A deputy economy minister who previously enjoyed a more-or-less successful tenure as a the head of Greece’s privatization agency on Sunday emphasized that a pair of closely watched but delay-plagued major investments in the country are proceeding, despite whatever problems.
Deputy Minister Stergios Pitsiorlas said the massive real estate development project at the Helleniko site of coastal southeast Athens was proceeding “step by step”.
“… by creating a wider consensus and dealing with problems emanating from two directions simultaneously: On the one hand, by the state administration, which is influenced by previous distrust and opposition to the project; on the other hand, by the investors, who view the government with extreme suspicion, trapped in a previous view of relations between investor and the government.”
His statements were carried in an interview published in the Athens-based weekly “Realnews”.
Asked about the Hellas Gold mining concession in northern Greece, the biggest industrial investment in the country, Pitsiorlas said the current leftist-rightist coalition government is seeking a permanent resolution to the problem.
The mining concession, especially at the Skouries site, has faced immense opposition by some quarters of local residents in eastern Halkidiki prefecture, by environmentalists, anti-capitalist and leftist groups and even the current government. Although victorious in successive legal challenges, bureaucratic obstacles still bedevil the concession won by Canadian mining multinational Eldorado Gold.
The deputy minister bemoaned the fact, as he said, that the “investing company cannot show patience for a few more months, and is instead proceeding with pressure that makes no sense.”
He also claimed that main opposition New Democracy (ND) party is attempting to take advantage of the situation by peddling a “scenario” entitled “SYRIZA (the ruling party) is allergic to (foreign) investments”.
