The wheels of bureaucracy are known to grind slowly in Greece. Building projects such as the new junction at Mournies and the renovation of the Agora in Chania have been beset by delays, though not all of them due to government bureaucracy. The finding of archaeological remains on a site is a guarantee that all activity will stop for an indeterminate period of time while the archaeological authorities decide how to proceed. This is understandable in a country with such a rich archeological heritage as Greece, but bureaucratic slowness undoubtedly helps to account for the length of time which it takes the authorities to come to a decision. In other cases the uncertainty of the business climate in Greece is to blame – the contractor for the Mournies junction suffered three changes of ownership before the project was completed.

Two current cases in the Municipality of Platanias have the distinction of suffering delays lasting decades, with bureaucracy – or perhaps simply a lack of impetus to get things moving – undoubtedly a contributing factor.

Platanias harbour legalised after 40 years
On 24th April, the environmental conditions for Platanias harbour were finally approved by the Cretan Regional Authority, and they will shortly be published in the Official Government Gazette, passing them into law. It has taken 40 years for the small harbour in Platanias town to be legalised, one reason being that it was constructed in the 1980s, when such conditions were not required. However, with the current emphasis on environmental rectitude, this was clearly an issue which needed to be addressed.

In September 2023, the Environmental Department of the Regional Unit of Chania imposed a fine of €60,000 on the Chania Port Authority, but suspended it for a year as the Port Authority had already begun the process of issuing the environmental conditions for the harbour. The breakwaters east of the harbour, on the borders of Agia Marina, which are the responsibility of the municipality’s Building Department, are in a similar situation, and another fine of €60,000 has been imposed on them by the Regional Unit of Chania. According to information received by Haniotika Nea, the Building Department also has started an effort to legalise the constructions.

The problem of the Fishing Museum
In the meantime, the issue of the Fishing Museum in Kolymbari was raised at a special accountability session of the Platanias Municipal Council by the head of the Popular Rally faction, Dimitris Anthousis. As he stated at the session:

“The creation of the Museum of Maritime Wealth and Fishing Tradition in Kolymbari constituted an important initiative, which with the passage of time has unfortunately become a classic example of bureaucracy and mismanagement which have led it into decline and complete degradation. Almost 23 years have passed since the building was completed (2001) with funding from the Agriculture Ministry’s Pesca Operational Programme, and 19 years since it was opened, However, the Fishing Museum has for some years been a ‘corpse’, subject to periodic vandalism and even burglary.

“As we all know, the management of the Fishing Museum is in the hands of a limited company, ALMA A.E., in which the ‘Kapodistrian’ municipality of Kolymbari had a 28 per cent share, which was transferred to the ‘Kallikratian’ Municipality of Platanias. One might have expected the latter, over all those years, to take the necessary steps to overcome effectively and definitively all the bureaucratic hurdles and any other problems, for that space to be returned to operation for the benefit of the Municipality and the residents of the wider area.”

Mr Anthousis recalled that “the issue in question has been discussed from time to time in the Platanias Municipal Council. One such occasion was in October 2020, when the ‘Popular Rally of Platanias’ tabled a question on the issue. However, such discussions as have taken place and such decisions as have been taken have not so far led to a solution to the problem, about which numerous articles have been published both in past years and recently, portraying the absolutely disappointing reality.

“On the basis of the above, I ask the mayor of Platanias, ‘What is the state of play today regarding the Fishing Museum in Kolymbari and what steps does the Municipality of Platanias, as the major shareholder in ALMA A.E., intend to take towards returning the Fishing Museum to operation as soon as possible?’
(Haniotika Nea, 26/04/24)

A long history of inaction
As Mr Anthousis suggests, this is not the first time that the issue of the Fishing Museum has been raised with the Municipality. In April 2021, the head of the main opposition on the Platanias council, Manolis Doudoulakis, wrote an article which appeared on the HANIA.news website describing the creation of the Museum, in which he himself had participated, and bewailing its current state of dilapidation.

It is not clear why the Museum, which was delivered in a finished state and filled with exhibits as the photographs accompanying the article show, fell into neglect and disrepair, or indeed how long it remained functional after its opening. A report on Neakriti.gr of October 2012 refers to the museum reopening to the public “after a long period”, so it seems that the problems began fairly soon after its original opening. Possibly it was simply a victim of the financial crisis. What seems to have happened subsequently is that the management board became dysfunctional and over time many of the shareholders died so that it became impossible to hold a general meeting to take decisions on the museum’s future.

The mayor of Platanias, Giannis Malandrakis, has on more than one occasion explained that the problem is one of management. There is no longer a functioning board and the Municipality of Platanias, which would like to restore the building to use, holds only a minority stake in the company, and cannot take the building over on its own.

A statement in April 2021 issued by Mr Malandrakis in reply to Mr Doudounakis’s article, suggested that the Municipality had been taking steps in that direction, although so far, three years later, they do not seem to have resulted in any positive action:

“For historic purposes we would note that the company became inactive before the creation of the ‘Kallikratian’ Municipality of Platanias, and as the municipal authority we have repeatedly invited the Municipality’s opposition to collaborate with viable proposals in a common effort to reconstitute ALMA A.E.,” the mayor said. “We hope that the provisional management may soon complete its work so that the Municipality of Platanias can present to the General Assembly the shares of other bodies which we as municipal authority have managed to get signed over to the Municipality, so that we can acquire a quantity of more than 51 per cent.”

While the Greeks themselves are quick to attribute any delay in official processes to “grafeiokratia“, these examples show that there are often other factors at play. These can include economic factors (bankruptcy of contractors, the financial crisis), political obstacles (opposition parties at both national a local level tend to automatically block initiatives which are not their own), and simply the tendency to let things be. Whereas many nations subscribe to the notion of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, Greeks, perversely, often seem to adhere to the opposite notion: “if it’s broke, why fix it?”