Greece’s main opposition on Wednesday decried a ruling by Greece’s Central Archaeological Council (KAS) which limited the area on which China’s Cosco can invest in Piraeus as “outrageous,” and attributed it to ruling SYRIZA’s “ideological obsessions”, ekathimerini.com reports.
“KAS made the outrageous assertion that almost half of Piraeus is an archaeological site. KAS, however, is appointed by the government and therefore the government is accountable for its ruling that undermine building activity in the country’s biggest port,” party spokesperson Sofia Zaharaki noted.
Rejecting the criticism, the ministry of culture said KAS’s decision “will not affect …the investment in the port,” pointing to the center of Athens where construction has not stopped although it is also of archaeological interest.
After a marathon session that concluded around midnight on Tuesday, KAS voted unanimously against plans by the Chinese multinational to construct a mall next to a new cruise ship terminal and also called for restrictions on a five-star hotel set to be built in the Porto Leone area, in the southern section of the port where the cruise terminal is located.
Therefore, concerns by the Cosco-managed Piraeus Port Authority over “redtape-coated” obstacles in its 600-million-euro master plan materialized on a grand scale on Tuesday evening, with a decision by an influential culture ministry-affiliated council to declare a substantial portion of the municipality of Piraeus, including parts of Greece’s biggest port, as an archaeological zone.
The decision by the Central Archaeological Council (KAS) affects the modern-day areas within, what during antiquity, was the walled coastal settlement, including today’s built-up and commercially exploited coastline.
Another legal challenge will be heard on Friday, as two construction companies have sought recourse to the Council of State (CoS) over specific conditions – concerning disqualification – in a tender to build a new cruise ship terminal within the port authority, a project budgeted at 169 million euros. The project is financed by the EU Commission at a rate of 95 percent.
Yet another obstacle, according to port authority sources, is the difficulty in achieving approval of environmental impact studies for practically every project the Chinese multinational wants to start, as well as numerous observations by a shipping ministry-affiliated committee tasked with overseeing port planning and development in the country.
RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC-BY-SA Copyright: Nikolaos Diakidis
