Afghan refugees are on a bus as they are transferred from Victoria Square to Galatis stadium Reuters
They have been squatting in Victoria Square, in the heart of
Athens, for months: a fraction of the tens of thousands of refugees
flooding into Greece from Turkey, hoping to move on to Austria and
Germany but blocked here.
But now the Greek government’s immigration minister has hit on a
solution that, with hindsight, looks obvious. He has opened up one of
the many stadiums on which Greece lavished vast sums for the 2004
Olympics and which – with the exception of the striking football
stadium, refashioned for the Games by Sergio Calatrava – have been
quietly rusting away unused ever since.
They have been glaring symbols of the reckless extravagance of those
pre-bust years, but also of the inertia and rigidity of successive
governments in failing to put them to any profitable purpose.
In recent days, some 400 to 500 refugees were ferried by bus to the
Galatis indoor Olympic hall in the city, used for table tennis and
gymnastics in 2004, while hundreds more were transferred to the former
Olympic hockey stadium.
Yiannis Mouzalas, junior interior minister in charge of immigration
in the new Syriza-led coalition government, told reporters in Victoria
Square, “I ask residents to be patient… Victoria Square will be cleared.
We are trying to reduce the pressure on the population so that it will
maintain the stance of solidarity it has shown until now. We do not want
them to become susceptible to far-right, racist and xenophobic views…”
An Afghan refugee holds some blankets as refugees wait to be transferred from Victoria Square to one the stadiums in Athens
Residents on the island of Lesbos told me during a recent visit that
the first Syriza government, which took power in January, had done
nothing about the refugees flooding through. But when Alexis Tsipras’s
government resigned in August, the immigration minister of the caretaker
administration that replaced it – the same Mr Mouzalas – had visited
the island and taken some crucial steps. They were relieved to learn
that Mr Tsipras has decided to keep this effective minister in place
after returning to power last month. This week Mr Mouzalas again showed
his worth.
Given the scale of the influx, other venues may also be opened up and
dusted down for the new arrivals. One contender is the Olympic village,
12 miles north-west of the city, a large grid of neat cement homes,
designed to house 10,000. It’s another symbol of how thoroughly Greece’s
brave new aspirations curdled after the crash. Once the games were
over, thousands of Greeks entered a lottery to win the right to buy a
home in the village at a bargain price. Some of those who won the
lottery are still there. But the utopian hopes for the place quickly
crumbled as businesses left due to lack of demand, and planned schools
and nurseries were never completed.
At the village’s only café, a rudimentary place, old geezers kill
time gossiping. My arrival enlivened their morning a little. They
explained how they were expected to pay back their mortgages in the
normal way, but after the crash, a few of them stopped paying, and when
the banks took no action the rest also stopped. Now they are squatting
in their own homes. Most of them had planned to vote for Syriza, in the
belief that, even though Mr Tsipras had signed up to the harsh bailout
terms imposed by Brussels, he didn’t mean to follow through.
That may or may not turn out to be the case. But in the meantime, if
Mr Mouzalas casts his eye in their direction, they may find their
village enlivened in ways they did not expect.
Residents on the island of Lesbos told me during a recent visit that
the first Syriza government, which took power in January, had done
nothing about the refugees flooding through. But when Alexis Tsipras’s
government resigned in August, the immigration minister of the caretaker
administration that replaced it – the same Mr Mouzalas – had visited
the island and taken some crucial steps. They were relieved to learn
that Mr Tsipras has decided to keep this effective minister in place
after returning to power last month. This week Mr Mouzalas again showed
his worth.
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