One of the very first decisions taken by the new Greek government, was to stop the privatization of 15 airports. If you think that this provision was of Socialist inspiration you are wrong. The new government simply stopped the looting of the country, as it happened before with the construction and management of the Athens airport. If this means to be Socialist, then I am Communist. But I am neither.
Only last week I made reference to the robbery of the Athens Airport. In a few words, the Greek people paid €2.35 billion. Real cost (all included) maximum €0.3 billion. The difference between the two amounts is €2.05 billion, or to put it another way, the project was paid 8 times more than it cost! Of this about €1.5 billion were expatriated to destinations KOTG. I like this KOTG. I have seen that in the first war cemeteries at Ypres and it means Known Only To God.
Yet the loss was not only the €2 billion, but much more. Indeed this extraordinary looting of €2 billion resulted in astronomical airport charges and consequently Greece suffers permanently loss of tourism income.
For the construction (cost €300 million) the Athens airport received subsidies, €250 million from the Cohesion Fund and €600 million from the Greek government (the rest were EIB loans). Thus the airport charges should be below the charges of Barajas (Madrid) and not higher of Narita (Tokyo). In this way, Greece might not had economic crisis as from 19 million tourists would have easily jumped to 50 million.
Therefore, the decision to stop the privatization of the airports was the best decision Greece could take. Indeed, if properly handled, Greece can greatly benefit. The difficult part of the decision to stop privatizing is done. Now the government has to invite the local administrations where the airports belong, ask them to make join ventures with the local tourist agents and give them out the airports. Municipalities and Tourist Agents will use the airports to get tourism, not income from the airport charges.
As to the notorious Athens airport, if the new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras intends to restore some of the damage occurred to the country, we can provide a complete dossier, sufficient for the Greek judiciary, but also for the anti-fraud service of the European Union OLAF, to open real investigations, as any audits and investigations conducted so far, were “bon pour l’Orient.” Total recovery of the loss is impossible because the lost income from lost tourism cannot be recovered. Yet, at least, by minimizing or abolishing Athens airport unlawful charges, Greece can expect a spectacular increase of tourist arrivals.
PS: When OLAF investigated the Airport in 2003-2004 did not take into consideration any of the articles appeared in New Europe in relation to the Athens Airport robbery and never invited our Editor to testify. It simply closed the dossier claiming that ….it had no sufficient information.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/will-tsipras-challenge-robbery-century