Sheep & Goat Pox governance as incentives, data, and state capacity, not as ad-hoc crisis management
The core thesis
The sheep and goat pox (SGP) policy in Greece cannot be treated as a sequence of ad hoc circulars, emergency prohibitions, and reactive enforcement. The Greek episode reveals a well-documented governance pattern in high-uncertainty animal-health crises: information lags create policy lags; policy lags trigger behavioural adaptation; behavioural adaptation fuels transmission (OECD, 2017; Fraser, 2018). Once this loop stabilises, “emergency response” quietly evolves into a semi-permanent, high-cost regime.
The policy objective, therefore, is not simply to tighten measures or extend restrictions. It is to convert SGP governance into an operating system: a coherent configuration of rules, incentives, data flows, and institutional capacity that (i) moves faster than the pathogen, (ii) aligns private behaviour with public objectives, and (iii) remains legitimate under a liberal standard of proportionality, transparency, and fair burden-sharing.
Ηow SGP policy should be evaluated
Any SGP policy proposal should be evaluated against four criteria:
- Epidemiological effectiveness – does it reduce transmission opportunities and accelerate detection and response?
- Incentive compatibility – does it make compliance the dominant or at least focal strategy for key actors?
- Administrative feasibility – can it be implemented under Greek state capacity constraints and EU law?
- Liberal legitimacy – is it proportionate, predictable, transparent, and fair in the allocation of burdens?
These criteria translate multidisciplinary insights, epidemiology, economics, public administration, and political theory into actionable design rules (Ostrom, 1990; OECD, 2017).
A second, equally critical principle is sequencing. In high-uncertainty environments, policy instruments must be robust to behavioural responses. If compensation is announced without credible enforcement and traceability, moral hazard increases. If enforcement is announced without credible compensation, concealment becomes rational. Therefore, compensation, enforcement, traceability, and communication must be designed jointly, not optimised in isolation (Hennessy, 2007; OECD, 2017; Fraser, 2018).
A graded liability-and-compensation regime: pricing prevention into the system
Greece should formalise a graded liability-and-compensation regime that explicitly distinguishes unavoidable exposure from negligence. The objective is not punitive moralism; it is to price prevention incentives into the system, consistent with the economic literature on moral hazard in animal-health risk management (Hennessy, 2007).
A robust graded regime includes:
- Full compensation for holdings that demonstrate compliance with baseline biosecurity and reporting obligations.
- Reduced compensation where negligence is documented (e.g. unauthorised movements, repeated breaches of zone rules).
- Enhanced penalties where deliberate concealment or falsification is proven.
Such differentiation aligns private incentives with public disease-control objectives while preserving fairness (OECD, 2017).
Operationalisation must rely on few, auditable, measurable criteria aligned with EU requirements and field realities: documented animal movements, participation in mandatory inspections, basic biosecurity logs, and timely reporting of clinical suspicion. This is precisely where traceability becomes enabling infrastructure rather than administrative paperwork.
Crucially, graded compensation must not degenerate into a bureaucratic trap. Administrative speed is part of the incentive structure. Processing timelines should be predefined, monitored, and publicly reported. Delayed compensation weakens compliance incentives and increases concealment risks.
In addition, Greece should incorporate collective incentive components. A portion of prevention funding can be allocated to producer groups or cooperatives, subject to measurable local outcomes, such as reporting timeliness, verified movement compliance, or completion of disinfection protocols. This design draws directly from collective-action theory: institutions that reduce monitoring costs through peer governance should be rewarded (Ostrom, 1990; Olson, 1965; OECD, 2017).
Traceability and laboratory data as the policy operating system
SGP policy cannot be implemented at scale without a data operating system linking laboratories, field teams, and movement permissions. The Greek experience demonstrates that information lags become policy lags, and policy lags create behavioural adaptation that accelerates transmission.
Traceability and laboratory reporting must therefore be treated as real-time decision infrastructure, not retrospective reporting. At a minimum, this requires:
- a single national identifier for farms and movement events,
- near-real-time integration of laboratory confirmations,
- automated zone logic translating confirmations into movement conditions under EU rules (European Union, 2016; European Commission, 2025).
A practical and immediately implementable step is the creation of an outbreak dashboard with three layers:
- Epidemiological – confirmed positives, suspected cases, sampling coverage.
