Crete (Apokoronas) twenty years ago.Then we had a postbox on our wall and the postman delivered our post reliably. Then suddenly he was sacked, no warning no fallback. Then someone came up with the idea of village postboxes. This worked so so with some post never arriving. A new postman arrived and he was good, so they sacked him. After long period without post it started again, ( a new person) work load too big so he was gone. Having got used to this banana republic system we now have to accept a virtual collapse! No excuses just sloppy bad management. Maybe Zeus can sort it out. !!!
Zeus is busy with solving vendetta issues there, no postman things.