When news of the Greek debt crisis first
broke in 2010, a number of German tabloids called on the country to
pawn its cultural and natural heritage to pay off its debts. “Sell your
islands, you bankrupt Greeks!” ran a headline of the ever tasteless Bild.
“And sell the Acropolis too!” With the bailout of May 2010 in the
making, the populist editors of the right-wing magazine, apparently
oblivious to the historical sensitivities around the German annexation
of foreign territories, stubbornly insisted: “We give you cash, you give
us Corfu.”
Today, more than four
years since the signing of the first memorandum of understanding, it
seems that Germany’s nationalist media — along with the European
investor class and the oligarchic Greek elite — are finally getting
their way. Greece’s subservient government is now pushing hard to open
up new frontiers for privatization, with some 77.000 state assets slated
for sale, including a host of historic marinas and idyllic islands, a
number of ancient palaces, and large stretches of the country’s
spectacular and unspoilt coastline.
Earlier
this year, the government announced that it would move ahead with its
plans to sell off a number of beautiful buildings of great historic
value at the foot of the Acropolis. The Guardian reported
that “among the properties are refugee tenement blocks built to put up
Greeks fleeing the Asia Minor disaster in 1922 and culture ministry
offices housed in neo-classical buildings in the picturesque Plaka
district … that were erected shortly after the establishment of the
modern Greek state. Both are widely viewed as architectural gems.”
The
announcement came on the heels of a controversial decision to rent out
two of the most important archeological sites in Athens — the Stoa of
Attalos, which sits in the ancient agora, and the Panathenaic Stadium —
to companies for private events. Earlier, similar plans had been mooted
by leading politicians of the ruling conservative party to lease out the
Acropolis for photoshoots and other commercial and promotional
activities.
Then, in May, the
government upped the ante by proposing a bill that would effectively
overturn decades-old constitutional protections of the country’s
coastline that restrict development and guarantee open access to the
beach. The Greek privatization fund TAIPED subsequently marked 110
beaches for privatization, including such gems as Elafonisos,
home to the valuable marine archeological site Pavlopetri. Under the
coastal bill, ownership of the seashore — along with any architectural
structures and the surrounding natural environment — will fall
exclusively unto the buyer, who will be able to “develop” their property
and restrict access to non-owners.
The
consequences of this privatization drive would be disastrous and
largely irreversible. Thanks to its constitutional protections, the
Greek coastline has so far managed to avoid the kind of mass development
that has befallen the Spanish coastline — leaving it intact as one of
Europe’s last-remaining unspoilt seashores. As The Press Project points out,
however, the proposed coastal bill “would make it possible for even
large beaches in Greece to be carpeted from end to end with umbrellas
and beach bars,” while the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has warned of a Spanish-style construction boom of holiday apartments that could cover the Greek coastline in concrete.
Needless
to say, the privatization drive goes hand-in-hand with the
strangulation of Greece’s public sector — under direct orders of the
Troika of foreign lenders — which renders the crisis of the country’s
archeological heritage all the more acute. The budget of the Culture
Ministry has been slashed by a savage 52% since 2010, putting at risk
some of Europe’s most valuable cultural treasures by greatly reducing
the available funds to maintain and protect archeological sites and run
public museums. Meanwhile, the Environment Ministry has overtly shifted
its attention from preserving the country’s natural heritage to opening
up new spaces for oil exploration.
This is the opening of the article, the rest of which can be read here
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