- A luxury hotel project in Sarakiniko, Milos, sparked outrage over environmental damage.
- The Environment Ministry rushed to demand protection zone proposals from municipalities.
- Bureaucratic delays and incomplete plans left Milos unprotected for years.
- A moratorium was imposed on hotel construction while new urban plans begin.
- Doubts linger on whether municipalities can meet tight deadlines.
Bureaucratic Genius at Its Finest
It took a jaw-dropping ecological crime for Greek officials to start panicking. A five-star hotel on Milos Island, built legally and right on a protected landscape in Sarakiniko, caused public uproar. Naturally, the Environment Ministry reacted swiftly – if sending frantic letters counts as swift. On 7 February, planners were told to identify fragile zones for protection in an embarrassingly short window.
Local municipalities were given until 14 February to submit a detailed list of regions needing safeguards and geospatial data. You read that right; they had seven days to figure this out. That’s barely enough time to find the office stationery, let alone save Greece’s natural heritage.
Years of Doing Nothing, Followed by a Frenzy
Let’s backtrack. Sarakiniko wasn’t supposed to be a free-for-all for developers. Milos’s local council had drawn boundaries years ago to protect iconic areas from construction. The Plan for Spatial and Residential Organisation (known as the SCHOAP – yes, it sounds as dull as it is) was drafted in 2007 but gathered dust by 2015. Fast-forward to 2020, when work on the plan resumed under Mayor Manolis Michelis. It never reached the finish line, leaving the stunning Sarakiniko landscape without legal protection.
Predictably, chaos followed. Developers obtained legal permits, allowing construction in spots the community thought untouchable. Outrage spread when bulldozers appeared at Sarakiniko and Kaminia. Suddenly, officials realised they might need to stop other businesses from “officially ruining” the landscape.
A Race Against the Clock
After the public meltdown, the Environment Ministry decided to act. Well, sort of. Construction at Sarakiniko has been temporarily frozen, as has another questionably legal project on Mykonos. Meanwhile, authorities announced that Milos would finally get its long-awaited urban plan, now branded under a fancy “Special Urban Plan” label. Don’t hold your breath, though – these things take forever.
In the meantime, councils were ordered to gather all necessary data magically by Valentine’s Day. Let’s not forget the average pace of bureaucracy on these islands makes a tortoise look like a sprinting cheetah. No one thought to prepare for these scenarios during the decade-long break in planning progress.
What’s Next? Doubts and Endless Delays
Even if officials save face with new zoning laws, the question remains whether this will happen anytime soon. Protecting natural areas isn’t a trendy new obsession in Greece; it’s something that defines the country’s appeal to tourists. Yet somehow, paperwork and procedural inertia make solutions a distant dream.
There’s little faith that municipalities, especially in island regions, will pull together the required geospatial data and protection proposals in time. If history is any guide, we may see plenty of finger-pointing but minimal results.
One thing’s crystal clear, though – this case reflects the broader issue of reactive governance prioritising short-term profits over long-term preservation. When did common sense ever get in the way of bureaucracy?
For a reportage in Greek, visit KEDE.