The Tsipras government, via sources, attempted to dispel fears that a landmark privatization in Greece is at risk of unceremoniously ending before even a single shovel breaks ground.
Government sources late on Friday said “all contractual commitments towards the Helleniko investment will be fulfilled,” hours after a consortium awarded the massive real estate development project claimed that the Greek state continues to place bureaucratic hurdles in its path.
At the same time, in a bid to deflect a crescendo of criticism, mainly from the opposition, as well as creditors’ concerns over the sputtering privatization, the same sources cited what they called a “self-evident condition being the fulfillment, on the part of the investor, of its commitments.”
Additionally, the government conveyed – albeit in an unofficial manner – that whatever views and opinions state services express regarding the project that will be assessed, as a whole, in the process to issue a necessary presidential decree. Numerous bureaucratic steps are necessary for the multi-billion-euro real estate project in coastal southeast Athens, where the Greek capital’s old airport once operated, to finally get off the ground.
“We, therefore, call on the investor to enter into a good-faith cooperation, which is the only way to solve all problems, as has been demonstrated,” was a quote disseminated by Greek media in summing up the multiple sources.
The tribulations of the Helleniko investment also generated a dispatch by Bloomberg from Athens, which linked the development to another delay-plagued capital investment in the country, the Eldorado Gold mining concession in the northern Greece prefecture of Halkidiki.
Bloomberg said the two biggest investments in Greece, valued at roughly 11 billion euros, are at risk.
“Lamda Development, which is managing the Hellenikon site, the biggest real estate investment in country, said on Friday that Greece’s efforts to go back on terms already agreed to ‘violates the necessary trust between the parties.’ That statement came a day after Canadian mining company Eldorado Gold Corp. announced that it’s taking legal action against Greece for its failure to issue the company permits needed for its Skouries project,” Bloomberg reported, while also citing a top financial consultant.
“In an otherwise positive economic environment, this is bad news for investors,” said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director of Eurasia Group, an advisory firm. “It again raises questions about the competence and objectives of this Syriza government.”
