With the departure of Kostis Hatsidakis from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from there, the hopes of those who heard the Prime Minister’s positions regarding the environment and the comparative advantages of our country are gradually disappearing. Muffled bewilderment turned into surprise and a whisper. The murmur now turns into a fury with a continuous, defiant and until recently unthinkable encroachment on any concept of protection in the face of pressure from greater (initially) and lesser (ultimately) interests. In recent days, at the end of the parliamentary life of the government, the campaign slogan of Andreas Papandreou comes to mind: Tsowola, give everything!

History teaches us that the easy electoral decision to provide “favors” to anyone with a claim never has a happy ending. Tzovol’s policies created a financial crisis that Mitsotakis Sr. had to resolve. Karamanlis Jr., Pavlopoulos and Alogoskufis led to the crisis of 2011-2016, the consequences of which we are still feeling. The paradox is that a fiscal failure is reversible, albeit at a cost, while an environmental failure is irreversible. Policies that destroy what makes our country unique deprive our children of the opportunity to learn, experience and even live off of it. Ask Spaniards about the concrete of the Costa Brava…

Greece is changing. Recent reports about Mykonos are frightening, and the urban and environmental blemishes and monsters going on there have yet to be resolved, except in words. Many islands are in a race to the bottom, and even the most pristine are suffering. In Kea, which I mentioned in a previous article, on the protected beach of Spatio, a businessman threw an arbitrary terrace onto the beach, making beach bars, and carved out protected nature from the outside, claiming that he was “cleaning up the territory.” Why not? He will make money.

Of even greater concern is environmental policy, where Mr. Skrekas has managed to outdo Tsovol in services despite expert consensus. Even after the openly extreme positions of the prime minister were confused, the recent decree of the Foreign Ministry allows the clearing of forest land, the occupation of the coast and leaves open the deployment of renewable energy facilities. And before the speaker spoke, Mr. Skrekas was promoting an earlier hacked program that would take over half of the (fraudulent) Skyros with wind turbines, offering “compensation benefits” for the vultures… elsewhere! Another regulation gives the Ministry of Tourism the opportunity to urbanize large tourist sites with special factors and the opportunity to legally arrive on the wave.

Potentially catastrophic risk lurks elsewhere today. The Ministry of the Interior announced that it was preparing a transitional provision on the “problem created” by the Council of Europe, in which it recalled that land “should have a face in a common area (street) that exists legally and did not arise from private will.” This was also the spirit of the Hatsidakis law, which was retracted (unfortunately) under pressure from TEE and others. The Ministry of the Interior seems to be trying to blow up the area where you can build on an oblique path. Most likely, the Supreme Court, if such a law is passed, will declare it unconstitutional. The question is what to do with the already issued permissions. Why should the government legislate against growing legal uncertainty? Who will it serve? Finally, the Foreign Office could find express procedures for recognizing all kinds of roads to help strengthen the country. Question: for what purpose? And what kind of country do we want to create?

Citizens, and especially the voters of the “gray zone” who will judge the upcoming elections, see and understand this. The decision to vote to serve the landowners puts pressure on the country and all those who sign up before the end of their political lives. Because the ecological and urban planning “Tsovola, give it all” has no way back. It touches the soul of the country and the lives of our children.

Mr. Michael J. Jacobides (www.jacobides.com) is the Sir Donald Gordon Chair of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School, where he is Professor of Strategy. He is a strategy consultant for the Hellenic Society for the Environment and Culture.