Greek PM offers to trade treasures for Elgin Marbles
THE Greek prime minister will offer to loan some of his country’s treasures to the British Museum in the hope that it will persuade Boris Johnson to return the “stolen” Elgin Marbles.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis told The Daily Telegraph that refusing to give back the sculptures, which were taken from the Parthenon in Athens more than 200 years ago, was an “anachronistic” approach at a time when cultural treasures are increasingly being sent back to their countries of origin.
Ahead of a meeting with Mr Johnson next week, he suggested that “it would be a fantastic statement by what Boris calls Global Britain if they were to move on this and look at it through a completely different lens”.
The removal of the marbles, which amount to about half of the surviving friezes from the 2,400-year-old temple, has tarnished Britain’s relationship with Greece since Lord Elgin, the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, shipped them to London at the start of the 19th century.
Successive British governments have argued that the marbles were acquired legally, claiming Lord Elgin was given permission by the Ottomans to remove them, and that because they are in the hands of the trustees of the British Museum, it is not a governmental issue.
Mr Mitsotakis said neither statement is true. He said “the marbles were stolen” and cited a report by Unesco on returning cultural objects to countries of origin which, he said, “makes it very, very clear that this is an intergovernmental issue, this is not just an issue which is related to the British Museum”.
He will raise the prospect of worldclass objects that have never left Greece being loaned to the British Museum.
The museum said it had always been willing to consider loaning the marbles to Greece but that successive Greek governments have refused to acknowledge the trustees’ legal ownership of them, which “made any meaningful discussion on the issue virtually impossible”.
SITTING on a sun-drenched terrace overlooking the tempting, turquoise waters of the Aegean Sea, Greece’s Prime Minister could not have a more persuasive backdrop for his “wish you were here” message to the British people.
Brexit may have ended freedom of movement but Kyriakos Mitsotakis is determined to throw open his country’s doors to tourists, investors and workers from the UK as part of a reboot of his country that he has termed Greece 2.0.
“Look at this island,” he smiles, as he takes a break during an official visit to Chalki, off the coast of Rhodes. “I say this is paradise. You could spend your winters here and then spend your summers in Scotland, or in the British countryside.”
On a November day when the frost is starting to bite in the UK, the idea of teleworking from a Greek island in 75F (24C) heat, broken up with refreshing dips in the bay, certainly has its appeal.
It is also a window into Britain’s post-brexit relationship with individual EU member states, who are desperate to steal a march on each other when it comes to attracting British investment.
It will be one of the topics on the agenda when Mr Mitsotakis, 53, meets Boris Johnson in London next week for talks that could define Anglo-greek relations for a generation to come.
Mr Mitsotakis hopes his visit will encourage even greater numbers of Britons to take holidays in his country (the UK already accounts for around 15 per cent of all tourism to Greece), as well as greater investment in growth areas such as green technology. And while Britons no longer have an automatic right to live and work in Greece, he has introduced “digital nomad” visas for anyone who wants to work in Greece for an extended period, perhaps overwintering with a laptop, a Zoom login and a pair of sunglasses.
Mr Mitsotakis brings to mind a Mediterranean version of Canada’s Justin Trudeau; the son of a former prime minister, Konstantinos Mitsotakis (and a distant relative of the 19th-century prime ministers Eleftherios and Sofoklis Venizelos), he has an easy charm – dressed in jeans, suede loafers and a monogrammed shirt – as he shakes hands with locals on a tour of the island’s only village.
Sipping an espresso as he explains his philosophy, he is acutely aware of the need to dispel Greece’s image as a financial basket case hamstrung by tax-dodging, unemployment and the ghost of Grexit – the country’s flirtation with leaving the single currency before it accepted an EU economic bailout.
“Greece is a very different country compared to Greece in 2011, when the financial crisis happened,” he stresses. “I’m sure you’ve picked it up – there is a new energy, a new enthusiasm, a new optimism about the country, the economy is growing rapidly.
“For me, what is very important is to change the image of Greece as a country that is no longer in perennial fiscal trouble. This should not just be a holiday destination, Greece should be an investment destination.”
Mr Mitsotakis should, in theory, bond with Mr Johnson like a long-lost cousin. Both share a passion for Greece and its history, both are lifelong Atlanticists (Mr Johnson was born in the United States and Mr Mitsotakis studied there before working in London in the Nineties), both are conservatives and they came to power within days of each other in 2019. Both also own rescue dogs (a mongrel called Peanut in Mr Mitsotakis’s case). Yet he remains guarded about his relationship with Mr Johnson, who he first met in 2014, saying only: “He is a very smart man and I get along with him personally very well.”
The reason for his reticence quickly becomes clear. No Greek prime minister can fall into a brotherly embrace with his British counterpart while the 200-year-old dispute over the Elgin Marbles remains unresolved. And Mr Mitsotakis is determined that he will be the one to solve it.
“Our position is very clear,” he says. “The marbles were stolen in the 19th century, they belong in the Acropolis Museum and we need to discuss this issue in earnest.”
