The municipality claims that where the Roma go is not their business but the peripheral authority's - which is true but irrelevant: if there are no housing arrangements in place for the Roma to move to (arrangements that they consent to moreover) than the whole action was illegal. Also illegal were mr. Vovos bribes and the fact that the police although they were called to stop the incursion, did nothing, claiming that they were searching for the persons sued (as if they don't know where the town hall or mr. Vovos company headquarters are).
Mr. Vovos' crews were led, escorted and aided by the municipal police making the municipal government the principal perpetrator of this crime. The opposition groups in the city council condemned the actions, but they're a minority (and an even smaller minority is the left's council members who are the only ones willing to raise a stink about this - in fact the only ones to fight against the mayor's plans for the whole area)... Frankly the money involved is such that I'm wagering that nothing will be done. To give you an example, a huge Mall in Athens' Northern suburbs, built and run by one of the companies owned by Spiros Latsis (who is the richest man in the country and no. 51 in the world), was built and is now working without any problems, despite the fact that it was built illegally, against all building regulations and despite a number of judicial orders for its construction to be stopped - orders which the police somehow always was too late to do anything about. Vovos isn't quite in the same league as Latsis, but he's apparently spreading money around - and will have no problem further bribing all involved not to get in the way.
The area of Votanikos, is part of the "Olive grove" (Elaionas), an area which indeed was the source for olive oil in ancient Athens and is now a huge dump, consisting of warehouses, small factories and machine shops, with minimal planning and little infrastructure. City planners have, for the past few decades, insisted that this area (9 sq. km in total), was Athens' last chance for a, desperately needed, large metropolitan park. The plans were laid. Panathinaikos' new ground supposedly tied in nicely with the scheme, but after the stadium was approved, Vovos and others started buying land in the area like crazy, driving prices up and making quite clear that the plans to create a park area > 4 sq.km are unlikely to materialize.
To return to the plight of the Roma. The only way that the Greek authorities will actually live up to their duty of providing housing for them (the international duties to do so have been circumvented by forming a committee on the issue which has done nothing at all, ever), is if the possibility of holding up construction plans due to EU pressure, forces the Periphery, Vovos or someone to move quickly to do so. So I guess the EU parliament, is a good place to start. The local authorities will just find imaginative excuses or ignore the complaints. A better solution is for Athenians to elect a decent mayor for a change (the Right has a stranglehold on the Mayorship for the past quarter century) but that's in four years - but I don't think I'll live to see that day...
I might also add here that it was reported in the press that the Roma school DD mentioned in a previous post - to add injury to insult - was recently firebombed by "persons unknown"... The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake
