A necessary presidential decree was signed on Friday evening, amid much fanfare and in the presence of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, for the major real estate project in the coastal southeast Athens district of Helleniko, after months of “red-tape” obstacles and legal challenges.
Tsipras and at least six Cabinet members were on hand for the signing of the decree, essentially a final bureaucratic step by the executive branch and state services before the entire concession contract and master plan are conveyed to Council of State, Greece’s top administrative court, for its independent approval.
The leftist Greek premier, who as the main opposition leader was bitterly opposed to any privatization and property development at the site of the former Athens airport, later took to Twitter to state that “the presidential decree was signed today by the relevant ministers and headed to the CoS, within 2017, just as our initial planning foresaw. Today we won a first major wager in terms of timeliness and effectiveness.”
The Helleniko project is budgeted at several billions of euros and is by far the most important and expensive real estate project ever undertaken by private interests in Greece, and one of the biggest currently in Europe. It’s also a specific obligation cited in the bailout memorandum and, unofficially, a “litmus test” for the leftist-rightist coalition government’s volition to attract major investments to the recession-battered country.
