New Development & Investments Minister Adonis Georgiadis, among the most high-profile members of the new Mitsotakis Cabinet, on Tuesday greeted Lamda Development CEO Odysseas Athanasiou in his first meeting since being sworn-in, a highly symbolic development that is directly linked with the new government's stated priority of jump-starting the Lamda-led Helleniko privatization.
The nearly eight-billion-euro Helleniko project has been beset by ubiquitous Greek "red tape", legal challenges and even political opposition for years. Just last week ATHEX-listed Lamda decried the issuance of a joint ministerial decision by the outgoing Tsipras government that essentially mandated culture ministry approval for every construction, including landscaping, made at the site.
Lamda said no such provision is included in law, whereas the extra "layers" of bureaucracy will render the privatization as unfeasible. The company also charged that the previous government engaged in a mockery over the past four and a half years.
"Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has ordered that obstacles to this project be removed, and that's what will happen," Georgiadis wrote on his Twitter account.
