How Greece’s archaeological authority slows development

See In Greece, the Authority Investors Fear Most: Its Archaeologists by Nektaria Stamouli of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Greece’s archaeology authority is among the most feared bureaucracies in a country notorious for red tape, capable of tying up investment plans for years on the mere suspicion that antiquities might lie beneath a proposed development.

As Greece seeks to emerge from years of depression, the need to protect the country’s priceless antique heritage is colliding with its desperate need for investment. Compounding the problem, the archaeology authority is trying to pursue its mission with a budget and staff sharply reduced under austerity, leading to long delays.

In Greece, highways, sewers and other public projects are frequently postponed, redesigned or pushed way over budget by the cost of dealing with buried artifacts. New residential buildings often lack underground garages because developers fear uncovering ancient ruins that can halt the project for years.

The subway in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, still isn’t finished after three decades of work, in part because of the discovery of an ancient town that some archaeologists compare to Pompeii in Italy. The excavations brought to light pre-Byzantine buildings, roads and hundreds of thousands of artifacts. As a result, one station had to be redesigned and part of the line remains unfinished."

Hellinikon represents a large piece of a multibillion-euro privatization program Athens has promised its creditors it will complete. The plans call for hotels, museums, theme parks and research facilities, making it one of Europe’s biggest development projects.

The archaeological authority delayed the project’s start for more than a year, even though archaeologists hadn’t expressed reservations before the site was used for sports facilities during the 2004 Olympics. An ancient cemetery and an aqueduct had been found and bracketed out of the 1500-acre area, but the authority delayed construction on the prospect that more findings could be there.

“There is no balance,” said Aristotelis Panteliadis, managing director of a supermarket chain that underwent five years of archaeological reviews over its request to expand a single store in the Peloponnese. “Keeping every ancient object in the spot it was found, even if it’s a small pile of stones from 500 years ago, and blocking investment because of lack of funding for excavations shows an authority with the sole purpose of saying ‘Do not touch anything.’”