Frontal crash between the Harbour Authority and the Municipality of the Pireo



Al Pireo is in existence a hard crash between the Harbour Authority and the municipal administration. Mayor Vasilis Michaloliakos has sent to a letter to the Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, the competent ministers and the same president of the Piraeus Port Authority, Yiorgos Anomeritis, in which manifest the strong opposition of the Municipality of the Pireo in confronts of the new project introduced from the harbour agency and the government.

The project, that it is illustrated 28th December by the president of the port and the minister to the Development, competitiveness and shipping, Michalis Chrisochoidis, previews the fleeting widening of the port with the creation of six new ones approaches for the great cruise ships with an investment of 230 million euros and the construction of an elevated railroad for trains monorail that contornerà the entire harbour aerial with an investment of 120 million euros. The intention is to start the work in the first semester of this year in order to complete the monorail in the 2014 and widening of the port in 2015.

The mayor is himself complained because the presentation of the project has been a real surprise for the municipal administration, because a inusuale fast procedure has been decided in order to approve of the two projects and, above all, because the construction of the monorail, with its railroad to six meters from the ground, constitutes a very expensive work that will isolate the city from the sea.

In the letter the mayor has emphasized that the port of the Pireo is part integrating of the city and that will not be accepted some progettuale proposal that does not hold account of the social impact and the transparency of the procedures. "Our position in favor of the development of the port - Vasilis Michaloliakos has written - is famous. But this can be put into effect is against the city that without the participation of the people who live to you and works to you". Moreover the mayor has denounced that the project is introduced as if enjoyed the approval of all the institutions of the city, "what that is not only true - it has evidenced - but more rather the contrary is true", and has restated that no project can proceed without the consultation and the participation of the Municipality of the Pireo.

The president of the Harbour Authority has replied that the investment programs of the harbour agency are not only decided with the support of all the institutions, but is approved of after wide consultations with all the parts interested of the Pireo, included the same Municipality. Moreover Anomeritis has remembered that all the work is approved of and announced on March 4, 2010 by the interdepartmental committee presided from the vice Prime Minister Theodore Pangalos to the presence of all the representatives of the Pireo, the government and the central administration, and has evidenced the absolute transparency of the procedures

"Nobody wants to fight with nobody - Yiorgos Anomeritis has declared - in particular on the works of structural nature or for the development. But - it has added the president of Port Authority - it must get to terms with the facts: the next year inside of the main harbour area they would have to be enlivened 20 million passengers, seven million vehicles and five million crocieristi that will pass through 11 cross harbour. Over the years all the students have suggested only a solution: the elevated line. You notice yourself - it has specified - than this means moves only inside of the harbour zone, around which not there are houses, but only offices".

Anomeritis has remembered that Greece is crossing a difficult economic period and that the programmed works from the Piraeus Port Authority are finalized to the development of the marine transports, the harbour activities and tourism, and they are concentrated in particular on the strengthening of the cruises and of the business activities with the objective it is to attract new investments and to create places of work. Anomeritis has found that the governmental decision to include the main projects of the port in the investment program of 427 million euros of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSFR) "represents a beam of hope in a period gray". 2012 - it has concluded - are a year key: or they will be put political of development in existence effective, with the involvement of the communities, the public and private resources, or it will be gone towards the failure.