State must start taking ownership of SNFCC

Governments “need to help” the state take responsibility for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), which is still being propped up by emergency funding from the foundation even though the multi-million-euro facility was donated to the Greek state in 2017, SNF President Andreas Dracopoulos said in Athens on Friday.

“The center is our biggest project, and my vision is that it should go well. However, governments need to help,” he said. “It would be good if the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera could pay their own rent to the Culture Ministry,” Dracopoulos said, referring to the facilities built by the foundation for the two state-owned institutions at the SNFCC.

However, the foundation will “continue its programs for Greece as long as it has the money and stamina,” Dracopoulos added at an event for the closing of the annual SNF Nostos Conference, noting that two-thirds of the SNF’s very sizable donations in the past 25 years have gone to Greece.