Organised crime and illegal immigration are problems that affect all European capitals to varying degrees, but the Greek situation is unquestionably in a class of its own. A large part of the city, its historic centre, has gradually been handed over to ”the others”, as Athens residents call the new ”invaders”.
Residents and shopkeepers in the zone have been forced to leave their homes and shops due to soaring crime. Criminal gangs of various nationalities, drug addicts and prostitutes coming from all over the world make up the variegated human fauna filling Athens’ central streets day and night, where frightened foreign tourists have stopped coming to the last few hotels still open.
In order to get out of this situation, the government is moving in two directions, against organised crime and clandestine immigration and towards increased livability.
Criminality is one of the top problems that the new Citizens Protection Minister Michalis Chrissochoidis opted to deal with from his first day in office. The special group tasked with keeping order in central Athens was immediately bolstered with another 195 police officers, while the current number of police in the section will gradually rise to 3,000.
He also announced that a number of actions will be undertaken soon to deal with the issue of Athens’ historic centre. ”We will soon be undertaking initiatives to put an end to everything which is degrading this historic European capital,” the minister said, adding that ”we will soon be implementing whatever is needed to make sure that Greece stops being a country where anyone can enter illegally and commit crimes in collaboration with local criminals.” As concerns improving the quality of life in the city and winning back its historic centre, a plan is being studied called ”Re-think Athens”.
Those involved say the plan involves transforming Panepistimiou Street (one of the city’s major throughways) into a pedestrian zone with bike paths and only a tram line running down it.
The reconstruction plan for the capital’s centre – which the competent ministers and other agencies and state bodies are working together for – was presented in the Onassis Foundation’s House of Letters and Arts by the chairman of the foundation, Antonis Papadimitriou, in the presence of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and Mayor Giorgos Kaminis.
When the work is completed, it was said, Athens’ historic centre will go back to being a livable place and the conditions will be created for the strengthening of commercial, administrative and economic structures. Papademos said that ”saving the centre is an absolute necessity. We owe it to Athens’ citizens, who are seeing their quality of life dropping farther every month, year after year.
We owe it to our capital’s age-old culture and traditions.” The Onassis Foundation will be announcing an international competition on its website www.rethinkathens.org., and will also pay for all the necessary expenditure on feasibility studies, for which 3 million euros have already been allocated.
(source: ANSA)
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