The Parthenon Sculptures, taken from the 2,500-year-old temple by Lord Elgin, the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire between 1801 and 1812, are under the trusteeship of the British Museum, which insists they were legally obtained. Successive prime ministers have insisted their future is not a matter for ministers, but for the museum itself.
Both arguments are bogus, Mr Mitsotakis insists, citing a Unesco report last month that he interpreted as a ruling that the issue is an intergovernmental one, and therefore comes under Mr Johnson’s remit.
Mr Mitsotakis is, of course, following a line that has been taken by his predecessors but what is new is that he is prepared to propose novel solutions to break the ageold deadlock.
“I am sure that if there was a willingness on the part of the Government to move we could find an arrangement with the British Museum in terms of us sending abroad cultural treasures on loan, which have never left the country,” he says.
He is also coy when asked whether a permanent loan arrangement would be acceptable to Greece, saying: “I wouldn’t like to go into the details of an arrangement because these discussions are delicate, but I would like to say on record that I intend to raise the issue with Boris and that I think the British Government has a role to play.
“Refusing to discuss the topic seems to me, given the context of everything that has been happening in terms of the return of cultural treasures, to be rather an anachronistic approach.”
Anyone who has visited the state-ofthe-art Acropolis Museum, opened in 2009, is unlikely to disagree that the Parthenon sculptures would be at least as safe in Athens as they are in London (a leaky roof recently forced the closure of the British Museum gallery in which they are currently housed), and opinion polls have suggested there is public support for giving them back.
Some opponents of the marbles’ return fear that the British Museum – which has around six million visitors per year – would gradually be emptied because it would then face similar demands from other countries which have claims on prime exhibits including the Rosetta Stone, the Easter Island statue and ancient Egyptian artefacts.
However, the British Museum has shown recently that it is open to returning objects to their countries of origin, with a commitment to send the
Postcards to Boris Johnson
For me, what is important is to change the image of Greece as a country that is no longer in perennial fiscal trouble
Our position is clear. The marbles were stolen in the 19th century. They belong in the Acropolis Museum and we need to discuss this
You could spend your winters here and then spend your summers in Scotland or in the British countryside
Benin Bronzes to Nigeria once a suitable museum has been built.
“You have to be able to appreciate the beauty of the monument in its entirety,” Mr Mitsotakis insists. “We are not just talking about any artefact, we are talking about an artefact that essentially was broken into two, half of it is in Athens and half of it is in the British Museum, so we’re talking about restoring the unity of the monument.
“It would be a fantastic statement by what Boris calls Global Britain if they were to move on this and look at it through a completely different lens”.
Marbles aside, Mr Mitsotakis is eager to point out that Greece and Britain have bonds that will never be broken: he references the country’s current bicentennial celebrations of its independence, won with the help of Britain’s Armed Forces, and of two world wars in which both countries “were on the right side of history”.
He beams with pride as he references his father’s wartime exploits with the resistance in Crete during the Nazi occupation, and of Mitsotakis Snr’s friendship with the legendary Special Operations Executive officer Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, who helped organise the resistance while disguised as a shepherd in a mountain hideaway (“he knew him very well!”).
His familial experiences of war have informed his own strong line on defence, an issue that is never far from the top of the agenda in a country that still has national service and lives under constant tension with its much larger neighbour, Turkey.
He would “very much” like to see an EU Army, “even if that means a coalition of the willing”, and has just signed a bilateral defence pact with France, which has further increased tension with Turkey, as all three countries are members of Nato.
He insists the mutual assistance pact with France “is making Europe safer” by enhancing the defence capabilities of both countries and “adding assets to Nato”, although he does not offer to explain whether those weapons would ever be used against a fellow Nato member.
Another issue on which he takes a strong line is Northern Ireland. He is in lockstep with Brussels over the need to protect the Protocol which Mr Johnson is threatening to rip up, saying: “The European Union is going to be fully united when it comes to addressing this issue and if things got very tense I think this would clearly impact the relationship between the UK and all [EU] member states.”
Our interview takes place before Cop26 is over. Mr Mitsotakis – whose country was ravaged by forest fires this summer which were blamed on climate change – cannot assess the Glasgow summit’s overall success but he wants Greece, with its abundance of sun, wind and waves, to be a global leader on the path to net zero, with the help of British know-how when it comes to wind farms and teleworking.
Chalki is the first of a series of “Gr-eco islands” that he hopes will attract environmentally conscious tourists: it has a solar farm that provides clean, cheap electricity to the whole island; electric vehicles and even a solar-powered boat to ferry visitors the short distance from Rhodes. The British firm, Vodafone, has installed a 5G network to make it easier to do business remotely, using video calls, remote medical diagnosis and remote teaching to minimise the number of trips across the sea.
“We do hope that the Chalki model can be picked up by other islands,” he says. After all, he points out: “Eventually this will have to be scaled up to the whole world.”