The Sunday paper of the newspaper ‘Kathimerini’ published an “interview” of Mr. Angelos Michalopoulos entitled “The Ios project and the Beauforts – It was a beautiful, but empty island“. In the interview, Mr. Michalopoulos indulges in the description of a series of known business actions in Ios and refers – vaguely – to fines and sanctions connected to them. We have repeatedly expressed our views on the actions of the investment companies to which – in one way or another – the gentleman in question is connected to, and which have resulted in not only the fines mentioned in the article but many more.
A pressing question that arises from the interview concerns the role of Mr. Michalopoulos in all the described investment activities and his relationship with the companies involved, which receive fines and sanctions for their actions for years in Ios. In what capacity does he refer to;
- (i) his personal relationship with the projects
- (ii) the capacity of the investment companies
- (iii) the role of the legal representative
Save Ios has looked into this:
Mr. Michalopoulos was the Chairman or Vice-Chairman of the said investment companies from 2009 to the middle of 2015. From the summer of 2015 onwards, he left the Board of Directors of almost all the companies and is the manager of their finances along with his wife, Vasiliki Petridou – a type of company ‘treasurer’. Nevertheless, he talks about the work of these companies, their “vision”, the sanctions and fines that have been imposed on them, or their destructive work on the environment and the cultural dimension of the island of Ios, where this has been recognised, ascertained or indicated from many bodies and authorities. The Boards of Directors of these companies should have members competent to express themselves on the above. Otherwise, why are they elected?
Despite this, even if we consider that Mr. Michalopoulos closely follows the events regarding the companies in question and expresses an opinion – as in Sunday’s Kathimerini article – we are left with more questions than answers. Two pertinent questions are;
1. How is it possible for Mr. Michalopoulos to emphatically approve the decision 1037/2022 of the Council of State, which cancels the investment plan of “105 AE” in Koumbara-Diakofto, when the same company – of which he was and is the financial administrator – ignored the previous interim order, issued by the same court in March 2016 and prohibiting all work in the area, and continued its destructive work on land, streams and beaches until the final decision after 6 years?
2. How can there be complaints, administrative autopsies, administrative fines and sanctions, decisions of the Council of State or even a decision to impose a suspended prison sentence, for a series of cases of serious environmental degradation, at the expense of the companies in question and their legal representatives, and yet Mr. Michalopoulos asserts emphatically his commitment to the protection of the environment of Ios?
Let us finally note that the aerial photograph shown in the Kathimerini article concerns one of the most abused areas of Ios from the point of view of environmental destruction – landscape, natural relief, natural water resources, endemic flora and certainly fauna – particularly serious given that Ios is declared by Law as a “Landscape of Special Natural Beauty” :
(i) The aerial photograph of the area “Avlaki Papa” clearly shows the construction of many kilometres of roads which, although inside the properties of the investor “LUCAS AE – LUCAS ANONYMOUS TECHNICAL AND INVESTMENT COMPANY OF TOURIST PROPERTIES” – of which Mr. Michalopoulos is the financial manager – were built without permits.
(ii) A photographic comparison of the area before and after the “investment” interventions of ” LUCAS AE » clearly demonstrates the irreversible environmental destruction to which the area has been violently subjected: The breathtaking Cycladic landscape, and its peculiar endemic fauna, where the protected wetland and the related stream were located, has been turned into an unsavoury pile of hotel premises of zero architectural value, swimming pools and roads of the company’s ‘CALILO’ hotel !
This appears to be the real “Ios Project” referred to in the Kathimerini article – as well as how Mr. Michalopoulos sees the “filling” of the so-called “empty” island.
