Letter to Mrs T. BIRBILI

Letter to Mrs T. BIRBILI, Minister of the Environment, as an answer to her March 16th  2010  declaration to SEBIAN Dear Mrs Minister, Your arrival at the Ministry of the Environment made us believe that a gust of fresh air was to blow over the stinking mountains that wastes are in Greece, this beautiful  country blessed by the Gods and where tourism and culture are its heavy industry.  ( How is it that archeological sites are to be covered with garbage…See Grammatiko, Keratea, Andros…) Unfortunately, we can’t but notice that in this very difficult economic juncture when the citizen is imposed on enormous sacrifices, you decided concerning the treatment of wastes in favor of a solution that is not only the last one on the EEC list, but also the 5 times more expansive one than Professor Economopoulos’s! During the conference organized by the Economist, I handled your secretary a complete file that was for you, (file that has remained a dead letter). It concerned the disastrous choice of Grammatiko as a receptacle of all the Attica’s cities wastes and whose mayors have proved themselves incompetent in managing, organizing, sorting out house wastes from hospital and industrial ones. ·         You debate with industrials but you ignore that the center of all actions is the human being, in other words us, the citizens who have to cope with the government’s wretched choices consequences.  Besides you dare speak in our stead, without even consulting us, about our social and environmental needs, you who are “a fan of downtown life”! ·         There is NO NIMBY syndrome for us. Do not reproach us what you do and think. And in order to prove that you do not succumb yourself to that syndrome, please, do your best to build factories downtown Athens, intra muros, to treat Athens wastes as it is done in Paris, Wien, Brussels… Don’t you trust those factories  quality? Or are you scared of the Athenians’ violent reactions? How dare you reproach us of not having scientifical arguments ? ·         The choice of Grammatiko was imposed on following a photographic survey that could be an anecdote if it weren’t that dramatic!  Mr. Ioannis Frantzis, one of your advisors who signed that survey  - he is therefore judge in his own case ( a glaring case of incompatibility) -  is seriously wrong when he mentions ,among others, the hydrogeological and seismical surveys… Surveys that are diametrically opposed to those made by national and international well-known scientists. ·         Are you sure enough of yourself  to come and discuss that matter with us, cards on the table? Obviously there is between you and us a complete lack of social dialogue that puts democracy in great danger. ·         The fact that Mr.Pikraminos rejected our complaint, without taking into consideration the root of the problem but only the procedure, which is in complete contradiction with the EEC directives, does not mean that you have a blank cheque to do whatever you want. The Environment of which you are the protector and the guardian, is continuously being raped in a repetitive unspeakable awful way. A political will that insists in error is more than offence; it is a deliberate will to poison the whole population of Attica and therefore half the population of Greece. One can kill with the guillotine or with gas-chambers, but the pollution has something more: it is irreversible as far as the Environment is concerned although death is not as quick. Do not bail out a planning that serves “friends’” interests who help financing electoral campaigns but does not help public interests. Errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum. Sincerely Yours Georges Thanasoulas MA Wake Forest University Professeur to the Université Catholique de l’Ouest  (retired) France