Fines no obstacle to Mykonos violations

The strike by state-employed archaeologists on Tuesday in response to an assault on an archaeologist by unknown assailants in Kifissia, northern Athens highlighted the pressure to expand tourism development, illegally if need be. 

Tellingly, those who do indulge in town planning violations on the island appear unfazed by, and indifferent to, fines imposed by inspection authorities. And this is because, even if fines are imposed and collected they represent a very small percentage of the profitability of the illegal constructions.

“When you have a turnover of millions of euros a month, why should you worry about a fine of half a million or a million?” an engineer who operates on Mykonos said in comments to Kathimerini.

Contrary to what one would imagine, planning controls are indeed conducted on Mykonos and frequently. From the beginning of 2018 to the autumn of 2022, the Syros urban planning department, to which Mykonos belongs, received 2,807 complaints, of which 948 were about Mykonos. Of these, 727 were checked and in 410 cases planning violations were found and fines were imposed. In the remaining 317, no planning infringements were found.

However, the fines do not appear to do much to curtail infringements.

Moreover, for the last two years demolitions on shores have been frozen, so that the offenders are safe under the protection of the state. Also the efforts of the Environment Ministry over the last two decades to tackle arbitrariness with promises of extensive urban planning controls using new technologies on the Cycladic island have been to no avail.

In an interview with Kathimerini, Manolis Psarros, the archaeologist who was attacked last week, who works on Mykonos, provided revealing insights. 

“Arbitrary acts are in proportion to the tolerance of the state,” he said, noting that “many of the urban arbitrary acts of recent years have been illegally… legalized, as the declarations in the three successive laws to ‘settle’ arbitrary buildings are not controlled by anyone.”

Sadly, those who cause problems may have the same fate as Psarros, who ended up in hospital after being knocked unconscious.

“Mykonos accounts for 70% of our work and 200% of the problems,” said one planning official on condition of anonymity.