Eldorado mine arbitration to start in September

Greece plans to start an arbitration process this month to settle its differences with Canada’s Eldorado Gold Corp over its gold mine development plans in northern Greece, its energy minister said on Thursday.

Greece had previously planned to start the process last month. “We have decided to resort to arbitration to stop the tug of war which has been going on for many years and have things cleared up,” Energy Minister Giorgos Stathakis told Greek state television.

Stathakis said the arbitration process will begin on September 15 and will last three months. Eldorado is developing the Skouries and Olympias projects in northern Greece, where it also operates the Stratoni mine. Skouries has been a particular flash point with the authorities, with differences lasting for years over testing methods applied to comply with environmental regulations. [Reuters]