- Operational – field teams deployed, culling completion, cleaning and disinfection status.
- Economic – compensation processing times, amounts paid, and pending claims.
Publishing key indicators without exposing sensitive farm identities serves two functions simultaneously: it strengthens liberal legitimacy by reducing rumours and distrust, and it strengthens performance management by making capacity bottlenecks visible and therefore governable (OECD, 2017).
Polycentric governance. State authority plus sectoral co-responsibility
Central state authority is indispensable for legal enforcement and EU coordination. However, it is insufficient for fine-grained compliance in a fragmented livestock sector. Greece should therefore move toward polycentric governance for SGP: a system in which local and sectoral institutions share clearly defined responsibilities within a national framework (Ostrom, 1990).
Producer organisations and cooperatives can be accredited as biosecurity governance partners. Accreditation would require commitments to local compliance programmes, training, peer audits, movement discipline and would be rewarded with access to prevention grants, prioritised laboratory services, and digital tools. Accreditation creates reputational incentives and formalises co-responsibility while reducing monitoring costs.
This is also a trust-building strategy. Evidence suggests that farmers are often more willing to accept guidance from credible peer institutions than from distant authorities, provided those institutions are transparently governed (Enticott, 2022).
Behavioural design and risk communication within a liberal policy stance
Risk communication should be treated as a policy instrument, not as public relations. Communication shapes reporting behaviour, compliance norms, and stigma dynamics. A liberal communication strategy must therefore be evidence-based and dignity-preserving, while making the externality logic explicit: individual non-compliance imposes harms on others and justifies collective constraints (Turan et al., 2017).
Behavioural design can complement enforcement without undermining liberal principles. Examples include default rules in movement-permission systems that require explicit justification for exceptions, targeted feedback to holdings and regions on compliance indicators, and peer comparison within producer groups. Evidence from behavioural interventions in animal health shows that such tools can shift behaviour when combined with credible monitoring (Garza et al., 2020).
Vaccination strategy as a contingency option, not an ideological debate
Vaccination should be treated as a contingency option within an evidence-based decision protocol, not as an ideological dividing line. EFSA analyses place vaccination within a broader control toolkit and emphasise that effectiveness depends on coverage, logistics, and interaction with movement restrictions (EFSA AHAW Panel, 2014; EFSA AHAW Panel, 2021).
Under EU rules and trade considerations, vaccination decisions are complex. The governance lesson, however, is clear: if repeated outbreaks cannot be contained through stamping out and movement control alone, policy must have a pre-analysed, pre-authorised vaccination pathway with defined thresholds, logistics plans, surveillance integration, and communication protocols.
A strategy-oriented state does not commit to a single instrument ex ante. It commits to a decision protocol that specifies when each instrument becomes justified, how burdens are shared, and how learning is incorporated after each event. This is the hallmark of state capacity in high-uncertainty domains (OECD, 2017; Fraser, 2018).
What Greece actually needs to build
The core shift is from measures to an operating system. Not more circulars, but faster detection loops, incentive-compatible compensation, credible enforcement, interoperable data, and institutionalised co-responsibility. When these elements are designed as one system, SGP policy becomes simultaneously more effective and more legitimate because it replaces uncertainty with a predictable contract between the state and producers.
References
European Union (2016). Regulation (EU) 2016/429 (Animal Health Law). Official Journal of the European Union.
European Commission (2025). Sheep pox and goat pox in Greece. SCOPAFF presentations and technical material.
EFSA AHAW Panel (2014). Scientific Opinion on sheep and goat pox. EFSA Journal, 12(11), 3885.
EFSA AHAW Panel (2021). Assessment of control measures for category A diseases. EFSA Journal, 19(10), 6933.
OECD (2017). Producer Incentives in Livestock Disease Management. OECD Publishing.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons. Cambridge University Press.
Olson, M. (1965). The Logic of Collective Action. Harvard University Press.
Hennessy, D.A. (2007). Behavioural incentives, moral hazard, and animal disease risk.
Turan, B. et al. (2017). Stigma and public health communication.
Garza, S.J. et al. (2020). Behavioural interventions in animal health compliance.
Enticott, G. (2022). Trust, governance, and animal disease control.